  We study the behaviour of singular integral operators $T_{k_t}$ of
convolution type on $\mathbb{C}$ associated with the parametric kernels $$
k_t(z):=\frac{(\Re z)^{3}}{|z|^{4}}+t\cdot \frac{\Re z}{|z|^{2}}, \quad t\in
\mathbb{R},\qquad k_\infty(z):=\frac{\Re z}{|z|^{2}}\equiv \Re
\frac{1}{z},\quad z\in \mathbb{C}\setminus\{0\}. $$ It is shown that for any
positive locally finite Borel measure with linear growth the corresponding
$L^2$-norm of $T_{k_0}$ controls the $L^2$-norm of $T_{k_\infty}$ and thus of
the Cauchy transform. As a corollary, we prove that the
$L^2(\mathcal{H}^1\lfloor E)$-boundedness of $T_{k_t}$ with a fixed $t\in
(-t_0,0)$, where $t_0>0$ is an absolute constant, implies that $E$ is
rectifiable. This is so in spite of the fact that the usual curvature method
fails to be applicable in this case. Moreover, as a corollary of our
techniques, we provide an alternative and simpler proof of the bi-Lipschitz
invariance of the $L^2$-boundedness of the Cauchy transform, which is the key
ingredient for the bi-Lipschitz invariance of analytic capacity.
