‘Why Darren Donovan?’ I asked Jean Wilder. ‘You had a good reason to hate Mahmud Irani and so did Andrej Wozniak. The Warboys had a good reason to hate Hector Welles for killing their grandson.’ I nodded at the Maldinis and their dark good looks seemed to drain under the lights of West End Central. ‘And I understand why you would hate a man like Abu Din,’ I said quietly. Then I stared into Jean Wilder’s furious face. ‘I can even understand why you would hate me for getting in your way and for coming after you.’

Jean Wilder shook her head.

‘You really don’t understand. Believe me.’

‘Jean,’ her husband said. ‘Don’t say anything.’

‘Shut up,’ she told him. ‘We don’t hate you because you came after us. We hate you because you’re always on the side of the filth. You protect the men who rape our daughters because you care more about their human rights than you do about our children. It’s a fact. You don’t care. You don’t get it. You truly don’t understand. And that’s why we hate you.’

I looked at Piper Maldini.

‘There were only three of you when Abu Din was abducted,’ I said. ‘At first I thought it was because you, Piper, were seen day after day on that street in Wembley and one of the faithful might recognise you – even behind an Albert Pierrepoint mask. But that wasn’t it, was it?’

Piper Maldini still had not spoken. Her brother twisted in his wheelchair to look at her.

He didn’t know, I thought.

He didn’t know until now.

‘You were driving the white van,’ I said to her. ‘You were not usually the driver. But driving was your role that night, wasn’t it? And you did it well.’

She shook her head.

‘I want a lawyer,’ she said.

‘You’re going to need one,’ Whitestone said.

Jean Wilder was laughing as she took out a pack of cigarettes.

‘There’s no smoking in here,’ Edie said.

Jean Wilder ignored her.

She lit up, sucked hungrily on her cigarette and considered me, her eyes narrowing through the rising smoke.