Her grandson had been killed many years ago, but the execution of the man who did it was still trending online. All the old pain had been awakened. She smiled and left us. Edie and I took the chairs across from the sofa where Paul Warboys sat with Bullseye’s monstrous head in his lap.

‘Someone killed Hector Welles,’ I said.

He shot me a ferocious look. Paul Warboys had always been friendly to me, thanks to our connection to Bullseye, but I was under no illusion that we were anything resembling friends. And even now, even after all these years since the Warboys brothers had been almost as famous as the Krays, I could still see the serious violence in the man.

He got his rage under control.

‘We don’t say that name in this house,’ he said very quietly, his fingers deep in Bullseye’s fur. The dog whimpered with something between pleasure and pain. ‘We never say that name, Max.’

It was a threat as much as a statement.

‘But I have to talk to you about him,’ I said.

‘I understand that you have to run your fucking Trace, Interview and Eliminate,’ he said. ‘But this is my house and we never say the name of the man who killed my grandson in this house.’ He waited for me to contradict him. ‘OK?’

Edie had her notebook out. ‘Where were you when Hector Welles was being hanged?’

Under the deep tan, his face flushed with fury, the kind of fury that once enabled him to order the amputation of an informer’s tongue. But then he laughed.

‘I was home with Doll,’ he said, and I was reminded that he had been answering police questions since before Edie Wren and I were born.

‘How did you hear about it?’ Edie said.

‘How do you think?’ he said. ‘The phones started ringing. Ringing and ringing and ringing they were. Friends. Family. Former colleagues. Some of them were laughing. Some of them were crying. And they all said the same thing. Go online, they said. Go online, Paul, because someone is stringing up the bastard that killed your Danny.’

‘And you can corroborate your alibi?’ Edie said.

‘Darling, I can give you all the corroboration you need. But let me ask you a question.’

She held up her notebook as if to protect herself.

‘Mr Warboys—’

‘Do you know how long ago it was that I last hurt someone for profit or pleasure?’ he said. ‘A lifetime. When people talk about the Krays and the Richardsons and the Warboys, they forget that it was all over before most people in this country had colour television. They came after us, love. Your lot. Your mob. And we all went down hard. Charlie Richardson got twenty-five years in 1966 – when England won the World Cup! A couple of years later, Reggie and Ronnie went down for thirty years – the longest sentence ever passed at the Old Bailey.’