‘That we liked each other. That we tolerated each other. That we had any desire at all to spend even one moment in each other’s company.’ He shook his head with a bitterness that he would carry to the grave. ‘You see, my father did not treat my mother well. And that’s the real reason why there’s no way back for us.’

‘You mean he had an affair?’

Barry Warboys laughed.

‘He had lots of affairs?’ I said.

‘Worse than that,’ he said. ‘The ultimate betrayal is not having sex with someone else, Detective.’ He waited for me to fill in the blank.

I shook my head.

‘It’s having a child with someone else,’ he said. ‘I was still a boy. It must have been before my father got sent away. Because I can remember my parents screaming at each other when the woman turned up on our doorstep with her baby.’

‘Who was the woman?’

‘The woman doesn’t matter a damn.’

We stood in silence.

‘I saw a picture of you with your father,’ I said. ‘You were very small – three or four. In some boxing gym.’

I saw him flinch at the memory.

‘I remember the day,’ he said. ‘The boxing gym – I suppose it must have been in Hammersmith. I remember the smell of the men. The flunkies my father called friends. They reeked of cigarettes and aftershave, alcohol and sweat. And I remember how heavy those gloves felt on my hands and my father telling me to hit him.’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen a child look more afraid.’

‘My father wanted me to box,’ Barry Warboys said. ‘He wanted to teach me to box. I preferred books. I preferred sitting quietly in my grandparents’ home. It was a bone of contention between us. One of many. My business was another one. Cleaning bedpans in death’s waiting room, my father once said. I was a bit of a disappointment to dear old dad, as you can tell. I always have been. But it probably started in that boxing gym. And it happens, doesn’t it? There’s nothing remarkable about our estrangement. Do you talk to your father, Detective?’

‘My dad died a long time ago,’ I said. ‘How long did your father try to make you box?’

Barry Warboys thought about it.

‘It felt like a lifetime,’ he said.

18

The old gangster moved slowly now.

But a lifetime on from when Paul Warboys and his brother Danny were as notorious as the Krays and the Richardsons, the old man did not look diminished. In his late seventies now, he was conserving his energy for whatever he might have to fight in what remained of his days.

‘So what’s this then, Max? A spot of TIE, is it?’

Trace, Interview and Eliminate. He knew all of our acronyms.

‘Just a chat, Paul,’ I said.