An added bonus was that he could pay back a few debts of his own tonight, starting with Micky Campbell. He hated the Campbells and they hated him.

At this moment Micky was terrified because for the first time ever he was on his own, without a weapon, his brothers or his formidable mother, who was the real brains behind the Campbell businesses.

He and Marcenello watched as Briony, Tommy and Mariah walked down to Gilda’s little terraced house. Gilda the Pole was a woman of uncertain age with a pronounced limp who catered to the lower echelons of the docks, the African sailors and the Chinese. She was a small woman with a beautiful peach skin, and the worst temper this side of the water.

She was called ‘the Pole’ because she’d had polio which had left the limp, and had no other known last name.

The women’s heels tapped on the pavement and Tommy heard the sound with his temper bubbling up inside him. When he got Briony home he was going to slap her face for her, hard. When she had walked into that marquee he had felt such a fool. So annoyed he could easily have throttled her.

This was men’s work, they were dealing with the lowest of the low, and as much as he respected her cunning and her bravery, he couldn’t forgive her for turning up there with those Arabs and that bleeding lanky bitch Jurgens! It made him look soft. As if he held on to her apron strings. His temper was so hot he nearly knocked Gilda’s neat green front door into the hallway when he hammered on it.

Willy had seen their approach through the small front room window, and taking a gun he ran out to the kitchen, telling Gilda to open the door and try and stall them.

As she opened the front door, she flicked her head and said: ‘He’s trying to do a poodle out the back door. He’s got a gun, and the hump. What more can I say?’

Outside in the yard Willy looked at the three men waiting for him and, hearing Gilda’s opening words at the door, knew he was finished. He was supposed to have an armed guard here and there was no one but Lane’s men. He looked around in the hope a couple of his minders would appear from the woodwork, but he knew instinctively that they were long gone. He didn’t hold out any hope that any were sitting outside or watching from the road. The Jews had abandoned him. They obviously knew something he didn’t. He could try and shoot his way out but he would be dead in seconds. It was the end of the line and he knew it.