‘You know what I’ve noticed about old faces and their money, Paul?’

‘What’s that, son?’

Whenever he called me son, I knew he was resisting the impulse to break my nose.

‘The money runs out,’ I said.

‘You think I need one last score?’

‘I think it’s a possibility,’ I said. ‘You and your brother Danny made your money a long time ago, Paul. You’re a dial-up gangster in a digital world. No offence meant.’

‘None taken, son.’

‘But you and your brother were not Bill Gates. You made a nice pile and even got to keep some of it after you’d done your time. But it was all a long time ago. And – while I don’t doubt you made some sound investments in London property – I don’t think all those Sixties strip joints and knocking shops earned quite enough to keep you for a lifetime. If you were rolling in it, you wouldn’t be in a one-bedroom flat on the wrong side of the river.’

He leaned forward and placed his huge right hand on my arm. White scarring covered the knuckles of that suntanned paw, the souvenir of flesh that had been torn open time and time again.

He patted my arm with what felt almost like sympathy.

‘If I wanted one last score, I wouldn’t put a dozen tarts in the back of a lorry,’ he said.

He looked at my face and laughed.

Because he knew I believed him.

‘It’s Chinatown,’ he said, his tone almost paternal. ‘You should be looking at the Chinks.’

19

In the freezing winter sunlight of Sunday afternoon, we gathered in Pat Whitestone’s small back garden.

There were around a dozen of us in the garden, a mixed crowd of Whitestone’s work colleagues, who spent all hours together but rarely socialised, and a scattering of her friends from the neighbourhood.

I had half-expected Edie Wren to turn up with Mr Big, but it wasn’t her married man who walked into the little garden holding Edie’s hand. It was Lil, Edie’s grandmother, a woman who had exactly the same taste in hats and handbags as the Queen.

Lil was one of those tiny old Londoners who had survived economic depression, the Blitz and years of austerity. What you noticed first about her was the unforced affection she seemed to feel for the entire world.

‘Hello, darling,’ Lil said to me, although she had never met me in her life. ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ she said to Scout. ‘Who’s this handsome lad then?’ she said, peering down at Stan as she rummaged in her handbag. She removed a pack of Werther’s Originals and offered them around, urging them on the assembled guests, as though they were capable of healing all wounds.

Edie grinned at me. ‘My nan,’ she said.