“Not a lot,” said Burgess. “He’s got a brother called Goran. Croatians. They both started out in the transportation side of the sex trafficking business quite a few years ago, based in Serbia but working all over the eastern Balkans—Romania, Moldova, even Ukraine and Belarus. Wherever the beautiful, vulnerable young girls were. And the ones they couldn’t persuade to travel overseas with fake offers of modeling careers and secretarial college, they simply snatched off the street. But they’ve worked their way up to the exploitation level now. They work more with the end-users. That’s why they’re spending so much time over here.”

“Pimps?”

“Sort of. Certainly no better than. But not directly. They’re more like pimps to the pimps. They supply the needs of pimps. They don’t stand at the brothel door and take the money. They do the strong-arm stuff as well, if it’s called for. In fact, they’re quite brutal. They flatten the competition if they have to, and they don’t spare the rod with the girls, either, if they step out of line. Literally.”

“Drugs?”

Burgess shook his head. “Only insofar as they need to supply the girls from time to time to keep them subdued, and to give themselves the occasional snort, of course, or fuel a sex party. A little happy powder now and then. But not operationally, no. They might consort with dealers and suppliers, mind you. It’s a mixed-up world they’re in, and where you find one crime, you’re as likely as not to find a dozen more. Most of the drugs are down to the Albanian Mafia, these days, and the Calabrians, the ’Ndrangheta. And you cross them only at your peril.”

Tadić sounded like the sort of supplier Connor Clive Blaydon might be working with on his pop-up brothels, Banks thought. Neither of them exactly down on the shop floor, but pulling the strings from a distance—Blaydon as someone who had access to the properties for use and Tadić with access to the girls and drugs. And of course, Tadić might also be rubbing shoulders with the Albanians, especially Leka Gashi. “Do you think Zelda’s in any danger?” he asked.

Burgess thought for a moment, then said, “Depends. I’m assuming she’s not stupid enough to go stirring up a hornets’ nest, so there’s no real reason why she should be. On the other hand, if she’s got some sort of crazy plan in mind, who knows . . . ? But she, more than anyone, ought to know how dangerous these people are, what they’re capable of. I don’t imagine she’s been running around asking questions about Keane, has she?”

“Not that I know of,” said Banks. “And I certainly advised her not to. Like I said, it came to nothing. Why do you think this Hawkins chap was killed, if indeed he was?”