Fortunately, the music wasn’t too loud so early in the night, and the DJ hadn’t begun his fierce sampling routines, where a snatch of an old Elvis song might appear under the robotic rhythm and synth sounds of an electro dance number.

Once through the door, he could hardly hear the noise of the club at all. He knocked on the door marked PRIVATE and entered to find Timmy Kerrigan alone at his desk.

Kerrigan stood up. “Mr. Banks. An unexpected pleasure. Please, sit down. Take a load off.” He moved an office chair for Banks to sit on. Banks sat. “You should have told me you were coming.”

“What would you have done, Timmy? Organized a brass band?”

Timmy Kerrigan just laughed. It came out as a giggle, the way most of his laughs did.

“No Tommy tonight?” Banks asked.

Kerrigan sat down again and swiveled his chair to face Banks. “He’s got other business, down in the big city. We’re not Siamese twins, you know. Not joined at the hip, or anywhere else, for that matter.”

“You’ll have to do, then.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.” Timmy Kerrigan was the size of a rugby prop forward, but gone to fat. Short golden curls topped a plump round face with a disarmingly youthful peaches-and-cream complexion. His blue eyes were heavy-lidded and guarded. He must have been in his fifties, but he looked as if he had never had to shave. He was wearing his trademark navy pinstripe suit with the handkerchief poking out of the top pocket and a psychedelic waistcoat, quite dizzying, its buttons straining tight against his stomach.

His younger brother, Tommy, Banks remembered, was very different—long, thin, lugubrious, one milky eye from a badly thrown dart or an accident with a knitting needle, depending on whose version you believed, cropped dark hair and a gaunt, pockmarked face. They always made Banks think of Laurel and Hardy, though the resemblance was merely a matter of size and shape.

Though they looked to be a comic duo, and it was very tempting to laugh at them, you did so at some risk. They were smart businessmen, local celebrities in their way, and had bought up quite a bit of Eastvale over the years. They weren’t without political clout on the town council or in the planning offices. No wonder they had proved useful to Connor Clive Blaydon in his Elmet Centre development. If you wanted to develop anything around Eastvale, you could do a lot worse than have the Kerrigans on your side.

But behind the respectable facade, Banks knew, lay corruption, bribery, blackmail, intimidation. And it didn’t end there. Though there was no hard evidence, the Kerrigans were also suspected of having their hand in drugs and prostitution, and that, Banks thought, was where the strongest connection with Blaydon came in. And perhaps also the link with Gashi.