‘Oh yes. Mainly passive-aggressive stuff. People phoning through fake orders. That sort of thing. But they had their car vandalised twice and the shop windows smashed several times.’

‘We will need details from you of all the episodes you know about, and as many names as you can remember.’

His gaze didn’t flicker.

‘Who else might have had it in for your brother?’ I asked.

‘How about all the husbands and boyfriends of the women he shagged?’ He spat his words out as though they gave him pleasure.

I bit back my disdain. He was trying to test or shock, and I wasn’t prepared to give him the satisfaction of reacting. ‘I need names. Your brother has been murdered. If I may say so, you don’t seem upset or surprised.’

‘I’m not surprised, no. My brother was a risk taker all his life. He thrived on it. I told him to be more discreet, but he was a stubborn man, and he always had more energy than me.’

I let his last comment go. ‘Nevertheless, I’m sure that you want to see whoever murdered him brought to justice?’ I watched him. ‘It’s easy to look down on your brother’s business but in reality he sold soup and you sell naked women.’

Artem cackled. ‘This place might not be everyone’s idea of a good business, but I know the market and I know my clientele, and I make a good living. I wouldn’t have opened this club in the part of Brick Lane where Simas opened the soup place, for example.’

I needed to think about what Artem was saying, and talk it through with the team. Were the murders about economics? Turf? Ethnicities? Religion? Or were they personal? I walked to the edge of the room, surveyed the awards and certificates on the walls, the beaming faces of his celebrity clientele. I got the distinct impression that these two brothers were very different, and I sensed tension between them. I made a mental note to get the team to do a background check on Artem. ‘Do you have a family, Mr Gudelis?’

‘I do.’

‘Doesn’t your wife mind you running a strip club?’

‘I don’t hear her complaining too much when we are flying business class to the Caribbean, or when she’s booking spa treatments and personal shoppers at Selfridges.’

I stifled a groan. In many an idle moment, I’d wondered what it must be like to be married to a man like this. ‘Children?’

‘A boy and a girl. One’s at prep school and the other is home-educated. He has special needs.’

‘Were you and your brother close?’

‘There was a ten-year age gap between us, and we didn’t agree about everything, but we have always been close.’

‘What didn’t you agree about?’

He cackled again but didn’t answer. It was a horrible, dirty sound.

‘Mr Gudelis?’

Maya, 10 a.m.