‘I won’t have that filth in my house,’ James said, shuddering. ‘So it took about an hour for the microphone to record enough keystrokes to get Uncle’s password. We’ve unlocked the backup I made at the pawn shop and a couple of support staff have spent the night going through the data … Oh balls.’

The three brothers laughed as a rasher fell out of James’ sandwich and hit the floor between his legs.

‘So what have we got on the laptop?’ Ryan asked, as James grated his chair back and grabbed the bacon.

‘Business accounts mostly,’ James began. ‘Taxi firms, scrapyards, Sunray Travel. Plus classic money-laundering outfits like dry cleaners, web cafes and of course the print shop. There’s also personal stuff in an encrypted e-mail account, lots of e-mails between Uncle and his current wife, telling her how much he misses her when he travels. Hospital bills for his mother’s care home.’

‘Is any of it incriminating?’ Leon asked.

‘There’s some detailed information about the protection racket,’ James said.

‘What about the trips to the Middle East?’ Ryan asked. ‘Isn’t that what we’re here for?’

‘We can now access Uncle’s encrypted e-mails but there’s thousands to go through,’ James explained. ‘We know where he’s been and the names of some of the people he’s met. But there are dozens of sets of accounts on the laptop and thousands of documents and e-mails in the cloud. I’ve got four intelligence analysts and a forensic accountant working on this, but it will take a good while to get through it all.’

‘So what do we do in the meantime?’ Daniel asked.

‘For now, I don’t think there’s much for you and Leon to do. Since it’s the weekend, go see a movie or something.’

The twins smiled. ‘Can you give us money?’ Leon asked, cheekily holding out beggar hands.

‘Scroungers,’ James said, tutting, then smiling. ‘You two have worked hard this week. Just stay out of trouble.’

‘I assume I’m still going for my meeting with Uncle?’ Ryan asked.

James nodded. ‘You’ll hopefully get inside Uncle’s cabin at the scrapyard, drop a few listening devices if you can, but no stupid risks.’

‘What about his car?’ Ryan asked. ‘You want me to put a tracker on it?’

James shook his head. ‘Any tracker worth having is bulky, so I don’t want you taking that risk. I’ll get an adult from MI5 to handle the job.’

Ryan pulled up at the scrapyard gate in his battered Peugeot. The giant car shredder made the ground rumble, while teams of overalled men drained fuel tanks and stripped valuable parts from cars before they met their doom.

‘Uncle wants to see you?’ the guard on the gate said suspiciously. ‘He’s out of the country.’