Lit by the torches of our phones, Whitestone and I passed through Dead Man’s Walk and into the underground tunnel that links Newgate to St Sepulchre’s church, descending the stone staircase and carefully picking our way through the blackness until we reached the four identical tunnels with the rounded arch, and passed through them to the two wooden platforms of the abandoned British Museum tube station.

Deep inside the tunnel we could see the lights of the emergency services, retrieving the remains of Andrej Wozniak.

‘Who was he?’ I said. ‘What do they say up at the Central Criminal Court?’

‘Apparently he was very good at his job,’ Whitestone said. ‘A master of decorum who you wouldn’t want to mess with.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘He stopped me once. After the verdict at the Goddard trial. When I might have done something stupid. Something that I would have lived to regret.’

‘From what they tell me, he was a typical Old Bailey sheriff. You know what they’re like. They are actually a great bunch of guys. Staying calm and collected in the face of every scumbag that passes through their doors.’

‘He told me we were on the same side. Just before he tried to cut out my eyeball.’

‘He was single, never married, no children, thirty-nine years old. Third-generation Anglo-Polish. His grandfather came over here to fly Hurricanes for the RAF in 1939.’

‘The Polish Air Force. There were twenty-five thousand of them. They were the largest non-British contribution to the Battle of Britain.’

Deep in the tunnel we could see the lights of the emergency services, hear the calls of the men, see a silver glint of the tube train that had claimed Andrej Wozniak.

‘What happened to him?’ I said. ‘How did he make the leap from Old Bailey bailiff to the Hanging Club? It has to be something more than staring at the daily parade of scumbags.’

‘There was a girl,’ Whitestone said. ‘His fiancée. From a different faith. Wozniak was a Catholic and the girl’s family violently objected. Kicked her out of the house. Disowned her. Called her a whore for falling in love. Priti – that was her name. Nobody ever went down for it, but she was the victim of an acid attack. A relative walked up to her as she was coming home from work and threw acid in her face.’

‘Christ Almighty.’

‘And apparently Priti couldn’t live with it. None of it. Not the separation from her family, not what a family member did to ruin her face. Maybe she couldn’t bear to see the look in Andrej Wozniak’s eyes. The pity. The sadness. The rage. Maybe Dr Joe can explain it to you. I wouldn’t know where to begin. You know what the biggest lie in the world is?’

‘Tell me.’