Jeta continued, ‘Aleks and Luka get very angry with me when I don’t be prostitute, tell me I can’t have my passport until I do. I just want to go home now. Luka keeps trying to get me into bed as well, but I don’t like him.’ Her voice cracked, and tears brimmed in her dark eyes.

Tom forced himself to keep his voice level. ‘Look, just get this business out of the way, then you can go home. You know what we’re doing today?’

The girl blinked the tears away and regained her composure. ‘Mira says I must do a paper marriage with a Pakistani boy, so he can get a green card for the UK. She says it won’t be a real marriage and, when I go home, it won’t count. I think I’m meeting my husband today. They say I’m a big prize for a Pakistani as I have a real EU passport because my mama is Slovenian.’ She forced a smile at the ridiculousness of the statement.

That was the story often told to the victims in those cases. Unfortunately, it wasn’t true: the marriages were binding and in most cases the girls would need divorces or annulments. Tom also made a mental note that the girl was using her own passport, not a forgery as the others had.

‘Let’s just get today out of the way, then we’ll see about getting your passport back from Mira. Just sign what the lawyer wants you to sign. Let me do the translating so you don’t get ripped off.’

Tom tried to reassure her, but he was also aware that he was supposed to be playing a bad guy and the overriding objective was to get Adebayo on film.

They drove the rest of the journey with little small talk, arriving in Ilford just before 7pm. Tom parked in a street just over the road from the offices and they both got out of the car.

The lawyer’s premises were above a parade of shops typical of areas like Ilford: mostly Asian food stores, African haircare shops, and mobile phone outlets. The windows above the parade of shops were stencilled with lettering proclaiming ‘Adebayo Associates Solicitors and Commissioner for Oaths’, with the door just to the left of a newsagent’s entrance. He sent a one-line text to Emmanuel. ‘We are outside.’