Tom found his time with the brothers seriously hard work. Their enforced collegiality was wearing in the extreme; they both felt it necessary to put on a display of machismo all the time, unless they were in the presence of their mother. As a self-reliant person who used words carefully, the company of two such overly-macho, aggressive buffoons was torturous for Tom, but he was professional enough to play along, remaining sufficiently deferential to not be perceived as a threat.

He had dropped hints that he hoped would lead the brothers to believe he was approachable to any criminal enterprise but, so far, he’d had no bites.

He held regular briefings with Liam, reporting that he’d been accepted and seemed to be trusted to a degree. This he put down to the regular BJJ bouts where he kept taking Luka to the edge without ever quite beating him. Tom sometimes found this frustrating, knowing he could submit Luka in a heartbeat, but it kept the big Serb’s confidence high; and in any case, being under-estimated could be a distinct advantage. Luka had such an enormous ego, it wasn’t difficult to keep it massaged.

As Tom finished his post-workout coffee, his phone rang: Luka, summoning him to a meeting. Half-an-hour later he was sat in a café in Hackney, nursing a coffee with Luka and Aleks Branko.

‘We need to speak, my friend,’ said Aleks. ‘We have a business opportunity for you.’

‘Are you up for a bit of work if we need some help, Tomo?’ asked Luka. ‘We sometimes need a bit of help with our business interests, and Ivan says you can be relied on.’

‘I’m listening,’ replied Tom

‘Has Ivan told you anything about what we do?’

‘A bit. Not much,’ Tom replied. This is perfect, he thought. The Brankos making the approach in this way couldn’t be better.

The big Serb scowled. ‘Ivan talks too much but we go back a long way. He always had a big mouth.’ He shook his head and continued, a slight smile touching his blue eyes. ‘We help people who want to stay in the UK I think we’re like a dating agency!’ He laughed uproariously at his own joke.

‘Seriously,’ he continued, ‘we’re making plenty of money. We have Bosnian girls at home who can use EU Slovenian passports. It’s simple: we have someone who can do good photo-swaps in the passports. We then use them for paper marriages to men wanting visas. It gets them their visas and they pay us plenty for it. Some of our girls do escorting as well for extra cash. Most of them are working girls from back home who can make more over here.’

‘What would you want from me then?’ Tom said.