When my colleagues found an investigation leading down a dead end, they turned to the full resources of the Metropolitan Police – Police National Computer, CCTV, recognition systems for everything from faces to fingerprints to number plates. But not me. When I was at a loss for my next move, I went up to Room 101 of New Scotland Yard and had a cup of tea with John Caine in the Black Museum.

I watched him carefully straighten a framed photograph of the teenage Krays posing in their boxing kit.

‘You never crossed paths with Steve Warboys?’ I asked.

John shook his head.

‘I heard a few rumours when I was still in uniform,’ he said. ‘You always keep your ears open for up-and-coming villains. Especially when they have a name you know. I heard he was some kind of fire starter.’

‘His first club burned down,’ I said. ‘The law liked him for it but he walked.’

‘Studs,’ he said. ‘I had a lager there once. Rough old gaff. No, I understood it was more than just his own bar that burned down. I heard it’s how he started out – torching places for the insurance money. It’s what he was and what he still is, as far as I can make out – a small-time hood trading on his granddaddy’s name.’

I looked at a portrait of Paul Warboys fifty years ago. He grinned back at me.

‘Why is Steve Warboys of interest?’ John said.

‘Chinatown,’ I said. ‘We had a lead that he was employing illegals in the place he has now, the Champagne Room. We thought they might be coming in by the same route as those twelve dead women.’

‘But these days they all fly into Luton airport.’

‘Looks like it. You had any dealings with people smugglers, John?’

‘After my time. But it’s going to be bigger than drugs. I know the smugglers all think of themselves as travel agents and that the service offered varies wildly. Some of them get you where you paid to go, some of them go out of business and leave you stranded. Just like travel agents. The experts will tell you that people get trafficked for all different reasons. Sexual exploitation. Forced marriage. Forced labour. Organ harvesting. And sometimes they just want a better life. It’s always difficult to fight human nature. What’s your instinct tell you about Steve Warboys?’

I looked at the hard, shrewd faces of all those pairs of brothers from long ago.

‘I don’t think he’s smart enough for people smuggling,’ I said.

John shrugged.