‘Now, I’m going to ask you once more, nice and polite, and if you give me any flannel, I’ll ram your swollen head down the bog until you cough up some sense. This is my family that’s being messed about. Violet and Mortimer have no idea what’s hit them and you’re just a whipper-snapper with a fancy college scarf. So give me the low-down and let Auntie Mabel see what she can do. Any dodgy business I need to know about? Any nasty friends?’

There was no point in prevaricating. I told her about the gambling, the syndicate, the Maltese debts. ‘Thought as much.’ She sniffed. ‘My Kenneth is a bit of a night-owl. He told me he saw your friend at the Tinkerbell Club, but was too pissed to be sure. Now we know.’

‘What will you do, Auntie?’

‘First of all, I’m going to send Violet off on a rest cure. Then I’ll have a word with some pals from the old days, some faces from the Ball’s Pond Road who know what’s what. If your boy’s in shtook with the Maltesers, the KitKats or the Turkish bloody Delight for all I know, they’ll get him back for me if he’s still in one piece. If he’s running a racket of his own, they might teach him a little lesson before sending him home. Just sit tight and do nothing until you hear from me, got that?’

Someone turned the handle and tried to push the door. ‘Sod off,’ barked Mabel. ‘We’re here on business.’ She looked almost leonine in a brown two-piece Peter Robinson suit and mangy hat. Mabel reached up and put a gloved hand gently on my Adam’s apple. ‘Shtum’s the word, right?’

‘Yes, Auntie.’

Rosalyn had left a message at my desk, asking me to call her at home.

‘I am so sorry, Martin,’ she whispered. ‘Is there anything I can do to help? Man the phones? Make the tea?’

‘Nothing at present, I’m afraid,’ I replied dully. ‘Hardly anyone phones us any more, and the tea sits there getting cold.’

‘Well, call me if there is anything I can do,’ she said.

That night, with my mother in care and my father under sedation, I caught a bus to Covent Garden to sound out Dovidl’s netherlife. The Treasury man was sipping from the same cup, and the same tarts were touting for trade. No one, to my relief, had recognised Dovidl as the face on the newsstands. People came and went in the market, using whatever cover they required, no questions asked. Down here he was Mr David, not Eli Rapoport.

‘He’s a lovely boy,’ said the wrinkled tart, Ava, pocketing my pound note. ‘Not in any trouble, is he?’

‘Not that I know of,’ I said. ‘You wouldn’t know if he’s had any hassle from the Maltese boys?’