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me you know everything that’s going on in …”
    “… in bad part of town? That what you mean? Sure, lady. I got best ears in business.” She giggled, which might have looked charming in someone half her age. Though with her
tiny physique, her black wig and her thick painted face, I couldn’t begin to put a year on Mary.
    “Mary, one thing before we get started. I know how much you like silk…” I glanced round the room. “The redder the better, eh? Do you mind telling me where you get
it?”
    She screwed up her face so that her eyes became cunning slits.
    “Why you interested, Danny? I paid all this.” She swept her hand round the room festooned with shiny hangings.
    “I’m sure you paid for it, Mary. But maybe not full price. I’m not going to report you and this is off the record for Eve here. A customer of mine keeps losing some silk. I
want to know where it turns up. I have my suspicions.”
    Mary sat thinking for a second or two. “OK, Danny I trust you. But if I get in trouble ’cos you, then I send boys to cut off balls, OK?”
    I coughed and dodged Eve’s stifled laugh. “Fair enough, Mary. What do you know?”
    “Place in Whitechapel. On top of shop. Always got plenty stuff. Got stall in Petticoat Lane, but that rubbish. Good stuff, you need to know right man.” She tapped her head indicating
she was in the know.
    “Do you have a name, Mary? Just between these four walls. Promise.”
    “I tell.” She shrugged. “No do you good. Big top guy too big to touch. Gamba, they call him.”
    “Gamba? Gambatti? Pauli Gambatti?”
    I whistled but it was no surprise. Gambatti had his finger in every dirty pie from Stepney in the east to Gray’s Inn in the west, and from the Thames up through Whitechapel and Bethnal
Green to Hackney in the north. The western edge of his territory collided – in frequent bloody disputes – with Jonny Crane, boss of Soho and Holborn. His patch covered the warehouse
area of Wapping. Out of the corner of my eye I caught Eve’s face. Her eyes were alight and her teeth were bared.
    “Know him?” I asked her.
    “I know of him. A name that comes up a lot in conversation. But I’ve never been able to use it in a story. He’s got expensive lawyers.”
    I left it at that. We drank more tea, and Mary told us of dark rooms where poker was played, drinking dens that were open all hours, dog races where both dogs and punters were drugged, and pubs
where you could arrange for a business rival or straying spouse to be fixed – permanently if required – for less than fifty quid. Eve wrote and wrote and when we emerged Soho was dipped
in a golden glow from the last of the sun, and Mama Mary had broken off twice to welcome her first guests of the day to the pleasure palace: men dropping by on their way home from work.
    “I need a drink,” Eve said as we stumbled into the light.
    “As long as it’s not tea.”
    “Never. I will never drink another cup of tea.”
    “I know a place.” I checked my watch. “And they’re open in ten minutes.”
    I steered her through Soho noting the subtle changes that were taking place. Lights coming on in dark doorways, bouncers rolling their shoulders, heavily made-up girls beginning their patrols.
The streets were filling with men with hats pulled down despite the early summer warmth. As we walked, we touched occasionally; I even held her arm from time to time to see her across a road or
past a pushy procurer. She didn’t seem to mind.
    We joined a small queue outside the Dog and Duck in Greek Street. Neither of us looked at each other, not wishing to advertise our need. At exactly six o’clock the bolts rattled; the door
gaped open and a rush of stale air wafted over us. I got us drinks and led the way upstairs. We were the only customers in the small dark room. It smelled of two hundred years of beer and
smoke.
    “Cheers!” I raised my pint glass.
    She smiled and clinked her vodka and lemonade. “Cheers, Danny. Thank