McAvoy purses his lips and breathes out, slowly. Leans forward. Stares into the grainy, pixilated eyes of Padraig ‘Papa’ Teague.

He opens the other tab on the screen: the archive page of the Hull Daily Mail, detailing a court case against Grieg Leeming, his address listed as Wood Hill Traveller site, Cottingham. It is dated November of last year. McAvoy had been part of the unit that carried out the raid on premises rumoured to be in use as a cannabis factory. Although they found plenty of evidence of a major growing operation, somebody had clearly tipped him off and given him opportunity to clear out the premises. All the investigators had found was the set-up for a disbanded pirate radio operation, and an industrial sized DVD printing operation, specializing in borderline illegal entertainment. As well as the more X-rated pornography, there are videos of deaths caught on camera; beheadings filmed in gory detail; CCTV footage of sexual assaults and bloodbath muggings. And fights. Always more money in violence than sex, according to the world-weary chap from trading standards who had assisted with the investigation.

People go mad for the blood-feud stuff, he’d confided, looking baffled. Treat these clashes like the heavyweight title’s on the line. The money they stick on their man is obscene …

McAvoy has done his due diligence. Has watched as many of the scraps as he’s been able to find on the new video-sharing platform that everybody’s going crazy for. Even glimpsed a familiar face. There’s a colossal market for brutality. For bare-knuckle bouts, filmed down back alleys and side streets, waste ground and car parks: men pulverizing each other in the name of honour. The CID unit were able to make a case against Leeming, but the two-year sentence was water off a duck’s back to a career criminal like him. He pleaded guilty, told the court he didn’t know what was on the footage, and that he was just a businessman supplying a demand. He was pushed for information on how the fights were arranged; whether the participants had received medical attention; whether they took a cut of the proceeds from the video sales. He didn’t give away much. Just knew the cameraman, he said – admitting to being ‘close pals’ with the amateur film-maker who was given permission to film the more high-profile bouts. He had ‘Traveller connections’, he admitted, at the last. McAvoy, ever-alert to any mention of the clan he had briefly helped, had taken note. Even spoken to Grieg’s wife outside Hull Magistrates Court, lighting her cigarette with a forced nonchalance while chatting about this and that and nothing much at all – all the while gathering the courage to ask her if she knew the Teagues, and whether the eldest girl was doing OK. She spared him the agony, in the end. Did a kindness to a copper, in a way that suggested she had put two and two together. She’d even squeezed his forearm. Told her she didn’t know anybody, anywhere, but if she did, she’d take some pride in telling him that the girl he mentioned, was flourishing, and the apple of her daddy’s eye.