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Yuri Adaksin. It was a position he held for eight years until Adaksin’s death in 1990.’
    ‘How did his boss die?’ Harvey interrupted, and the look he got from Cooper made him wish he hadn’t.
    ‘A car accident,’ she said evenly. ‘His SUV was hit by a rubbish truck and he died at the scene. Bessonov suffered a broken arm in the incident.’
    Harvey was reluctant to interrupt her again, but wanted to get an idea of the circumstances.
    ‘What about the truck driver?’
    ‘Fled the scene,’ Cooper said, ‘and the truck turned out to be stolen.’
    ‘A rival gang?’
    ‘So it seems. It was never established who ordered the hit, but Adaksin’s death created a vacuum, and several smaller gangs made plays to grab power. None were successful, and it soon turned into all-out war. Adaksin’s lieutenants were taken out one by one, until Bessonov was fit enough to rejoin the fight. Reports suggest he personally took out two rival bosses before the others got the message, though there was never enough evidence to secure a conviction.’
    ‘So Bessonov took over running of the firm at that point?’
    Cooper switched images on the screen to show a much younger version of the mobster standing outside a diner. ‘He’s been the Pakhan – or Godfather – for the last twenty-six years, during which time the group has diversified into prostitution and human trafficking. That’s on top of their drugs and protection businesses. The money is laundered through a series of legitimate companies, including that restaurant. It has six tables and we’ve never seen more than two dozen people walk through the door, but last year’s accounts showed a profit of over a million on three million turnover.’
    ‘That’s some expensive borscht,’ Harvey noted. ‘Is there any particular reason why we haven’t been able to take him down?’
    Cooper moved on to the next image, a man in his sixties with heavy jowls and thinning grey hair. ‘This is Grigory Polushin, senior counsellor at the Russian embassy and the ambassador’s number two. He visits the restaurant twice a week, and I believe it is his political influence that keeps Bessonov out of our reach. We haven’t been able to ascertain what happens at these meetings, but the assumption is that Polushin carries away significant amounts of cash. Often he’s been seen leaving with a large holdall. We suspect that’s how Bessonov’s illegal gains are being shipped back to Moscow through diplomatic channels. The police have pulled Bessonov in twice, but both times he had alibis provided by high-ranking Russian officials. We believe Polushin arranged them for him, and it’s difficult for the CPS to push ahead with a prosecution without calling them liars.’
    It was a familiar story to Harvey: known criminals operating with impunity in order to prevent political shitstorms. It wasn’t just the Russians, either. Several Chinese gangs had close ties with senior diplomats, and while those who lived in their community knew what was going on, the Triad bosses never seemed to be held accountable.
    This wasn’t about an illegal brothel or gambling den, though. Bessonov had taken out an MI5 operative.
    ‘You say you don’t know what goes on at their regular meetings,’ he said. ‘Have you tried bugging the place?’
    ‘Impossible,’ Cooper said. ‘It’s open and staffed twenty-four hours a day, so there’s no opportunity to break in and plant anything. We once tried sending a transmitter in with a newspaper delivery, sewing it into the spine of a magazine, but they sweep the place before each meeting and our device was found before it could do any good.’
    ‘I suppose his home is out of the question, too.’
    ‘All three of them,’ Cooper confirmed. ‘The closest we could get to Bessonov was through Nikolai Sereyev . . .’
    Her words tailed off, the memory of Willard’s death filling the empty space.
    ‘I read Willard’s notes,’ Harvey said, after a respectful