A private club was a boon in many respects, because it afforded a level of safety that many of the men concerned needed in their daily lives – their work lives – and particularly in their night lives. Jonny had them all – from top businessmen to politicians and Old Bill to serious Faces, and he made sure any sojourn at the club was as secret as it was enjoyable. There was a lot of money in keeping people clean; he had tapped into a market that was not just lucrative money-wise but also gave him contacts who owed him.

This club was the first of many, and he was in negotiations to do the same thing in Liverpool, Manchester and Glasgow. The girls earned too much to open their traps, and they were also aware that one wrong word and they would never work anywhere again. This wasn’t just a threat that they would be blackballed as such, but that their lives would be tragically cut short. No kiss-and-tell from his lap dancers. If they did, it would be the last thing they ever said and they were well aware of that.

Tonight he had a meeting with a local up-and-coming Face by the name of Derek Greene. Derek was also known as ‘Derek the Red’ because he had no trouble spilling blood. He was thirty-one years old, built like the proverbial brick shithouse and had been educated at a private school thanks to his father, a notorious bank robber who thought his son should grow up in the straight world. Derek Senior was now doing a twenty-five, and his son, then seventeen, had been left penniless and with no real qualifications except his extreme strength, his short temper and the nous that living around a villain had ingrained into him. He had risen in the ranks and become a man to be reckoned with.

Now he wanted a meet, and Jonny was very interested in what he had to say. The boy had a good rep, and he liked him. Always open for a bit of naughty, he was happy enough as he walked into the dim foyer of the Madison Avenue Private Members Club. It was a great space and it looked fantastic – understated and with an abundance of glass and chrome. No one looking inside would believe what its respectable façade hid. It could be the offices of a banking corporation, but once through the heavy wooden doors it was the epitome of sexual gratification. All reds, purples and creams, the girls’ outfits, albeit very small, were colour-coordinated to match the surroundings that were reminiscent of a brothel the Pre-Raphaelites would have frequented. It was upmarket trash, and it was making Jonny untold money.