The Take

Chapter One

Jackie awoke to the electric pain of a hangover, her eyes felt as if they had been sprayed with hot sand and her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth.

In seconds she realised her husband was not beside her.

Even after only one night she was aware of him. After he had been sentenced it had taken her a long time to accept that he would not be coming home to her. Heavily pregnant, she had felt his absence acutely. It had been hard losing him like that, but she had waited. Waited and longed for him. While he was in prison all she had thought about was her man, and not a day had passed when she had not missed him and felt almost a physical pain.

But now he was out he didn't even recognise his home any more.

Sighing, she was about to drag herself from the bed when she heard the unmistakable sound of Roxanna's laugh. It was like a fog horn, loud like her mother's but full of infectious humour like her maternal grandmother's.

She could hear her husband's own loud laugh following her daughter's and smiled to herself. The girls were older now, he might find them a bit more interesting. He had never really got to know them before, and she hoped that now he was finally home they could all start being a proper family.

Kimberley came into the small bedroom with a mug of hot sweet tea. At nine years old she was a ringer for her father: dark haired and blue eyed, she had his natural arrogance.

'All right, love?'

It was a question and they both knew it.

'To hear him going on you'd think he'd been at a five-star hotel, not inside one of Her Majesty's holiday camps.'

Jackie knew this was her own dad talking, but then Joseph had been more of a father to the girls than Freddie so what could she expect?

'Don't start, Kim, it's been hard for him away from us.'

'Been hard for us and all, Mum, don't forget that, will you? To hear him talk you'd think he'd had the time of his life.'

At nine she had more wisdom than someone ten times her age, and this was what made her mother angry with her. Kimberley never knew when to leave things alone.

'Well, he's home now, ain't he.'

Kimberley sniffed loudly in disdain as she said, 'And don't we all know it.'

Freddie was surprised at how much he was enjoying his kids, they were good-looking, bright girls. He'd have liked sons though, and after last night's gymnastics he had a feeling he might get one before the year was out. One thing he would give Jackie – she was as up for it as he was. A bit of how's your father was all she needed to keep her temper at bay. A few compliments, a couple of touch ups and she was his.

Once he had her nice and pregnant he could start to take the piss properly. She was a blinder in some ways, old Jackie. No matter what he did she forgave him. She understood him, and he loved her for that much at least.

But even he saw the need to keep close by for a few days. He was well aware of what happened when you were banged up. People sniffed round, wanted a bit of what you had. As far as he could see Jackie had been a diamond, but you never knew, she liked the old one-eyed snake, so he would keep out a wary eye.

If she had done the dirty on him she was a dead woman.

'Did you learn to cook in nick, Dad?'

Roxanna said this very seriously and he answered her in the same vein, the eggs and bacon in the pan sizzling away.

'No, sweetheart, Daddy could already cook. Why?'

Roxanna said, with six-year-old sweetness, 'I thought we could send Mummy, you cook nicer than her any day.'

Freddie laughed loudly. This youngest child of his was what was known as a case.

He glanced around the kitchen. It was shabby but clean enough, he supposed. He would have to sort out a few quid though, get the place smartened up. He needed a home that befitted his new status in life.

Some of the blokes he had been banged up with had country houses! Acres of land, swimming pools, and what did he have? A poxy semi-detached house on a council estate. Their kids went to private schools, mixed with the best. What was it his old mate Ozzy used to say? 'It's not what you know but who you know.' How fucking true that was.

He had watched them in nick, and what a fucking education it had been. They all had nice fit birds visiting them, all dressed like fucking footballers' wives, with ready smiles and diamond rings. He had been gutted at times when Jackie had turned up in her jeans and her fucking sheepskin coat. But in fairness she couldn't afford any decent clobber, she had been given no compensation.

The thought of compensation darkened his brow.

She deserved it, she should have been worth a few quid, not fucking scrimping on the social.

He would sort that all out this afternoon.

Lena Summers opened her front door and roared, 'You knock like the filth, young Jimmy.'

Smiling, Jimmy walked into the kitchen, nodded to Joseph and, taking a mug from the draining board, poured himself a cup of tea.

'She ready?'

Lena laughed. 'Is she ever? Only just jumped in the shower.'

She was buttering toast and she automatically handed him a piece. He crunched on it happily.

'How did it all end last night then?'

He shrugged, looking too big for the small kitchen. His loyalty to his cousin knew no bounds, but he was also loath to upset Lena or Joseph.

'It was a good night, Mrs Summers, he was just a bit excited, that's all. He's been banged up for yonks…'

'Should have fucking kept him there if you ask me.'

Lena turned on her husband. 'Well, no one asked you, did they?'

She turned back to Jimmy. 'Was Jackie all right? I mean it didn't all end up in a fight?'

He smiled then. 'It was fine, honestly. When I left they were slow dancing together, with little Roxanna asleep on Freddie's shoulder.'

Lena smiled, her fears allayed for a few days. The fighting would come, they all knew that. But she wanted her daughter to have at least a few days of happiness first.

If ever two people should keep away from each other it was Freddie and Jackie Jackson. They had courted from school and Lena had loathed him on sight. Jackie had always been a handful at the best of times, but it was as if he had possessed a hold over her from day one. She was obsessed with Freddie and at first the feeling had been mutual. It was only when the kids had come thick and fast that he had started his gallivanting. And like her mother before her Jackie had hunted down and blamed the women. If only Lena could get her to understand that without the men these women wouldn't exist. But she knew herself how much it hurt, how it ruined your self-esteem. How it coloured the whole of your life until you either sank or you swam with it.

Her daughter would never learn to swim, God help her. She would sink a little bit more each time, the bitterness eating her up alongside the jealousy.

Maggie breezed into the kitchen all smiles and Rimmel make-up.

Joe Summers said indulgently, 'Your lift's been waiting ages.'

She grinned. 'My lift always waits ages.'

She grabbed a piece of toast and a mug of coffee and, kissing her mother and father, she walked out of the house quickly. She always left the mug in his car and he returned it when he could. They were nice kids.

Lena and Joe watched as the big, hulking boy followed her as always.

'He's a good kid, Joe.'

Joe sniffed loudly 'She could look further and fare worse. He dotes on her. And she has got the right idea, that one, keeps him on his toes.'

'As long as he ain't got her on her back.'

Joe eyed his wife scornfully. 'Give her a bit of credit, will you? She's too shrewd, I'm telling you.'

Lena sat at the small pine table and said sadly, 'She's so young, Joe. She's only fourteen.'

'So were you, Lena.'

'And look what happened to me.'

'You didn't do too bad, you got me didn't you?

She laughed disdainfully. 'I won the pools me, did I?'

They laughed together as Lena wondered what he would do if he knew his young daughter was on the pill.

Men, they never saw what was in front of their faces.

Micky Daltry was happy today. His wife was in a good mood because he had bought her a new coat and shoes. His kids were all at her mother's house, and they were going out for a nice slap-up meal to celebrate their wedding anniversary.

She was a good one, his Sheila, and he was sensible enough to know that. She kept the place clean as a pin and the kids were well dressed and well behaved. They all had her looks, thank God, and his nous. A winning combination.

'Come on, Sheila, the cab will be here in a minute.'

She was laughing as she walked down the stairs of their semi-detached house. It was decorated in magnolia matt paint and it was her pride and joy. As was the shag-pile cream carpet that drove the kids mad because they had to take their shoes off at the door. Unlike their mates who wore their shoes in the house until they were put to bed. Then and only then did they take their shoes off along with their coats.

Even their father followed the rule, and that was how they knew they had to.

Sheila Daltry had long blond hair, a slim figure, even after three children, and a nice nature. She had a quiet, sunny personality, the complete opposite of her husband. Micky was noisy, funny and secretive. He wolf-whistled her and she was thrilled.

A banging on their front door came then and Micky opened it with a flourish.

Freddie Jackson was standing there with a smile on his face and a baseball bat in his hands.

Micky's instinct was to try to shut the door, but after a few seconds' struggle, Freddie forced it open without any trouble.

Inside, he shut the door gently.

Sheila looked at her husband and shook her head sadly. Micky was terrified and could only hold his hands out in supplication towards her. Then he turned slowly towards Freddie, who said brightly, 'I take it you won't be offering me a cup of tea, then?'

Maggie was happy, really happy. She was in love, and it was obvious to all her friends.

Already the story of Freddie's party was doing the rounds of their small world, and Freddie was now like a conquering hero. The stretch limo alone was talked about for ages by the girls and the decadence of it was discussed in serious tones. It was their dream to be like movie stars or pop queens.

'Did you get a ride in it, Mags?'

This from Helen Dunne, friend or enemy depending on who was being slaughtered by the girls at any given time.

Maggie shook her head. 'Nah, but I could have if I wanted to. Jimmy was in it all day, he loved it. Said it had drink in it and everything.' She was lying, but they all chose to believe her.

'That right he beat up Willy Planter?'

Maggie nodded once more. 'Willy was out of order, fucking drunk!'

She toked deep on her Benson amp; Hedges cigarette. 'Jackie looked beautiful, you should have seen her.'

Maggie's voice was wistful. She loved her sister so much, looked up to her, depended on her.

All the girls sighed.

'That Freddie is a bit of all right though.'

This from Carlotta O'Connor, a well-developed girl who already had a reputation for drink, cannabis and older boyfriends.

They all laughed, scandalised, except Maggie, who said dryly, 'I'd keep that to meself if I was you. My sister is funny where he's concerned.'

It was a warning and everyone knew it. Maggie looked out for anything about her sister she saw as a slight. Jackie had her faults, but she was her sister and she loved her.

Carlotta just smiled, she had her creds, she wasn't scared of anyone. Though she would rather not come up against Jackie Jackson.

'Jimmy seems to be a permanent fixture.'

Maggie grinned. 'He had better be.'

They knew what that meant and started ragging her. She took it well but deep inside she was worried. Now that she had put out she was frightened he would aim her out of it. But she had been unable to resist him any longer, she wanted him as much as he wanted her.

'You all right, Mags?'

She smiled happily. 'Never better.'

Micky was staring at Freddie Jackson in abject terror. Sheila was still standing on the stairs watching the scene before her with resignation.

The cab driver bibbed his horn and Freddie said to Sheila, 'Get that cab, sweetheart, and go to your mum's because me and your old man are going to have a few words.'

She nodded and both men watched as she slipped from the house.

'Nice drum, Micky, you wanna see my house. Right shit hole it is with no money coming in, you treacherous bastard.'

The baseball bat came down on Micky's shoulder in an instant and the blinding pain shot through him, causing him to scream. He dropped heavily to his knees.

'Look, Freddie-'

'Shut your fucking lying thieving mouth, you ponce. My old woman was scrimping and fucking scratching while you and your kids were living the life of luxury on my fucking dough. Do you think I am a cunt, then?'

Micky was crying now and this was annoying Freddie Jackson more than the original affront. Poking his finger in the man's face he raged, 'You cry, you cunt. I done a lump and I kept you right out of it because I am a loyal fucking person. Whereas you, you never even gave my family a drink, no comp, no nothing. I went away for conspiracy to rob and firearms, you sat on your fucking ring with all the dough! You had to have expected me at some point, surely? I want me comp.'

Micky was holding his shoulder painfully as he said through his tears, 'I didn't have nothing to give them, I was only just keeping meself…'

Freddie dragged him through to the front room. It was painted in pale greens and creams and had a leather corner unit, nice colour TV and a decent sound system. He threw his one-time friend on to the sofa and systematically smashed the place up with the baseball bat, all the time shouting and poking the baseball bat towards the cowering man.

'Any money you scavenged should have gone to my kids, I kept you out of fucking clink, you two-faced wanker, and you never even saw them all right for Christmas! I lost my fucking liberty and you sat here with your fucking offspring and never thought about my poor Jackie struggling to make ends meet, did ya?'

He attacked the man again with the bat, beating him with his considerable strength. The blood was all over the cream leather sofa and, taking a few seconds' rest, he saw that he had opened up Micky's head. The spray went up the velour curtains and on to the Artexed ceiling.

He took the large bay window out with one forceful blow. He could see the neighbours on their steps listening to the latest palaver, but most of them had already wished him well so he had no fear of the police.

He was gratified to have caused serious damage. He wanted this event to hit the pavement, he wanted people to know that he was back. Back on the street and more than capable of settling scores, old or new. He was going to get involved in some serious skulduggery and he was not going to settle for anything less than complete domination of their world. He had learned a lot in nick, and he was going to utilise that knowledge and his new contacts to their full potential.

Micky had taken the piss big time over the years and Freddie had to stop that now, show him that he was not a man to be walked over.

They had been on their way to a meet with some friends, and the boot had been full of guns. Micky had jumped out of the car to buy a pack of Rothmans when the filth had given Freddie a tug. He had fought them, as was expected, and he had denied any knowledge of Micky Daltry being with him. Freddie had got the mandatory nine years for the firearms charge and he had kept his head down and his arse up, as was also expected. But Micky should have looked out for his family. Micky had been given a lucky escape and Freddie had not resented that. Why would he? Better only one of them had a capture, and unfortunately it had been him this time. Such was life, an occupational hazard for them.

But Micky had mugged him off. He had not even attempted to do him any favours, didn't even try to get him bail, nothing. Freddie had been a kid then and he had not known any better.

Now though, he more than knew the score.

After fighting anyone, screw or con, who he felt had not given him his due, he had garnered a reputation as a hard nut. He had finally been shipped to the SSB unit in Parkhurst as a double A grade, where he had mixed with the cream of the criminal underworld.

It was a man called Ozzy, a serious career criminal, and dangerous block Daddy who, realising Freddie's potential, had taken him under his wing and shown him not only how to do a lump with dignity, but also how to utilise his strong points.

Ozzy had taught him well, and Freddie had been a willing pupil.

Now he was on the out, he would work for Ozzy, dealing a bit of puff, or debt collecting. He'd work for the Clancys by default, but they were all Ozzy's scams. Freddie was determined to better himself and his standing in life. He had done his lump without any song and dance, and Ozzy had picked him out because of that.

Micky Daltry, on the other hand, had forgotten about him. Freddie had ceased to exist and Micky had believed that he was still safely banged up. Six years seemed such a long time away for the people who were on the outside, and it passed, slowly, painfully and more often than not with the aid of narcotics on the inside.

But, as Micky was finding out, time eventually passed.

Now it was time to settle old scores, iron out any differences. In short make this man understand the error of his ways.

Micky had to understand that no one, but no one, walked over Freddie Jackson.

Micky Daltry, though, would never walk again.

Lena was watching Jackie as she prepared the steak and home-made chips for her husband's dinner. In fairness, she begrudgingly admitted that he had scratched around for a couple of grand for her. He was at least trying.

As Jackie sliced mushrooms and tomatoes Lena saw the happiness on her daughter's face and felt an urge to hug her. She didn't though, she knew she was not a tactile woman.

Jackie poured them both another glass of wine and chattered on, oblivious to the fact that her mother was all but ignoring her conversation.

'He's getting us new furniture, Mum. The new TV comes tomorrow, and the bedroom suites for the girls – oh, Mum, they are gorgeous.'

The excitement in her voice pierced through her mother's reverie.

'Bedroom suites and all, eh?'

Jackie nodded. 'Even Kimberley's happy now, and you know what a stroppy whore she can be!'

They both laughed.

'His mum is going to baby-sit tonight and we're going to the pub for a few drinks. I can't wait, Mum. I am so pleased he's home.'

She stopped slicing and looked into her mother's eyes. Then she said quietly, seriously, 'I missed him, you know. When he ain't around I feel as if a part of me is missing.' She had tears in her eyes as she said it, and without thinking Lena pulled her daughter into her arms.

'He's home now, love.'

Unaccustomed to her mother hugging her, Jackie made the most of it and cried on Lena's shoulder. She smelled of Blue Grass perfume and cigarettes. It was a comforting, homely smell and she was enjoying the sensation of being loved when a voice said loudly, 'Fucking hell, what's all this, then? The Waltons?'

Freddie pulled Jackie roughly from her mother's arms and seeing her tears he said seriously, 'Here, what's up with you? What you crying for, babe?'

He shouted at his mother-in-law. 'What you fucking done to her?'

Lena sighed heavily as her daughter said through her sobs, 'She ain't done nothing. I was upset because I am so glad to have you home again, that's all, because I had missed you so much, waited so long and now you are here…'

Freddie looked into his wife's face and seeing the love there, alongside the need and the want so strong she was capable of killing for him. He felt suddenly as if he was inside again and the walls were coming in on him.

He hugged her to him and saw his mother-in-law walk from the room without a backward glance. 'I am home, Jackie. Everything is fine now, don't keep on about it.'

He wiped out in a few words the years she had been alone with the children, her loneliness and her daily struggle. He was telling her that he had had enough of hearing about it, and she knew better than to harp on, so she just enjoyed the feel of his arms around her.

Dianna broke the tension by walking in the kitchen and saying loudly in a mock French accent, 'Ooh là là!'

Jackie watched as her husband picked up his daughter and kissed her. Dianna was already his favourite, and she could twist her father round her little finger. And all the time she watched the scene, Jackie had to swallow down her jealousy of a seven-year-old child. Her own flesh and blood.

She pulled the child from his arms and, giving her a playful slap on the behind she said gaily, 'Get back in there with your sisters. I am trying to cook a dinner here.'

As her daughter scampered merrily out of the kitchen, she turned back towards her husband but he was already rummaging in the ancient fridge for a beer. The moment was gone and she knew it.

She went back to her cooking, telling herself not to be so stupid, Dianna was a nice child and if she kept him home

then that could only be a good thing.

Maggie and Jimmy were in the pub when Jackie arrived. They had got there early and saved a table by the bar. It was already noisy and smoky. Maggie was drinking Southern Comfort and lemonade and even after three she didn't feel drunk. She was already a seasoned drinker, as were most of her friends.

Jimmy was, as always, looking at her. His dark hair and blue eyes were a winning combination as far as she was concerned and she smiled shyly back at him. As her mother said, he looked at her as if she was a great big present he was waiting to unwrap. Then she would remark with her acerbic wit, 'And make sure he don't unwrap too much, girl.'

Maggie would laugh, but now she had been well and truly unwrapped and the fear of losing him was acute. He seemed more enamoured of her, though, and that was allaying her fears for the moment.

She saw her sister walk in and waved her over.

'Where's Freddie?'

Pulling off her jacket Jackie said loudly, 'Give me a fucking chance to sit down will you!'

Maggie's eyes widened. This was Jackie all over. She talked to people as if they were dirt and, luckily for her, people swallowed because of Freddie and his reputation. But Maggie felt it more acutely because this was her big sister and she adored her.

Jimmy's brow was darkening and so Maggie said cheerfully, 'Who's rattled your cage?' She was skating on thin ice because Jackie was capable of turning on her, but she didn't know how else to diffuse the situation.

Looking down into her sister's eyes Jackie felt bad, but the familiar jealousy was once more upon her. Maggie's perfect skin, white teeth and neat figure had bothered her lately. She envied her sister her looks and her youth, she envied her the fart she had no kids and no ties. Freddie coming home had awakened her old anxieties. She knew he would cheat on her and she knew she would be once more plagued with self-doubt and self-loathing and, worst of all, she knew she would eventually accept his philandering because if she didn't he would leave her.

Not the most perfect of outlooks for any marriage.

'Sorry, darlin'. Get me a drink, would you?'

Jackie sat down and, as Maggie and Jimmy knew she would, stared at the door waiting for her husband.

Jimmy noticed that her hands were shaking. As she lit her cigarette he was surprised at how pronounced it was, but then he knew she was pilled up to the eyebrows most days, from slimming pills, Dexedrine to a few Mandrax. That was when she wasn't shovelling Valium and Norovail down her throat.

She was the proverbial accident waiting to happen.

He slipped from his seat and went outside to the car park. It was already dark and he could just make out the figure of Freddie in the corner of the car park, leaning down to the door of a dark green Granada. He walked over slowly, but he could hear what was being said.

'Ozzy said you could put me right.' The subservience in Freddie's voice was so shocking Jimmy stopped in his tracks.

'You sure you're up for this, Freddie? This is the big time, mate.' The man's voice was warm, friendly with an underlying threat running through it.

'Too right I am ready. I know the score, I can hold up my end.'

'Relax for fuck's sake, it's only a bit of puff.'

The man was smiling, Jimmy could hear it in his voice.

He toked on his cigarette before saying, 'I'll be in touch.'

Jimmy could see Freddie squaring up, could almost feel the excitement running through his veins. 'Thank you, Mr Clancy, I really appreciate it.'

'One last thing, Freddie?' The man pointed to Jimmy and said, 'That nosy little fucker anything to do with you?'

Freddie turned and motioned for Jimmy to come over to him, and as Jimmy got to him he grabbed him in a bear hug. 'This is me little cousin, Mr Clancy, Jimmy Jackson.'

'Little? Fuck me, what did they grow you lot in, horse shit?'

They all laughed.

The driver stuck his hand out and Jimmy shook it nervously. This was Siddy Clancy, and until now he had only ever heard the name. It was the Southeast equivalent of meeting a Hollywood star.

'I'll be in touch, OK?'

Freddie nodded once more and the car pulled away sharply, wheel-spinning out of the car park and nearly causing an accident as it barrelled down Dagenham Heathway towards the A13.

Freddie was puffed up like a peacock. Grinning, he grabbed Jimmy in an arm lock and started singing, 'We're in the money.'

Jimmy was caught up in his enthusiasm, and sang along.

'Fucking hell, Fred, Siddy Clancy. What a turn up!'

Freddie was serious suddenly.

'He's a cunt, and I am the man who is going to fuck him up.'

Jimmy wasn't sure he had heard right, Siddy Clancy was a bad man, a dangerous fuck. No one in their right mind would try to have him over, but he kept that pearl of wisdom to himself.

Freddie put a finger to his lip as he said, 'You keep this close to your chest right, and you can work with him alongside me. I'll show you the ropes, son. OK?'

Jimmy nodded as he was expected to. But he felt cold all of a sudden. Those were heavy-duty people and they were not really in his class, but he kept his own counsel.

Inside the warmth of the pub Freddie made his way straight over to a crowd of girls who were drinking at the bar.

Maggie saw her sister's face and sighed.

Jimmy slipped into the booth beside Maggie and, putting his arm around her, kissed the top of her head. Maggie instinctively snuggled in closer to him and watching the little tableau Jackie felt the rage that was always bubbling away inside her well up.

Her eyes were cutting through her husband's clothes and practically stabbing him in the back. He was aware of her watching but he didn't come back to sit with her until he had flirted enough to make the girls uneasy and his wife white faced and drawn.

Chapter Two

Steel Pulse was loud in the quiet of the room, cannabis smoke hung heavy on the air and the three men inside watched each other warily.

Outside the window were the usual summer sounds of kids laughing, traffic moving, and every now and then a car stereo booming its way down the street.

'What is it with him, eh?'

Freddie was shaking his head in disbelief while Jimmy was standing beside him, quietly watching the proceedings.

The black man with relaxed hair and gapped front teeth smiled wider. Jimmy knew that the man was dangerous. He looked friendly, affable even, but there was a steely glint in his eyes, and the unmistakable shape of a machete under his long leather coat. He also had a posse of mates outside the door of his house in South London.

Glenford Prentiss had a large spliff in his hand and he toked on it deeply before saying, in a gruff, smoke-filled voice that intermingled with his heavy coughing, 'It was shit, Freddie, that's the long and the short of it, man, nothing to wipe down. I sold it and you got your money. My boy made a serious fuck-up when he accepted it. I'm just saying in future I do the deals from now on.'

His thick Jamaican accent was interrupted as he tried to clear his throat. He was stoned but still lucid.

Freddie looked at the man before him. He was actually a nice geezer, he liked him, and he was absolutely right. Freddie had weighed Glenford off with some right shit the week before, and now he was learning a lesson.

Freddie prided himself on his ability to learn lessons, learn who could be had over, find out who might put up a bit of resistance. As he was Ozzy's front man he had to watch his step, mind his manners. Ozzy expected him to cream something off, not rip people off. There was a fine line and he knew that he had crossed it.

He had no choice but to hold his hand up, wipe his mouth and make the best of it.

He grinned, that white-toothed grin that crinkled up the corners of his eyes and made him look for all the world like someone's favourite son.

That grin belied the dangerous personality of its bearer and Glenford Prentiss knew that better than anyone. He had had his say, he was willing to fight his end, but he had a feeling he wouldn't have to. Why shoot the messenger boy? For all Freddie Jackson's hard-nosed demeanour he was only Siddy's puppet.

And Ozzy pulled all their strings.

Everyone knew that.

'It won't happen again.'

Glenford grinned. 'I know that, man.' He embraced Freddie then, laughing that infectious laugh he had. He slipped him a brown envelope stuffed with money, and Freddie didn't count it, he knew it wouldn't be light.

As Freddie pocketed the money Glenford said to him quietly, 'You got to try, man, I know that. I would have done the same myself.'

He passed the joint to Freddie who toked on it deeply, holding it in his lungs for a few seconds before he slowly exhaled it. Then looking at the joint he said, 'Now that is good grass.'

Glenford grinned. 'Me never smoke what me sell, boy. Especially when it was bought from white boys.'

They all laughed then and Jimmy felt the tension depart the room. He finally exhaled his own breath then. The blacks worried him, but only because they were so unpredictable. He liked Glenford though and he had said the week before that Freddie should only unload the shittier grass on the skinheads who never knew the difference.

In the car a few minutes later Jimmy said as much to him again.

'That was a close one, Freddie. I mean, like I said last week, they know their puff.'

Freddie stopped the car. Turning in the driver's seat he looked into Jimmy's face and said sternly, 'Don't you ever fucking lecture me again, right? We had a touch last week and that's the end of it.'

Jimmy nodded furiously. 'I know that, Freddie. I was just saying-'

'Shut it.'

Freddie was staring into his eyes and the venom was there for anyone to see. Jimmy could feel the menace and he swallowed down the retort he was longing to give.

He was nearly twenty years old and he was a player, and it was getting harder and harder to keep his anger on a leash. Freddie treated him like the hired help and it rankled. He could hold his own with anyone and he wanted the respect that should have afforded him.

Freddie slammed his fist on the steering wheel in frustration. 'I'm sorry, Jim, but look at me, I am still selling shite for Clancy and the time has come to put him wise, whatever Ozzy might think. He is lumped up for the fucking duration and I ain't spending the rest of my life as one of his heavies.'

He started the car up again. 'And I don't need you reminding me, all right?' He smiled then, a sad little smile. 'Let's go and get a drink, eh? I have a little bird on the go in Ilford, you can drop me there and take the car, OK?'

He turned on the cassette player and the sounds of Phil Collins filled the cramped space between them.

Jimmy sighed inwardly. Freddie hadn't been home for days and he knew it was bringing untold aggravation for everyone concerned, except of course, for the man who caused all the upset.

In the last six months he had caused murders with Jackie, and while everyone else suffered, Freddie just did his own thing.

As Maggie's dad always said, Freddie Jackson would never

change all the time women had tits.

'Stick the kids in the bath for me, would you?'

Maggie nodded, and, going upstairs, she started to run the bath, putting in a hefty dollop of Matey so the girls would have something to play with.

Once the girls were settled in there she washed their hair quickly and then left them playing with their toys.

In the front room she saw Jackie had opened another bottle of Liebfraumilch.

'Where the fuck is he? For all I know he's banged up.'

Lena, who was in the kitchen making sure her daughter had food in the fridge to feed her children, said loudly and sarcastically, 'They would have informed you by now.'

Maggie could have lamped her mother for her answer. While Jackie could convince herself Freddie was banged up she was, if not happy, then at least reassured that her errant husband wasn't trumping the nearest female he could lay his grubby hands on.

Jackie closed her eyes in distress. 'He's with a bird, ain't he?'

Maggie sat beside her on the sofa and said gently, 'You don't know that, Jackie. Calm yourself down, those kids can feel something's up.' She lit her a cigarette and placed it in her hand, taking the wine glass from her at the same time. 'This ain't going to do you any good, is it?'

Jackie sniffed, the tears near once more. 'It helps me sleep.'

Maggie lit a cigarette for herself. Seeing her sister like this drove her mad. Jackie was so strong in every way, but Freddie reduced her to nothing. Lena came in with two more wine glasses. She poured them quickly and, sipping hers daintily, she sat on the chair and said seriously, 'Sling him out, love, he's no good for you.'

Maggie could have screamed now. Her mother was like a cracked record and even though she spoke the truth it only served to make Jackie even more upset.

'Leave it out, Mum, can't you see she's upset enough as it is?'

She was staring at her mother trying to tell her to let it go. Lena shrugged and sipped at her wine then started once more in a friendly conversational tone.

'He's a fucking piece of shit. Your father was the same, he would track down a bit of strange like a bleeding bloodhound, him. Fights I had over that fat git…'

She was smiling now. 'Here, do you two remember that neighbour in Silvertown? What was her name?'

Jackie laughed suddenly. 'Maggie was too small to remember that one, Mum. Oh, your face!'

They laughed together and the sound was happy, friendly, they were allies now. All Jackie's hurt was forgotten at a funny memory.

'What happened?' Maggie was all ears now, interested in one of the family stories, stories that always involved her father, or her sister's husband and a woman, or series of women. But the tales were told in a funny way, they always saw the humour of their situation and they could make you laugh out loud.

'I heard off me sister Junie that he was trumping a blond-haired woman, she said she was a neighbour. So I'm looking out the window trying to catch the bastard and I see him and this blond bird who'd just moved in our flats, see. I opens the window and he shouts out to this sort, "I'll be over in a minute."'

Lena swigged at her wine, her voice as always getting higher and higher and her hands waving the cigarette and the wine glass around dangerously as she got into her story.

'Anyway, I went down the stairs of those flats like a bullet out of a gun. I go haring over to her place and I really fucking mullered her. Her old man came out and dragged me off, Jackie was giving him verbals, your father was doing his crust. I had handfuls of that poor whore's hair, there was claret all over the pavement… The neighbours were all out watching.'

They were laughing together now.

'So what happened?' Maggie was grinning at the way her mother and sister were roaring with laughter.

Then, wiping her eyes, Lena said, 'Well, it weren't her, was it.'

Maggie's eyes were stretched to their utmost. 'You're joking.'

They cracked up.

'Straight up, your father had borrowed a hammer off the woman's husband a couple of days before and they wanted it back. I could have fucking died on the spot.'

Jackie polished off her wine in two gulps and rubbed the tears from her cheeks with her fingers, laughing her head off.

'Oh, that was funny, Mum.'

Lena nodded then she said quietly, seriously, 'It weren't really. We make it funny, but it was terrible. The poor cow was battered like a Friday night cod. I see her up the Bingo sometimes, and I still feel bad about it. I battered the fuck out of her in front of her kids and she was a nice woman. Might have been a good mate even, you never know.'

Maggie could hear the sorrow in her mother's voice and felt a sudden urge to cry for the wasted years she had spent chasing a man who didn't want to be chased. Waiting for a man who had no intention of coming home. Jackie was her mother's daughter all right.

Then Lena said flatly, her voice husky from too many cigarettes and late nights, 'You'll learn, Jackie, just like I did, love, they ain't worth it. When you get to my age they only stay home because no one else wants them. If I had a pound for every time I followed him, fought over him, argued and screamed over him, I would be a rich woman. I dragged you kids all over the country visiting him when he was banged up and he never appreciated it, not really.'

She swallowed down her wine.

'My mum used to say to me, don't assume because you want him everyone else does. I wish I had listened to her because she was right.'

Jackie stood up unsteadily and walked out of the room.

Lena sighed then. 'You'll have to stay with her till he deigns to come home. Who knows what she's capable of.'

Maggie nodded sadly. 'Do you regret marrying me dad then, Mum, really?'

Lena smiled and her washed-out good looks were evident in the kindly light of an evening drawing to a close.

'Every fucking day, sweetheart, every day of my life.'

At first Maggie thought that she was dreaming, and putting up her arms protectively she tried to push the offending hands away.

They were still there. Opening her eyes she saw in the dimness her brother-in-law Freddie Jackson trying to lift up the nightie she was wearing, all the time kissing her neck and shoulders. Realisation hit her then and she sat bolt upright on the sofa, the fear apparent on her face.

'Stop it.'

She was whispering, even in her fright she was aware that her sister would rip her head off, would blame her if she saw this sight.

Freddie gave his usual lazy smile. He had Jackie where he wanted her and they both knew it. He was trying to force Maggie back into the cushions once more, smothering her with his mouth, the wet stickiness of him making the girl want to heave. He smelled of beer, cannabis and sweat. He had been on the missing list for a few days and she was staying over with her sister to try to keep her company and, more importantly, to keep her calm. Now here was the man of the hour trying it on with his wife's little sister, and the worst of it was that Jackie would never believe her husband capable of anything so low. Even though low behaviour was normal behaviour to him, Maggie knew the blame would be put squarely on her.

She was pushing him away more aggressively now.

'Fuck off, Freddie.'

He was digging his fingers into the flesh on the top of her arms and she felt tears stinging her eyes. The fear was enveloping her now, fear of him and fear of her sister mingling. She punched him in the chest as hard as she could.

'Will you fuck off.'

He still hadn't spoken. But now as she writhed in his arms he looked down at her and she saw he was determined.

'Shut the fuck up, you stupid little bitch, do you want fatty down on top of us?'

Somewhere in his drink- and drug-addled brain he knew that what he was doing was wrong, but he had been after this particular piece for a while. She wouldn't even accept a lift home from him any more, preferring to get the bus. She knew her sister had her suspicions but could prove nothing. As always, everyone involved with Jackie saved her feelings, yet she walked over people at the drop of a hat and expected total loyalty even though she didn't know the meaning of the word.

The only person Jackie was loyal to was this drunken beast who, at this moment, was trying to shove a heavy knee between her slim thighs.

It was the baby Rox's voice that seemed to break into his head like the blow of an axe.

'Auntie Mags?'

Maggie saw the little girl in the doorway and, feeling Freddie's grip loosen, took the opportunity to slide from beneath him on to the shag-pile carpeted floor.

'Come here, sweetheart. Do you want a drink, lovie?'

She scrambled to her feet and then, picking the child up, she walked quickly into the kitchen. Her heart was still beating a tattoo in her chest and the revulsion was still in her mouth. It tasted tannic, like tin, or lead. She wanted to clean her teeth and bath herself. Wash the feel of him off her.

She sat the child on the draining board and made her a drink of orange juice. Rox gulped at it gratefully. She was a dear child, with beautiful blue eyes and thick curly hair. Maggie hugged her and rubbed her face in Rex's soft curls. If she ever had a child she hoped it would be just like this one, she was perfect.

She heard Freddie stirring a few minutes later, knew even at her young age that he was waiting for her to return to the front room. She stood in the freezing cold kitchen and cuddling the child to her she waited until she heard him stumble up the stairs to bed with her sister.

Maggie waited another ten minutes until she heard voices, and then she deemed it safe. She brought the child into the front room and settled her beside her so they were both comfortable. Rox wanted a story, and as Maggie spun her a yarn she could hear the bedsprings above her creaking.

She lay there for hours, and the dawn was breaking before she dared to close her eyes and sleep. It had been a close shave this time, but she was determined to best him. She always kept it to herself because of Jackie. Freddie used that knowledge and she lost a serious amount of respect from him because of it.

There was no one to confide in because it would cause too much trouble. Her father would cause a war, her mother would cause a bigger war and the family would be smashed apart in nanoseconds.

The worst of it all was she couldn't even tell her Jimmy. He idolised the man who in turns frightened and disgusted her on a daily basis.

She was almost fifteen years old and already her life was becoming a series of deceptions.

'What's the matter with your arms, Mags?'

Her mother's voice sounded worried. 'Has that fucking Jimmy been pushing you about?'

Her father was up and out of his chair in seconds. 'You what, Lena? What's wrong with her?'

Maggie pushed her mother away. 'For crying out loud, we was mucking about that's all, he don't know his own strength!'

Lena looked into her daughter's lovely face and saw the confusion there.

Maggie turned to her father. 'Tell her will you, Dad. Jimmy would never hurt me in a million years.'

'She's right, Lena, he worships her.' He picked up the Sun from the table and laughed as he said, 'He is a big lad for his age, be fair.'

He went back to his chair and his television, happy that his younger daughter was OK.

Lena wasn't so convinced. 'You ain't been yourself lately. Everything all right?' She nodded, pointing with her head towards her daughter's tummy. Realising what her mother thought, Maggie's eyes stretched to their utmost. 'Thanks a lot, Mum! I ain't like me sister, getting a belly full before I have even had a life.'

Lena knew by the scandalised tone in her daughter's voice that she was wrong about that much at least.

Jackie burst through the door, her eyes red rimmed from crying. 'He's gone.'

Lena rolled her eyes at the ceiling as she filled the kettle with water. 'What, he on the missing list again, then?'

Jackie was lighting a cigarette, and didn't even bother to answer her mother's question.

'The airing cupboard is full of puff and the stink is going right through the house. I'll fucking skin him when he finally turns up.'

She was opening a brown vial that contained her Dexedrine and swallowed them down without a drink of any kind. Almost immediately, she picked up the bread knife and started to cut herself a sandwich.

Lena took the bread knife off her and put the bread away. 'How can you eat on those things?'

Jackie laughed. 'They take a while to work, but I smoked a joint on me way over and now I have the munchies.'

Joe was almost catapulted from his chair then. 'You what? Drugs is it now, you dozy mare!'

Lena was trying to calm her husband down but he was roaring and swearing now in pure anger.

'Fucking Persian rugs now, not just the slimming pills, and the slimming injections. Oh no, she has to start smoking the Jamaican Woodbines.'

He pushed his face into his daughter's and bellowed, 'What about them poor kids of yours, eh? Bad enough they are lumbered with that useless ponce as a father, now they have to contend with you and all. He was higher than Halley's Comet last night in the pub with that skinny little Hutchins girl hanging off his arm…'

Maggie and Lena both closed their eyes in utter hopelessness at his words. As usual they had kept that gem of information to themselves.

'What, little Bethany Hutchins? But she's only a kid.'

Jackie felt a wave of humiliation wash over her. The girl was well known. Bethany's father, Alex Hutchins, and all her brothers were louts, drunks and thieves and Bethany was only seventeen. A young-looking seventeen, with high breasts and a shock of red hair. Her father would cause the Third World War over her and Freddie knew that.

He wouldn't?

She looked at her mother and mouthed the words out loud.

'He wouldn't.'

Lena sighed. 'He already has, love.'

Then she turned on her husband, who was quiet now, realising what he had just caused. 'You couldn't keep your trap shut, could you. Now look what you've done!'

Jackie snapped to life then. 'How long has this been going on, then?'

Maggie sighed audibly. 'A couple of days, that's all. He was drunk in the pub, you know what he's like.'

'But I'm pregnant!'

Jackie was silent once more, the shock had hit her at last and her secret was out. Her father started ranting again and Lena let him go because what he said was right.

'And you are still pumping those Dexies down your throat when you've got a child cooking inside you? Have you no fucking care for anyone or anything, girl?'

Jackie was wrong-footed now, but she was too angry to care. 'Everyone knows that stimulants can't hurt the baby-'

'That's an urban myth, Jackie, and you know it. You should be fucking ashamed of yourself.' Maggie's voice was hard and even Lena was taken aback at the disgust it held. 'Whatever he is or he ain't, you married him and you keep taking him back. No wonder he walks all over you and has no respect. He'll skin you alive if he thinks you've been taking pills while you are in the club and I for one won't blame him.'

Jackie turned on her little sister then, because the truth of the words hit her like a cold shower. 'Don't you fucking lecture me, madam. I know what you and Happy Harold get up to on my settee.'

For the first time ever Maggie wasn't frightened of the woman towering over her. Instead she was so angry she felt as if she could fight her own end if needs be.

She shouted into her sister's now shocked face. 'Oh shut the fuck up, Jackie, me and Jimmy are courting. You should be ashamed of yourself!'

'She ain't got no fucking shame. If she did she wouldn't be with him!'

Jackie turned on her father then.

The screaming was reaching crescendo when Maggie picked up her bag and coat and left the house. She was shaking with anger at the knowledge her sister would take any kind of drugs while carrying a child, even if the child was fathered by a piece of shit like Freddie Jackson. It was wrong, so very wrong. And if she stayed near Jackie she would not be responsible for her actions.

Outside she breathed in the cold air to try to calm herself down. Freddie had been home for eight months so Jackie could be a few months gone. She had always had a big stomach and since the last one it was even harder to tell, plus she still didn't stop eating even with all the pills she popped.

Maggie lit a cigarette and started to walk to her friend's. She needed to distance herself from her sister for one night at least.

Jimmy would know where to find her if needs be.

Siddy Clancy was laughing and Freddie laughed along with him even though he didn't think the joke was funny. But he knew how to play the game, he knew the score.

Siddy had heard about the rip-offs and Freddie had been expecting a tug, he had just expected it sooner.

In fact the reason he had lost so much respect for Siddy was because he had swallowed it for so long. Freddie was guessing, rightly, that someone up the food chain had finally collared Siddy for a word and now he was doing his Doris Day act.

They were both drunk, drinking heavily to prove a point. Freddie was aware that he had sunk one too many vodkas for his own good. But then he looked at Siddy and realised the man was gone. He was completely out of his box and this was made even more apparent by the fact he was talking too much about Ozzy and Ozzy's business.

Freddie looked around the small saloon bar and noticed that it was nearly empty, then he remembered they were on afters and it was an Ozzy-friendly pub. One he had bought and managed many moons ago, before he had been sentenced for armed robbery and conspiracy charges. The murder had never been proved, however, but he could still be brought to book over it, everyone knew that.

Filth wanted him to stay where he was for the duration and at this moment in time so did Freddie. He saw an opportunity and he was determined to take it.

'What are you trying to say, then?' He frowned. 'You insinuating that Ozzy ain't straight up?'

His voice was loud and he knew the conversation was being listened to by Paul Becks, who ran the pub, and his wife Liselle, a pretty girl whose demeanour hid a psychotic personality.

In his drunken state Siddy had let his guard down, and now he was playing the big man, playing the part he had always played thanks to his inexhaustible supply of brothers and his natural aggressiveness.

'All I am saying is Ozzy has been away a long time, and this is my fucking manor now.' Somewhere in his drink-addled brain a small voice was telling him to go home, that Freddie was not the man to boast to. But he was enjoying himself, he was enjoying bigging himself up even though in reality he didn't need to do it.

Siddy lit a cigarette with difficulty and when he finally puffed on it to get it alight he started coughing.

Freddie looked at Paul and shook his head sadly. 'Get home, Siddy, you are talking too much.'

It was said with contempt and Freddie knew that he had in effect thrown down a gauntlet. He planted his feet firmly on the floor ready for an attack,

Ozzy had always told him, 'You give people the bullets and they will fire them'. How right he was.

'What do you fucking mean!' Clancy was annoyed now he had been caught out. He had assumed Freddie was up for the gossip and now he knew he was wrong he wanted to shut him up.

'Fucking Ozzy is a nice bloke, I don't dispute that, but he's been away ten years and he still has a big lump before he's eligible for parole. It's me who's run the fucking streets for him, me and my brothers.'

He swallowed down his drink in one gulp.

'Don't you fucking come the old woman with me, mate. I knew him when we was kids.'

Freddie laughed then. 'Well, I was banged up with him, and he is straight up, he is doing his bird with a smile. And a cheery wave. You can't even imagine what A grade is like, mate, let alone a double A cat prison. You never been inside, have you? Not even a remand.'

It was said contemptuously as if there was an underlying reason for it, and even in his cups Siddy knew he was wrong-footed. 'What do you mean by that? You fucking wanker…' Paul Becks walked closer to the counter where he always kept a loaded shotgun for events such as this.

Freddie held up a hand in a gesture of friendliness. 'Go home, Siddy. We are drunk and you are getting mouthy about Oz and he was fucking good to me in stir. He looked after me and I can't stand here and let you bad-mouth him.'

Freddie was keeping a wary eye on his protagonist and Paul and Liselle knew that. They were for Ozzy, who had also been very good to them. Consequently, at the moment they were with Freddie. For all Clancy's brothers they knew it was Ozzy who called the shots. Even from the SSB unit in Parkhurst.

They also knew that the only reason Freddie had ended up there was because he was a lunatic who had had more fights and arguments with screws than any other person in the prison system.

He was an unmanageable, someone who everyone was wary of, screws and cons alike.

Chapter Three

'How far gone is she?'

Maggie shrugged. 'She never said. Me dad let the cat out of the bag about that Bethany and she went ballistic. Then she said she was in the club, and we had all seen her just drop the Dexedrine. If Freddie knew…'

Jimmy nodded. He could understand the fear in her voice. 'Fucking hell, he'd go bonkers. He has his faults but he does love them kids.'

Maggie looked at him incredulously. Freddie could afford to love the kids, he hardly ever saw them. Whatever her sister was or wasn't, she had looked after them all from day one to the best of her ability.

'Are you having a laugh or what? Loves them kids? He is never home. He don't even know them.'

Jimmy sighed as if it was all too much trouble for him, and he looked so much like Freddie then that she felt a chill go through her.

'Take it from me, he loves them girls. He just wants a boy, that's all.'

He said it with such aplomb he could have been talking about himself, and this was not lost on Maggie. She had had a glimpse into the future and at the moment it did not augur well as far as she was concerned. Jimmy was spending too much time with Freddie, but that could be rectified.

Maggie tossed her long blond hair as she snorted in derision. 'Who's he think he is, Henry the Eighth? He wants a son?'

This was lost on Jimmy who had no knowledge of history unless it involved the lineage of someone he knew about.

'What are we going to do?'

Jimmy shrugged. He had tracked her down for no other reason than he fancied a quick tumble with her before he picked Freddie up from the Becks' pub. He loved her, but sometimes he just wanted a bit of the other with no aggravation. With her sister and his cousin, though, that was nigh on an impossibility. He adored her, he could not imagine life without her in it, but every now and again he just wanted a faceless fuck, and like all men of his ilk he saw it as his due. So, taking a deep breath he answered her as he knew she wanted him to. 'Fucked if I know, babe.'

He was putting the ball back in her court, because the way things were she was going to call the shots. He was supposed to be at the pub by now but he had waited for Maggie instead and it had been a waste of time.

Now he was gutted, and he was sick to death of Freddie and all he entailed as well.

Paul and Liselle looked at the two men warily.

Siddy looked ferocious, but it was Freddie their money was on. Plus, Freddie had Ozzy's best interests at heart. And for all Siddy's family connections no one in their right mind would attempt to have Ozzy over. Even Siddy's brothers would take a step back if they knew what he had been mouthing off about, and knowing Freddie they would hear about it sooner rather than later.

He would need to justify any violence and back up any claims of Siddy being disloyal to Ozzy. That is where they would come in and they were willing to do just that. Ozzy might be banged up but his finger was still firmly on the pulse of all his enterprises.

'Go home for fuck's sake, Siddy.'

Once more Freddie was mugging him off and Siddy knew it. Even through his drink and his drugs he knew he had entered a lion's den of aggravation and there was nothing he could do about it, he was too far gone. If he walked away now he lost all respect from his peers, and yet if he stayed and fronted it out he would also lose respect because he had caused it, he had created the situation in the first place.

It was the ultimate insult, but Freddie said it so nicely that anyone who wasn't in the know would not understand the seriousness of it.

Siddy was losing all reason now because of the way Freddie was talking to him. He could hear the disrespect in his voice, see the arrogance in his stance and almost smell his own humiliation. He was drunk, he was stoned and he was about to make the biggest mistake of his life.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Paul watching him warily, knew he had his hand on the shotgun under the counter and also knew that he would shoot him without a second's thought before he would shoot Freddie Jackson.

Freddie was flavour of the month with everyone lately, even Siddy's own family. He had taken over so much it was only now, with the situation in hand, that he finally understood he had been played like a fighting fish and Freddie Jackson had reeled him in.

He picked up a pint pot by the handle and gathering all his strength he attempted to smash it into Freddie's face. Pint pots could do serious damage, they were heavy glass and they were a good weapon.

'You fat cunt.'

Freddie sounded as if he was waiting for it, which Siddy conceded he most probably was. Siddy knew when he was beaten.

Freddie had stepped back and grabbed his wrist, which held the pint pot, then, smashing Siddy's arm down on the bar, he waited until he had dropped the pot before he began systematically beating him with closed fists, and eventually finishing the beating with his feet. The pint pot was smashed over Siddy's head for good measure.

As Siddy lay on the dirty carpet he could smell beer, sick and his own blood. He should have gone home, but it was too late now. He knew he had walked into this fight without any kind of redress. Freddie had repeatedly asked him to leave and in the cold light of pain he knew he was finished.

Freddie, for his part, was euphoric. He had done what he had set out to do, he had witnesses to Siddy's utter disregard for Ozzy and his predicament, and he had the goodwill of all Ozzy's workforce, many of whom were sick and tired of Siddy and his crew.

Freddie was out of breath now he had finished his business with Siddy, and he looked at Paul and Liselle in mock distress as he was handed a double brandy. Knocking it back in one gulp, he was surprised that he suddenly felt as sober as a judge. Extreme violence could do that to you, he had found out over the years. It was as if the adrenaline cancelled out the alcohol somehow and left you feeling more alive and alert than you had ever felt before.

He kicked Siddy in the head a few more times, holding on to the bar so he could use all his considerable strength for the attack.

Siddy was groaning, and throwing up beer and vodka all over himself and the floor.

'Throw that cunt out, will ya? Fucking wanker, he is.' This from a small man in the corner who was playing cards with his brother-in-law. It was a measure of Freddie's newfound credibility that the man felt confident enough to call a Clancy a cunt in public, though they had all said that and worse in private over the years.

Paul looked into Freddie's eyes and grinned, and his grin told Freddie he had just found himself a friend for life.

Now all he had to do was find a few more, and he would be home and dry.

Jackie was frightened. Her secret was out and her father had been more than vocal about what he thought of her and her antics, as he kept referring to her drug taking. Her mother, for once, had not attempted to keep the peace and Maggie walking out had not helped the situation. That her Maggie had walked away from her had hurt. No matter what she did, Maggie had always stood beside her. Maggie idolised her and she needed that adulation, everyone else mugged her off over the way Freddie treated her, if not to her face then behind her back. Maggie was the only one who really cared about her whatever.

She loved Maggie, really loved her, but sometimes her feelings veered towards hatred as she saw her little sister enjoying her life so much. Maggie really didn't know just how lucky she was. Jimmy thought the sun shone out of her, everyone adored her. She had no idea what life was really like.

Not like Jackie did.

Her own life was so difficult that she had trouble getting out of bed some days. Everything had been on hold for so long, and she had put so much store on her husband finally coming home, that she had forgotten that the reality of Freddie was so much different to her dreams.

In her dreams he was perfect. She had seen him coming back home, grateful to her for waiting so long. She had seen him loving her like never before, seen his grateful look as he saw his children all clean and cared for, saw him telling her he loved her more than anyone else in the world. This fantasy had kept her going for all those long and lonely years. When she was rock bottom, struggling to make ends meet, or lying alone in her bed going mad for the touch of a man, that fantasy had been what had kept her alive.

But instead, he had walked back into her life a day late and then he had managed to destroy her all over again. And the worst of it was, she knew she had let him.

Would always let him.

That hurt more than anything: the knowledge that he knew he could do what he wanted and she would let him.

If she had so much as looked at another man he would have taken care of it from inside the prison, he would have seen her maimed, in pain and even seen his children motherless if it meant he kept his reputation in hand. There was no way he would have stood for the humiliation of his wife going on the trot with another man, even if he had got a twenty. She would have had to wait for him. Freddie was lucky because unlike a lot of the wives it had been what she had wanted to do.

In some ways she wished he was banged up again. When he had been away from her and away from everyone around him, it had been the only time she had felt he was wholly hers.

He had loved her with letters and visits, though even then he had still had his birds visiting him as well. As the years had gone on, she had been his only constant and that had made her happy for a while.

She had seen them off, all the girls who had loved bragging that their bloke was banged up, that he was a dangerous criminal, that he had a reputation. Of course, eventually nature will out and the girls had dropped away from him. Who could blame them? A banged-up bloke can't keep you interested without taking you out, giving you sex and buying you things, which was all his birds had wanted deep down. They had exchanged his letters for a real live man who they could actually have physical contact with. He had loved her then, because he knew she was the only female company he was going to get.

Then he had come home, and he had gone on his usual busman's holiday trumping anything with a pulse and a pair of tits. And she had swallowed it all, until now. Now she had the added humiliation of Bethany Hutchins. Bethany, who had tits like lumps of warm cement and a reputation that made her sex life a who's who of criminals from the local manor. Jackie closed her eyes tight in distress. She hated him when he did this to her, she knew he didn't care a toss about her feelings, or the fact she had to see these people on a daily basis. Up the shops, in the pub, at friends' flats and houses – this was a small community and he would fuck his way through it if she wasn't careful, like he had before he went away. Even her mates weren't off limits to him, as she had found out over the years.

Yet for all his faults, real and imagined, if he knew she was pregnant and dropping pills he would kill her. She had learned many years ago that the best form of defence with Freddie was attack. So she put her coat on and, leaving the girls alone in bed, she walked from her house.

Bethany Hutchins was about to get the shock of her little life.

Maggie was upset but she had finally accepted her boyfriend's haphazard loving. She knew he had a lot on his mind and she allowed for that. Jimmy would always love her for the way she understood his feelings without him having to explain himself over and over again.

Jimmy adored her. He needed her, but his work was taking his life over because Freddie was so unstable. Jimmy for his part had a feeling that Freddie was going to piss all over their fireworks if they weren't careful. He was off the rails, looking for fault with Clancy. In short he was after his pavement. He wanted all that Clancy had, and knowing his cousin like he did, he was going to get it whatever.

Freddie was so dangerous, yet he was also in his own way astute. He knew how to tap into people's fears, knew instinctively what scared them. Jimmy was his cousin's number two. He loved being trusted so much, and he knew Freddie would do whatever was needed to keep them both in the manner they had become so accustomed to.

Life was catching up with him even at his young age and he had the sense to see that. He also knew that whatever shit Freddie brought to their door he had to fight it with him side by side.

That was the law of their world. But it didn't mean he had to like it.

Jeannie Hutchins was in her late forties but looked older, not that anyone would ever have said that to her face, of course. She had the deep-grooved skin of a woman who had smoked and drunk herself old before her time. Her hair was cut short and blow-dried into a halo around her head. Her heavy green eye shadow and liner made her look demented, her lipstick was Burnt Orange by Max Factor, a colour she had worn since the sixties. Her thin body was wiry looking and she could have the proverbial row when necessary.

She wondered if she would have to defend herself this night because as usual her husband was nowhere to be seen. That could be a good thing, though she would have to wait and see the outcome before she decided that.

When she had opened her front door and seen Jackie standing there, her heart had sunk down to her boots, even though she had been expecting her.

Because in her day she had been Jackie. She also knew Jackie well and liked her. They were two of a kind, both had men who were villains, who were quite happy to walk all over them and who expected them to wait until they were released from prison. No matter what.

Bethany had made a big mistake, and she had inadvertently upset her mother. Because Jeannie had been on the receiving end of women and girls like her youngest daughter all her married life, her Bethany was going to get the hiding of her life. It was long overdue, and she was quite happy to dish it out herself if Jackie was not up to the job. Jeannie felt that her daughter was on the slippery slope of becoming a villain's bird and she knew it was hard enough being a villain's wife, let alone being the number two in the equation.

Now as she looked at herself twenty years earlier, her resolve was strengthened. 'I've been expecting you, Jackie love.'

This was not what Jackie had been expecting and she found herself smiling into the eyes of a kindred spirit.

Inside the flat the smell was overpowering, Jeannie was a housework dodger and the place looked like a tip. In the small lounge a large colour TV took pride of place and even though it was sticky from children's hand marks and covered in dogs' hair it was still bright enough to light the whole room up. Bethany was sitting in a large Dralon chair and the look on her face was priceless to the two women.

Jackie knew immediately that Jeannie was giving her daughter a lesson in life and secretly thanked whatever God had decided to smile on her this night.

'Hello, Jackie.'

Jackie grinned nastily. 'Hello, Bethany, long time no see.'

The atmosphere in the room was electric and Bethany was staring at her mother now as if she had never seen her before in her life. She was aware she had been served up to Jackie and the knowledge was terrifying her. That her own mother would take an outsider's part was unheard of. They were a family and family stayed together no matter what happened.

Wait until she told her dad about all this!

As Jeannie put the kettle on she heard the first sound of fist on skin. It was hard not to interfere but she knew one day her daughter would thank her for this night. At least she hoped so anyway.

Her granny used to say if you lay down with dogs you got up with fleas. Well, her daughter's fleas had well and truly come to bite her.

She could hear the screaming and crying as the kettle boiled.

'You took your fucking time!'

Freddie was not as annoyed as Jimmy had thought he would be, in fact he looked euphoric. He also looked sober, though he was just about to snort a line of amphetamine off the counter.

He automatically cut one for his little cousin.

Paul and Liselle were grinning and as Jimmy was handed a drink they filled him in on the night's excitement.

As Jimmy listened, the smile on his face got more and more frozen because the Clancy family might not be as amenable as they all seemed to think about Siddy's injuries. He kept this to himself, though, because he knew that there would be no reasoning with Freddie while he was like this.

In truth there was no reasoning with him at any time.

But Jimmy needed to think, to digest the information and to gather up a plan of attack in case they might need one.

As he listened to Paul explaining to Freddie what he was going to do the next day, however, his heart got lighter by the second.

'Me and Liselle visit him every month and bring him up to spec, see, Freddie. We knew that Siddy was having him over like, but there wasn't much we could do without proof.'

Paul poured them all another drink as he continued. 'But it's the houses we need the help with and I reckon you'll have to take them over as well. Liselle won't let me near the brasses, as you can imagine.'

The three men laughed, much to the chagrin of Liselle who was too sensible to let them know that her husband was about two inches from having his balls removed without any kind of anaesthetic.

Freddie knew nothing about the houses, but this did not show on his face. He was already wondering how much he could earn from it all. He had never seen himself as a ponce, though he had been called it more than once during the course of his life. He knew all about it though, he had picked up a lot on his sojourn inside.

'Tell Ozzy to put me cousin down as a visitor. He ain't ever had a capture and that will take the onus off you and the wife. Ozzy can deal directly with him then, can't he?'

This suited Paul right down to the ground. He hated being the go-between and he was always frightened it would all come on top, which would leave Liselle and his kids without any back up. The problem with skulduggery was that there was always someone waiting in the wings for all your glory, and he was in truth just a bread-and-butter Face. He liked to know there was someone higher up the food chain to take the flak. That person was now Freddie Jackson and Paul was thrilled about that fact. He had been in on Freddie's first foray into leadership and he would subsequently never forget it.

He liked Freddie as well, in his own way, and he knew Freddie was mad enough to keep most of the pretenders off his turf.

For Paul it was a win-win situation.

Later, after Siddy's brothers had been to the hospital they returned to the pub to see what they could salvage from the situation with Freddie Jackson. Their jobs were OK for the moment but they knew they had the hard wait until Ozzy decided what their fates should be.

In fairness to Freddie, Siddy had by all accounts asked for what he had received and they were not about to rock anyone's boat, least of all their own. At the end of the day, no one knew Siddy like they did and so they had an understanding of the trouble that could help them salvage, if nothing else, their reputations.

They were nervous but friendly and Freddie could not fault them.

Dawn had broken before any of them thought about going home.

Jeannie was lying across Bethany, trying to stop her husband Alex from killing her. She had already stood by and seen her daughter take one hammering, and she was not about to let her take another.

'She is only young, he swept her off her feet, you know what Jackson's like… He'd shag a fence if it was all that was available.'

She was trying now to push her husband towards the bedroom door.

'Jackson is now Ozzy's main dealer and this mad bitch has caused murders with his wife,' he shouted. 'He took out Siddy. Fucking Siddy, my mate, my old mucker is shitting it over that cunt and now I hear my daughter is his main squeeze.'

Alex was losing his anger now as she knew he would, so she carried on pushing him out of the room as gently as she could. Providing he couldn't see Bethany his rage would subside, although hearing it being replaced by fear in her husband's voice meant she was getting scared too.

'I stood by and let Bethany get a slap from his fat wife, it is sorted. Now all she needs is you after her and all. She has learned a valuable lesson, so let it go for fuck's sake.'

'Paul was willing to shoot fucking Siddy rather than have any hag off Freddie Jackson, do you understand what that means, woman? I work for Siddy! So where does that leave me?'

Jeannie didn't know but she was too shrewd to say that.

'It leaves you where you were before, running your scams until you are told different. Now when you see Freddie you act nice, you congratulate him on his promotion and you keep your trap shut and you hope against hope that he ain't a one for holding grudges.'

Her husband was nodding now, but she could almost taste his fear and it was communicating itself to everyone in the house. Even the music that was normally a constant source of irritation seemed to have stopped.

Bethany was quiet as she listened, wishing with all her heart that she had not drunk so much and that she had not been so welcome in her father's local pub where she had been taken on a daily basis since a babe in arms. Where she had been petted over after cutting her first tooth and where her holy communion had been held in the back bar. She was too comfortable there, even she had come to realise that.

But that was all academic now, that trouble was over, and new trouble had come to take its place.

Such was her life since she had been a small child.

Maggie and Jackie were holding hands.

Jackie had miscarried her baby at four o'clock that morning, and now she was back in the fold with her family and her husband.

No one had mentioned anything to Freddie about her drinking or her drug taking and he had been magnanimous with his wife as he had not been around when the accident had happened. She had slipped down the stairs and that had caused it all.

It had been a five-month foetus and he had been shocked that she had been so far gone. It had also been a male child, and this had affected Freddie more than he would have thought possible.

He had heard through the grapevine about his wife's visit to Bethany and because he put the blame down to himself he was being especially attentive towards her. He felt responsible inasmuch as he had fucked the girl in question. His wife's interference had frightened her away, which had actually done him a favour.

Now Jackie was at home with her sister, pale and wan, determined to diet and also determined to give Freddie another baby, a son.

She knew he wanted a son so badly that if she produced one she would be safe. Safer than she was now anyway.

He was virile, he was a slag and he would give a baby out to anyone who opened her legs and was pleasing on the eye. And that was something she could not take. The only thing she had going for her was that she was the mother of his children and he loved those kids. A boy would be the icing on the cake, and she was willing to use whatever she could to keep him beside her.

Maggie smiled as she placed another mug of tea beside her sister. 'Can I get you anything, mate?'

Jackie grinned, happy they were back on an even keel once more. 'Light me a fag would you, babe, and then maybe make me a salad sandwich, eh?'

Maggie nodded. She had not long made her a stack of bacon rolls. 'Still on your diet, then!'

They laughed together, they knew each other better than anyone would ever know them and they were once more happy with that situation.

The upset and row was forgotten.

Until the next time.

Freddie looked around the house in Ilford and could not believe his eyes.

Wall-to-wall birds, all shapes, all sizes and all for the taking. Black ones, blonde ones, Chinese ones, even Asian ones. He felt as if he had died and woken up in pussy heaven.

They sat about the large lounge in various states of undress, leaving nothing to the imagination. And they were all looking at him expectantly, all watching him warily, all waiting to see who he put the moves on first. As usual his reputation with the ladies had preceded him. And the best thing was he didn't even have to buy them a drink.

Well, their question was easily answered: the tall blonde with the cheap home perm but a pair of Bristols that looked so large they should have had their own passports. She had nice teeth, too. He was funny like that, could never knob a bird with, as he put it, rusty railings. He was always telling anyone who would listen that personal hygiene of the North and South was a requisite for his amours.

As he grinned at Stephanie Treacher and she beamed back, he felt the first stirring of interest inside his pants.

Then a tall woman with short blond hair, piercing green eyes and a deep husky voice walked into the room. 'You must be Freddie?'

He looked her over as he did all women, and said jauntily, 'And you are?'

She smiled then, a wide, white-toothed, even smile that he was quick to notice didn't reach her eyes.

'Your boss, darling. I am Ozzy's sister Patricia. Follow me through to the office.' As she walked out of the door he noticed the girls were all smiling at him, not with him but at him. He had heard about this woman but he had never seen her before, and she had the same rep as a lot of the men he dealt with. Fair but hard was the general consensus.

It suddenly occurred to him that she really was his boss.

Pat, as she was known, had a long lean body, almost boyish, and incredibly long legs. She also walked with shoulders back and the air of someone who knew what they were about. As he followed her he glanced around the room at all the girls, and the look told them they could wait.

Stephanie raised her eyebrows in a friendly fashion and he winked at her. Confident she was on his list of things to do, she went back to filing her nails. She had scratched a customer earlier and he had not been best pleased. As a school teacher the man was worried about his wife's reaction to a scratch that ran the length of his back, a scratch he would never had experienced if he had not grabbed her by the hair and nearly choked her with his idea of oral sex.

The men that came into this place had watched one too many films, and Deep Throat had a lot to answer for. The men really thought that all women could swallow that much cock without gagging. And she had been gasping for breath, had been nearly collapsing with agony, and he had acted as if she had deliberately caused him trouble.

Consequently she now felt that if she could pass an afternoon with Freddie Jackson now and again, then it might make the job a bit more bearable.

Chapter Four

'All right, Ozzy?'

Jimmy felt the iron grip of Ozzy. No matter how often he shook this man's hand he was always amazed at the sheer strength inside it.

Ozzy grinned, or at least his crinkled-up face expressed the fact he was smiling, but it was so hard to tell. He had to be one of the ugliest cons ever from his bald head, that was scarred from his youthful career of bare-knuckle boxing, to his overweight body that was solid as a rock despite making him look sluggish and heavy.

But it was his voice that Jimmy loved, it was deep brown, like syrup, and it was a voice that was made for a good-looking singer, or a man of refinement. Not the lump of meat that sat in front of him.

Jimmy loved Ozzy and he'd got the impression over the last year that even if the feeling was not exactly mutual, the man liked him. They got on like a house on fire. He sometimes gave him requests to Patricia which even Freddie didn't know about. Ozzy's sister was everything to him, and Jimmy liked her and respected her a lot. As Ozzy said, she thought like a man, and that was high praise indeed from someone of his calibre.

Jimmy enjoyed the prison visits. From the first time he had walked through the security clearance and stepped into the SSB visiting unit in Parkhurst he had felt as if he had come home. The prison fear was gone from him now.

He knew he could hack this environment if he had to. He didn't want to, but knowing that if it all came on top he could hold his own without fear made his life so much easier, as well as being a constant reminder to Jimmy of how life could change dramatically, overnight, in their chosen profession.

Ozzy had two Kit Kats and two mugs of tea delivered to their table. He was the only inmate afforded this luxury and the POs turned a blind eye, understanding his need to be treated with respect. It made his life easier and it definitely made theirs easier. So it was a small price to pay.

Most of them were crunching extra wages from him anyway, whether it was for a bottle of Scotch to mellow out his Saturday nights or a few ounces of coke to mellow out his evenings while he plotted and planned his empire. He also made sure there was enough smack in the prison to keep many of the lifers higher than a Jumbo jet while they pissed away valuable years of their life.

Seeing the respect made Jimmy feel fortunate, made him feel a part of the big picture. He was unconsciously modelling himself on Ozzy. He liked the way the man never shouted to make himself heard. Liked the way he smiled and joked his way through trouble, and so sorted things easily and amicably.

He used violence as a last resort, and it worked for him because when he did use it, the violence was so extreme the repercussions were felt for many years afterwards. He would cripple or maim, and anyone on the receiving end knew that they deserved it. But the reputation he gathered each time was what made him the legend he was.

When the violence finally arrived, it was far more than should have been expected. It never really fitted the alleged crime, it just shocked even the most hardened of cons in its savagery.

Never lose your temper in public. That was Ozzy's best advice, and he had been repeating it to Jimmy now for twelve long months. His education was nearly complete. Ozzy asked for, and more importantly respected, his opinions.

As they sat together now, Jimmy could feel the respect of all the lags and their families around him. He drove a new BMW and he dressed properly, and he was also learning how to play the crook's most dangerous game: how to keep out of stir.

And he had the best teacher in the world sitting right in front of him.

Patricia O'Malley was a little bit annoyed with herself. Ozzy would go ape shit if he knew, but even that fact could not disguise the thrill of what she had allowed to happen.

Freddie Jackson was scum, he was the lowest common denominator, but she had felt the sexuality off him from the first time she had laid eyes on him. It had been years since she had felt that much excitement over a man.

She liked deep down and dirty sex, always had, ever since she had lost her virginity to a bank robber at fourteen. The next day he had copped a fifteen and she had copped off with her games teacher, another older man who had been kind enough to show her what her mother and every other woman was missing.

He had shown her how much sex could be enjoyed without love of any kind – she thought like a man in that respect. She liked sex for what it was, a good feeling, a release of tension. Nothing more, nothing less. She couldn't understand how women fucked up their whole lives over it, wasted it on one man.

And she had dropped to her knees for a man she could crush without a second's thought if he upset her, and who would now think he had one over on her. Freddie Jackson was all she hated in men, and he was also all that she loved. She would enjoy bringing him down, enjoy making him sweat. If he was stupid enough to believe that a roll in the hay was going to bring him any favours from her then he was in for a big shock. He wasn't the first man to think that, and she knew he would not be the last.

When Freddie walked in a few minutes later she was ready for him.

He entered the room like he owned the place, like it was already his through last night's sexual activity. His smile told her he thought he was on the ball, on top of everything. He was thrilled with himself, thought because he had made her moan he was now her boss. He was washed and dressed better than usual, she would give him that much. He had made an effort.

'How are you today?'

Even his words were like a drawn sword.

She pulled herself up to her full height, five feet seven inches, and she grinned at him sarcastically. 'You talking to me, you fucking prick?'

She dripped ice, and she looked him over as though she had not seen him naked and panting only hours earlier. She could see the pupils of his eyes widen with the shock of her words.

Pat was determined to keep this as a business arrangement, and to keep him under her heel just in case she felt like another roll with him at a later date. The main thing with people like Freddie Jackson was never to give them an inch. She would have to watch him like a hawk.

As Ozzy was always saying, you learned only by experience. And he was passing all his considerable experience on to a young lad who he sensed had an aptitude for greatness. For the first time in his life Ozzy loved someone, really loved someone, and it was not in a sexual way. Sex had never been very high on his agenda anyway. Which was exactly the reason why he found it so easy to be banged up. He wasn't much for female company, never had been really, yet he wasn't gay, and if he had been he was hard enough to swallow his knob over it. He was far too respected to let his sexuality get in his way.

He had just never had the libido of the men he had known over the years. As they had got older the women had got younger, with no logic as far as he was concerned. Ninety-eight per cent of sex was in the head, whoever you were banging at the time.

After all his years inside, and all his years alone, he saw this young lad as the son he could never have. Had never wanted until now, when he was looking his fifties square in the eye and the knowledge he might not be around for the duration had hit him on the chin. He wanted to leave his empire to someone who would appreciate it, keep his name alive and maybe father enough sons to deal it out to on his death. He saw himself in Jimmy, though obviously the boy was a much better-looking version.

Ozzy had learned very early that good-looking people got more out of life, they didn't have to try as hard as their uglier counterparts. And this boy was handsome, but he was unaware of just how attractive he was. It could only be a good thing, because at the end of the day good-looking men always squandered what the good God had given them. Beautiful women used their bodies, that was accepted since women were only good looking for a short time and without a personality they were forgotten in seconds. Once the stretchmarks and the hanging belly took hold they were no more than memories. A good-looking man could have fifteen kids and no one would be any the wiser. It was this fact that told him God was indeed a man. A female God would have given women stretchier skin and the sense to understand business.

Women walked away from their lives the minute they fell in love. A man could love a woman but she would never be his be all and end all, though a clever man might let her think she was, of course. But nature would always out. The mother of the main children must be taken care of at all costs and a man had to know that any children he was bringing up were his own. No cuckoos in the fucking nest to grow and betray you at some point. You had to be careful. Women could lie to your face and smile while they did it, every sensible man knew that.

Now Ozzy was happy to be passing all his wisdom on to this nice little fellow with the handsome face and the mind of an accountant. A young man who was quick to learn and who could fight his way out of a German prisoner-of-war camp.

Freddie was a good front man, Ozzy respected that, but Freddie would always need to be led by the balls. This Jimmy, he would lead and no one would ever realise what he was doing. It was the difference between a detached residence and a council flat, it was that clear to Ozzy. Freddie for all his big talk would always be just a tad below the average lifer, but this lad was going places.

'How is Freddie getting on with the houses?'

'He's doing marvels.'

The fact the boy was so loyal to a man who could barely count without taking his socks off made him all the more endearing to Ozzy.

'That's not what I heard.'

Jimmy grinned. 'Look, honestly, I keep me eye out, he is a good investment. Everyone listens to him. He is as mad as a brush, but he keeps things running smoothly.'

Ozzy was pleased with the answer.

'He also shags every bird in the houses, don't he?'

Jimmy smiled again. 'Yeah, but he ain't the only one to do that, is he? Anyway, his wife is ready to drop anytime. He's a family man at heart.'

'A family man? Are you having a tin bath, son?'

'You know what I mean. She is convinced it is a boy this time. A little lad would sort him out, no trouble.'

'If not, you tell him a big lad will be sorting him out if he ain't careful. Tell him the armed robberies are too close together and that's a recipe for Old Bill to start pissing all over him.'

'I'll relay the message, in me own words of course.'

Ozzy laughed loudly. 'You'll do, Jimmy me boy. Just keep him on a short leash, OK, he is upsetting people.'

Jimmy nodded. 'He is a really good enforcer you know, and in his own way he is fair.'

'I understand that, mate, but he also brings a lot of attention his way and that is what we want to avoid.'

'I know that, Oz, but he is loyal to you.'

Ozzy smiled then, the boy himself was too loyal really, but then family ties were closer than any other kind.

He snapped open his Kit Kat and ate it slowly, as always digesting everything that had been said before continuing.

'Now, an old mate of mine is getting out of Durham soon. Give him a job and keep your eye on him, OK?'

Jimmy nodded once more, knowing that whoever this was would be more likely to be keeping his eye on them.

'What's his name, Oz.'

'Bobby Blaine.'

Ozzy watched the colour drain from Jimmy's face.

Bobby's name was synonymous with lunacy and also with violence. It was why they had been such good mates.

Bobby B, as he was known, could instil fear into the meanest of hearts. Bobby was also a laugh, he was the funniest man that Ozzy had ever met, and he had met a few in his time. Bobby could smile and joke as he slit your throat, which of course was his downside, and the side that Ozzy wanted to use.

Jimmy decided he wouldn't give him too much responsibility until he had to because, knowing Bobby, he would only be out a year, if that, before he was once more at Her Majesty's pleasure. While he was home, though, he would use him.

Ozzy used people like he used his Kleenex, and when they ceased to be of any use, he binned them.

Simple as that.

Lena watched her daughter drag herself from the kitchen chair.

'My back's killing me, Mum.'

She looked awful. Lena would be very surprised if Jackie went full term with this child. Her belly was heavy and had already dropped, even though it wasn't due for another few weeks.

'It's all the weight you're carrying. That baby must be like Man Mountain Dean.'

They both laughed at the thought.

'I hope so, Mum. I like the name Dean, it's a manly, happy name.'

'You're not naming it Freddie then, after its father?'

This was said slyly to annoy her.

'Of course it will be called Freddie, but a second name should reflect the child's family background and character.'

Lena grinned. 'Better name it fucking Looney Tunes Jackson then, and be done with it.'

They laughed once more.

'Or how about calling it Radio Rental!'

They were shrieking with laughter now.

'Stop it, you rotten old cow. Want another cup of tea?'

Lena nodded and lit a cigarette. Giving it to her daughter she said gently, 'Sit yourself down, love, I'll make it.'

The kindness in her mother's voice was nearly Jackie's undoing, and as usual they had gone from hysterical laughter to verging on tears in seconds.

'Has he been home?' This was said quietly.

Jackie beamed as she answered. Drawing heavily on her Kensitas cigarette she said gaily, 'He is really excited, Mum, can't wait.'

Lena smiled once more, glad to see her daughter happy. The pregnancy was keeping her on an even keel for the moment. She prayed daily that Jackie would be delivered of a boy, it was what she wanted so desperately that she had spent huge amounts on seeing tarot readers, psychics, and any other fortune teller she could find in the local paper or through word of mouth.

All had said the same thing, it was a little lad. Well, it had better be.

Freddie was out and about a lot, but with her pregnant he was at least touching base more often. After the miscarriage he had been contrite and had blamed himself, but that wasn't going to last for ever.

'You are keeping off his back, aren't you?'

Jackie sighed. ''Course I am. It don't do me any good getting upset, does it? Like you always say, it won't bring him home.'

Lena decided not to pursue that line of conversation. The last year had been touch and go with Jackie and Freddie, especially since he had started working the houses along with the other businesses. She had been at the mercy of the houses herself a long time ago when her husband had been a pretender to the throne, and her Joseph had not had half the looks of Freddie. But then, brasses were a breed apart, everyone knew that. They looked out for the main chance and who could blame them?

Lena had sat it out for years, and now her husband was all hers. It was a hollow victory, she admitted, but a victory all the same. For Jackie, leaving Freddie was not an option and she knew that, but she still dreamed that one day her daughter would get what she wanted from her husband. From what she had heard, though, he was still pole-vaulting with anything in a short skirt. As her husband had remarked so often about his son-in-law, no change there then. And as her husband and Freddie Jackson were like two peas in a pod, she also knew that he was speaking from experience.

Maggie was smiling her usual sunny smile as she washed hair and made endless cups of tea. Her job as a trainee hairdresser was everything she had wanted and more, and her life revolved around Jimmy, work, Dallas and her family.

The fashions suited her, the glamorous looks were made for her wide-spaced eyes and thick blond hair, and as such she made a striking contribution to the salon where she worked. Even with the thick make-up she still looked young and fresh, and that was her attraction.

Her dear little face and happy-go-lucky charm worked wonders with the clientele and she made a fortune in tips. The owner of the salon, a tall woman with high hair and a pseudo French accent knew a find when she had one, and treated Maggie with the right amount of respect and caring.

This little girl was a quick learner, a kind-hearted and available listener, and did not see anything to do with the hairdressing or the salon beneath her. Madame loved her, and so did anyone who came into her orbit. All the other young girls she had trained up had smiled and worked and waited until they could go on the trot – a hairdresser's in Bethnal Green was not their idea of sophistication. Maggie was grateful to be there, and it showed in everything she did. Most of the week it was perms, older women who had had the same styles since the fifties. They had their hair done once a week, it was lacquered so much it would not have moved in a hurricane, and they gossiped and laughed as they drank tea. Three days later they came back for a 'combout'. And Maggie did these with her usual smile.

But it was the Friday nights and the Saturdays when Maggie came into her own. The new styles were second nature to her, and she managed to make the girls feel at ease in the old-fashioned salon. She played her own music on the record player: Simply Red. 'Holding Back The Years' and 'Money's Too Tight To Mention' always went down well, and she also made sure they had Thunderbird wine to drink. The place was buzzing, and Madame enjoyed having the youngsters back again. Maggie had done the business a big service just by being there. She was dreading the day she walked away like all the others. Maggie Summers was a grafter, and coming as she did from a family of wasters, that, in itself, was a touch. She also sensed that Maggie was not going to follow in their footsteps. This girl would go places, or die in the attempt. Only sixteen and already she knew what she wanted from life.

Maggie for her part thought Madame Modèle was the greatest thing to hit the earth and was determined to emulate her. She saw the way Madame was with the customers, and she instinctively understood that was the secret of good business. Even the lowliest of women were made to feel special in Madame Modèle's and Maggie loved her for that alone.

As she washed an elderly woman's hair she imagined the day when she would have a salon of her own and a bevy of pretty young women working underneath her all dressed in mint-green overalls and with their hair in French pleats. That had always been her dream, and like everything else she did, she threw herself into it wholeheartedly.

Maggie, unlike the rest of her family, was a person who thought of a goal and then moved heaven and earth to achieve it, and with Jimmy behind her she knew what she wanted was getting closer and closer by the day. He was already earning fortunes, and he was only twenty-one, it seemed that life was determined to give them both a break. Unlike her sister, she had no problem with her man working at the houses because she knew she could trust him. Unlike Freddie, her Jimmy didn't need strange at every opportunity and she could tell by the way he talked about the brasses that he had no interest in them. He saw them purely as a means to an end – at least she hoped he did.

She pushed the thoughts from her head.

Thanks to Ozzy they were set, and she knew that Jimmy and Freddie were going to be in work for many years to come. Already she and Jimmy had substantial savings, and even though most of it could not be put in the bank, they were now in a position to buy a small house.

Maggie was so happy she felt like she could sing from the rooftops. All she prayed for now was that her sister's baby was the boy she so desperately craved, then everything would be fine. She was already blow-drying and doing basic cutting. Before she knew it she would be the 'free' hairdresser to her family, but even that couldn't dampen her happy spirits today. Nothing could.

Life was getting better and better and soon she and Jimmy would be married and she would be able to relax. They were getting engaged in a few months and the wedding would be six months later. Even though she would only just be hitting seventeen, she knew there would be no opposition from the families. In fact, they were all looking forward to it. Everyone agreed that Maggie and Jimmy were a match made in heaven.

It was early evening and Freddie and Jimmy were in the office of the main house. It had become their hang-out, and it was all because of Freddie and his pursuit of strange. The house was situated in Ilford and was a large, spacious Victorian house that held a variety of women and a variety of drugs.

Freddie, unlike his younger counterpart, had embraced the emerging drug culture with both hands. Where Jimmy was content to maybe have a few joints when the night was over, Freddie was unable to let the night end. Never knew when enough was enough, never wanted to go home unless he had to.

He was snorting as much amphetamine as he could lay his hands on and as he was now dealing in large quantities that was a lot of speed. He also dropped blue ones, Dexies and Tenuate Dospan, slimming pills that added to his paranoia and often to his unpredictable temper.

As they sipped at cheap vodka and chatted about Ozzy's plans, Jimmy could see the tell-tale signs of a mounting rage coming from Freddie. His hands were shaking and his eyes were unfocused, he also had the sweats that heralded an amphetamine rush.

In short he was wired.

'You all right, Freddie?' This was said nonchalantly but carefully so as not to upset the large, overbearing man who was so obviously looking for trouble.

Freddie stared at him for long seconds. Jimmy could see him practically talking himself out of the fury he wanted so badly to unleash. It was like watching a boxer who had a hammer instead of a boxing glove. He knew he shouldn't use it but the temptation was too strong.

'You and Ozzy seem tight these days.'

Jimmy sighed inwardly. This was becoming a recurring theme and in a way he could understand the logic behind it. Freddie was the number one, and he had trouble sitting around waiting for Jimmy to relay everything.

His visits to Ozzy had become a bone of contention between them. But as Jimmy had never had even a parking ticket or a caution, he was the only person who could visit the unit in relative peace.

To visit A cat or double A cat prisoners you had to go through a rigorous and unnecessary police check. This entailed having passport photos taken, filling in a form to make sure you were who you said you were and resided where you said you resided, and finally having a bored PC come to your home to verify you looked like the person on the photograph.

This was fine on paper but, as Jimmy was proving with every visit, all the police checks in the world could not stop messages or even orders being exchanged between the prisoner and their visitor. Freddie knew this and it had been his idea that Jimmy be the go-between, but Jimmy had become aware that his cousin was not too happy about the situation now.

However, that was something he could do nothing about. Ozzy called the shots and that was that. He understood his cousin's feelings, he was after all the man who had set this up. Freddie had been put in Parkhurst after he had been deemed unable to rehabilitate. This was due to the fact that he had maimed and fought guards and prisoners alike. He had not taken kindly to being locked up, and his natural anger had been unleashed at the littlest provocation. It was only on the unit that he had felt at ease, and in a way it had done him the world of good. He had tasted serious skulduggery and he had loved every second of it.

His six weeks in Shepton Mallet acclimatising for his release had been fantastic since Ozzy's arm was long and it was respected everywhere. Freddie had been given a hero's welcome and he had also had a single cell, a few quid and as much drink and fags as he could manage.

Now, though, he was starting to resent Jimmy being the only means of communication with Ozzy. Freddie being Freddie couldn't help thinking that he wasn't being told the whole story, which in fairness was often the case. It was hard for Freddie to accept that Jimmy was a doer, he was a thinker and worst of all he was liked.

It had suited Freddie when people pretended to like him. When he was younger he had seen it as a form of respect, but now he was seeing another side to life, which was being shown to him by a young man who was beneath him, not only in age but also in stature.

A young man who owed him not only his daily bread but his whole life. He had made Jimmy into the man he was, and the fact that he was doing so well should have made Freddie happy. He was ashamed of his jealousy, but nonetheless it was still there.

Jimmy understood that, he knew Freddie better than he understood himself though Freddie for his part didn't know him at all. Freddie never really tried to know anyone. As long as they were useful and toed the line, he was happy. At least he had been until now.

Jimmy knew he had to tread warily, because as much as Freddie loved him he was too competitive for his own good. Even more so now he was making gigantic fuck-ups left, right and centre.

'Come on, Freddie, you know the score. If you want to get someone else to schlep to the Isle of Wight and listen to Ozzy, you go, boy. You're the one who made me go in the first place.'

Jimmy sounded contrite enough to stop a war, and he was looking worried enough to placate the man he loved more than any other on the earth. This was becoming a regular mantra, and it was starting to get on his nerves. He worked hard and if Freddie couldn't see that, he was a fool. Jimmy carried him a lot of the time, though that was never mentioned. Jimmy was walking a fine line and as he was getting older and more involved in everything, he was starting to resent it all. He implemented a lot of Ozzy's demands because it was easier than waiting for Freddie to get around to it. But he had to do it in such a way Freddie felt that he was doing the legwork. Freddie was lazy, always had been and always would be, although he was great at the threatening, at the bully-boy end of the business, because he enjoyed it. But the day-to-day matters got on his nerves, Freddie would let things slide, and all because he couldn't keep off the gear and off the birds.

Jimmy was sensible enough to know that his own particular forte was the fact he could placate, he could talk people down, and he could avoid a lot of the confrontation that their job entailed. From the robbing to the collecting, the dealing, right through to the clubs, the pubs and all the other sundry businesses that they were supposed to oversee for Ozzy, it was Jimmy who kept it all running smoothly.

Freddie was aware of this, but his personality could not, and would not, allow for anyone else being in the frame. Jimmy was quicker than him at the mathematics of the jobs, at the scheduling of the workforce and at liaising between the different people who worked for them. He was his blood and he was good at what he was doing, but it galled him, even though it was because of his cousin's acumen that he could breeze through each day.

He stared at the younger man before him, and saw, as he always saw, himself if he had only been granted a small modicum of sense. In his heart of hearts he knew he should sort himself out before it was too late, cut down on the drinking and the drugs, take more of an interest in what was going on around him, but that was easier said than done.

And as he looked into Jimmy's face he felt the familiar shame wash over his thoughts. The kid was good and he was the only person Freddie Jackson really loved, other than himself. He grinned then, the affable, raffish grin that had got him into more beds and more fights than he could count.

He leaned across the beer-stained desk and grabbed Jimmy's chin. It was a painful grasp but Jimmy swallowed it, though deep inside he wanted to tell this man who he revered and adored the truth of his situation. But he didn't, he couldn't.

'You clever little fucker, Ozzy must think all his birthdays and Christmases have come at once with you!'

Jimmy pulled his head from Freddie's grasp. 'I only tell him what he needs to know and I relay his messages on to you, Freddie. Why do you do this to me?'

It was a plea, and they both knew it.

Freddie knocked back his drink in one gulp and then shrugged. 'Just don't ever think you can overtake me, all right? Never try and mug me off.'

Jimmy smiled then, the most difficult smile of his life. 'Why would I try and do that to you?'

The question and the answer hung in the air.

Chapter Five

'Oh shut the fuck up, Jackie, and come here!'

Her pretence at cleaning was annoying Freddie. She had been walking in and out of the room, emptying ashtrays and tidying around in general, trying to attract his attention. Now he was ready to give it to her.

Freddie was smoking a joint and listening to Pink Floyd on the stereo; he had been singing 'Wish You Were Here' to himself for two hours. Unlike his friends Freddie liked his music low and interesting.

Freddie watched as Jackie waddled over to him. She was a lump this time, so big even he was getting worried. 'You sure there ain't about four kicking away in there, girl?'

Jackie was laughing now. She loved it when he took notice of her, but the backache she had been suffering from all day was starting to interfere with her pleasure.

Her long dark hair was cut to perfection and brushed to a sheen. Thanks to Maggie's obsession with hair-dressing the women of the family had never looked so well groomed.

As Jackie slumped down on to the brown Dralon corner unit, Freddie pulled her into his arms and said gently, 'Your hair looks triffic.'

He knew the compliment would please her, and it was true, her hair did look nice. It was the rest of her he had a problem with. She was so scruffy looking, as was the house.

'You always had a lovely barnet, Jack, and it looks nice like that.'

It had been cut into long layers and backcombed within an inch of its life. She was thrilled with it, more so now her husband had not only noticed it, but had admired it.

He had also once said she looked like the poor man's Joan Collins on PCP, but no one had ever had the heart to pass that remark on to her.

'A woman's crowning glory, I remember that from school when I was a kid. It's the first thing a bloke notices, apparently.' He was a tit man personally but he knew better than to say that to her at the moment. Her sense of humour had been on the missing list for a while now.

'I try and keep meself nice for you, Fred, you know that.'

As he looked into her face the yearning was there, stifling him as always. But he swallowed down the urge to do a runner and instead he called for Roxanna, who came into the front room all red faced and cross.

'I was playing with me dolls.'

Her voice was as usual autocratic when talking to her father and as ever this made him laugh. He was half stoned and Jackie could hear it in his voice. It was a regular occurrence now, and she hated it because she daren't smoke dope in front of him, but the smell was driving her mad.

'Bring me coat in, babe.'

'Go and get it yourself!'

He was laughing at her once more, the stoned-over laugh that annoyed his kids because they knew what had caused it, and it wasn't them.

'Get me coat, you lazy little cow.'

Roxanna made a cross face and stormed from the room. Seconds later she dragged in his long leather coat, pulling it along the floor behind her, then letting it drop in a crumpled heap by his feet.

'One coat!'

The sarcasm was evident and she sounded like a little old woman, not a child.

'You lairy little mare.'

She grinned then. 'Takes one to know one.'

He was still chuckling as Roxanna walked silently from the room, the animosity coming off her in waves. 'She's her mother's daughter, her!'

It was said proudly, and Jackie was thrilled by his tone. This was the Freddie she loved, the Freddie she craved, the man she adored, not the obnoxious bully he became in drink or while speeding out of his box.

He rifled through the long pocket inside the lining of the

coat and brought out bundles of cash. Dropping them into her lap he said gently, 'Put that away for junior here. Anything you need, you just let me know, OK?'

'How much is here?'

He loved the reverence in her tone as she grasped the bundles of cash to her greedily.

'About seven grand, but don't worry, there's plenty more where that comes from.'

He said it in his big 'I am' voice, the voice he used so she would know just how good he was to her. How he risked life and limb for his family, without a thought for his own liberty.

She fell for it every time.

Kissing him softly on his lips she looked into her husband's eyes. The complete and utter trust and love she held for him told him he had now gained himself a few nights out on the lam. He had iced twenty-five grand that morning from a wages snatch in East London, he was still feeling the rush from the job and he was enjoying his pregnant wife's adulation. He needed it, because for all the strange there was floating about in his orbit, there was only one woman on his mind and she was beginning to take over his every waking moment.

Patricia had used him, and that had never happened to him before in his life. Usually he was the conqueror. He used women, they did not use him, consequently he was absolutely besotted with her, and to make matters worse he had a feeling she knew it and was enjoying his discomfort. The way she smiled at him, then ignored him, before finally speaking to him in that animated way she had, making him feel like he was back in with a chance. Then blanking him for days, as he spent his time trying to think of excuses to talk to her.

But their encounter had blown his mind. Never before had a woman taken him to bed, enjoyed him without even talking to him before or after, and then acted as if he didn't exist. He thought about her constantly, her boyish body that she was so confident with, her small breasts that he had adored. Patricia had taken what she wanted from him and he had loved it.

As he thought about her his hand slid towards his wife's swollen breasts and he caressed them gently. She was so unlike Patricia. Jackie resembled a cow, with huge udders and that milky smell women got when they were ready to drop. Patricia was long and sleek, and she could move like no woman he had ever bedded before.

Jackie felt his hands on her and as always was willing to give in to him. Like her mother before her she believed that if you never refused a man he would not want to stray. Her father had proved the lie to that statement and so had her husband.

She, like Lena, didn't understand the logic of womanising men. It was all about power, and like a rapist, they used women as a means to an end. It wasn't really anything to do with the sex act, as far as they were concerned that part was just a bonus for all concerned. It was about the chase, and once the women had succumbed they were history. They were another story to be told in the pub, another conquest that made the men concerned forget the futility of their lives. They never once cared, or really desired the woman in question, who were just a pawn in their game of life.

'You be careful, Freddie. I'd rather scrimp than see you banged up again.'

He smiled at her, the smile that made every woman think she was the only woman in the world who mattered to him. 'You're my girls, ain't you? I have to take care of my girls. That's why I work all the hours God sends.'

The answer annoyed Jackie as he knew it would.

'What? In the whore houses…'

He clamped his hand across her mouth roughly, all the time speaking in a low, determined whisper that brooked no argument. 'Don't start, Jackie, you know it's me job. I have to keep an eye out, mate, see that the punters don't rip anyone off and make sure the girls don't try and pick anyone's pocket. Especially Ozzy's.'

She was struggling to sit up now, had moved away from his embrace. Then, pushing his hand from her mouth roughly, she lit a cigarette to control her breathing, before saying scornfully, 'The girls? Is that us girls, as in me and your daughters, or the whore girls?'

He sighed, his long-suffering sigh, the sigh he used to make her feel stupid, make her feel that she was in the wrong, was always in the wrong. It was the sigh that told her if she kept on there would be trouble.

'Shall I stay at home then?' His voice had risen and she knew the kids would be able to hear him from their bedrooms, which was another of his psychological weapons. 'Shall I sit here and watch the flock wallpaper with you, eh? Drop a trip, shall I? At least that way I would have a bit of entertainment and all.'

He was getting aggravated now. She wonders why he ended up practically lamping her one, and then she causes all this! He took a few deep breaths. He had to talk her round, at least until she had dropped the new chavvy. Then he could do what he liked.

'You can kiss goodbye to all this if I stop doing me work.'

He looked around the over-furnished, untidy room, and waved his arms about in disdain. He was playing her and she knew it, but they also both knew that the money would always take precedence over everything else. She loved lording it up to the neighbours and she loved the feeling of spending. Her spending was astronomical lately, and unlike her sister she was never one to think of the inevitable rainy day. Never thought to make the money work for her in case he ended up on another six-year holiday courtesy of the judicial system. After all the years alone and scraping a living she was going mad, and the money also told everyone in her orbit that he must love her. It was the balm on her sore heart, it was her defence against the world.

He watched as she eyed the seven grand and knew he was home and dry. He hugged her tightly then, and she enjoyed the feel of him as she always did. She craved his attention as she craved his good will.

'Well, try not to make a night of it, eh? Remember that you have a family here.'

Her voice was still uptight and they both knew that it was not real permission. She was more or less telling him she wanted him home with her. Trying to make him feel guilty for abandoning her.

With her pregnancy, he needed her to smile as he walked out the door. The last time, when she had lost the baby, he had felt guilty, had been made, for the first time ever, to question his actions. He was determined never to feel like that again.

She had used it for so long, even his own mother had warmed to her, had silently blamed him. He was only amazed that Lena, who would normally blame him if it rained on the day she cleaned her windows, had not stuck her oar in. In fact, she had not said anything about it at all. Now he made sure Jackie and the girls were well looked after, both in public and in private. He had heard a whisper that his treatment of his wife had been leaked all the way to the Isle of Wight.

He had been banged up with Ozzy and his mates for a long time and he wanted their good will. If looking after this fat bitch would guarantee that then that was what he would do. He still resented her though, and once she was delivered, she was going to get the shock of her life. If it was another split arse, she was doomed for eternity as far as he was concerned.

But his image was his all, and at the end of the day image and reputation was what paid his wages. In their world it was all you had. So he kissed the tip of her nose gently, then looking at his brand new Bulova watch pointedly he said heartily, 'You get a bit of sooty and sweep and lay off the fucking drink. That poor baby will be born half pissed if you ain't careful.'

It was said in a joking way but the underlying edge was there. He was warning her and she knew it. She wondered briefly if her mother had tipped him the wink but dismissed the idea immediately. He had eyes, and a sense of smell. It wouldn't take a blind dog long to sniff her out.

She looked at his handsome face and was amazed that someone who looked like a Greek God, and who could smile in a way that could melt the hardest of hearts, was capable of such cruelty.

And he was cruel, but even though she knew that, the pull of him was still as strong as the first time she had seen him. With him she was never happy because he made her feel ugly, like second best. Yet without him she felt bereft, as if her life had no meaning, had no purpose.

He was going to start a row with her if she didn't let him out of the house without a fight. He had as usual presented her with two choices: either he goes out and she smiles, or he stays and fights and then storms out leaving her angry and upset. If she let him go happily, then he may be inclined to come home sooner rather than later.

A few seconds later, he got a beer from the fridge and placed the bottle of cheap Liebfraumilch she kept there on the kitchen worktop with a bang. 'Chilling it now, are we? Not necking it straight from the bottle?'

His voice was telling her he was ready to row, and as Jackie looked through the doorway into the small hallway she saw Roxanna, all big eyes and nervous twitch.

Closing her eyes she said as gaily as she could, 'You better get a move on, babe, it's getting late.'

He snapped the beer open and took a deep drink. Then, putting the can on the cluttered draining board, he ran into the hall. Grabbing Roxanna he threw her to the ground and pretended to bite her. She was shrieking in delight and the noise was going through Jackie's head.

'Who's her daddy's girl then, eh?'

She was screaming, 'I am, I am,' when he stopped and, kissing her gently, got up and with a small wave and a blown kiss to his daughter he was gone.

Roxanna got up and ran to her mother, her happy face glowing. Jackie pushed her away none too gently and barked, 'Get off me, for fuck's sake. You're like a fucking leech, you are.'

Roxanna was upset and, her natural belligerence coming to the fore, she shouted, 'Don't take it out on me because you made him go away.'

The girls always blamed her. He charmed them and he gave them what they wanted, and she was relegated as usual to nothing in their eyes, and her own.

The slap was loud and it was painful when it came and, as Rox ran crying from the room, Jackie felt the usual guilt and devastation at the turn her life had taken.

The first glass of wine took the edge off her anger, the second stilled her racing heart and the third saw her go up the stairs to try to make peace with her girls.

Jimmy was sitting in a pub with a man he really did not want to be with, and until Freddie and Bernie Sands arrived he had to smile and provide large Scotches for someone he instinctively loathed.

Jimmy was anxious about the whereabouts of Freddie and his new crony Bernie. They were an hour late already. Bernie had been banged up with Freddie for a couple of years, and now he was home they were both making up for lost time. Much to the detriment of wives and families.

Kindred spirits, they were hardly apart and even though this was a cause for celebration as far as Maggie was concerned, it worried Jimmy. Without a stabilising influence Freddie was as mad as a brush – that had been proven time and again since they had taken over from the Clancys. Now Freddie had Bernie, and the last thing Freddie needed was someone geeing him up even more than he did himself. Bernie was a short, fat man with shaggy blond hair and a face that belied his friendly reputation. He looked miserable even when he was ecstatically happy.

Bernie was a bank robber and a collector, he could get a debt off a dead man, or so his reputation said. And even on short acquaintance Jimmy felt this was an understatement. Jimmy knew that they were out robbing on a daily basis and this was what was giving him sleepless nights.

Since the rise in armed robberies in the seventies, security firms had upped their own security measures in defence of their cargoes, until now, in 1986, the only security vans without bullet-proof windshields were Group 4's. They were being targeted because with a well-placed sledgehammer, a few choice words, a handgun, and enough bottle, their vans could be knocked over in less than ten minutes.

The adrenaline rush alone was enough to have made Freddie already addicted. They had been averaging two a day, every few days, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon for the last few weeks. It was so easy that they were unable to even contemplate getting a capture.

The blags, as they were referred to in the appropriate circles, were excellent bread winners and they were also something that could be done on the spur of the moment and without the usual elaborate planning of, say, a proper bank job or jewellery heist. For example, the money they had blagged that day was for a reason, it was like bunce, it was for sundries, it was to them pocket money. Some people popped security vans for bail money, or just for a decent stake.

The man sitting opposite Jimmy held up his empty whisky glass and shook it at him. His eyebrows were raised and his red-veined cheeks were stretched in what Jimmy assumed was a smile. His thoughts interrupted, Jimmy got up and went to the bar once more, aware of the looks he was getting because of the company he was keeping, and wishing with all his heart that Freddie would arrive. Even though he had his creds and could take care of himself, he didn't fancy his chances with some of the blokes sitting around, looking at him suspiciously, if they decided to come at him en masse.

Paul filled the glass with ice, and then, surreptitiously spitting into it, he filled it from the drunks' optic. The drunks' optics were the watered-down shorts. They were not used until the end of the night, then used only on people who were well gone and could have a fight, but still insisted on drinking. People who could not be told enough was enough, and who might be armed, or were nursing a grudge.

They were the optics they made money from by keeping their stocks up, and the ones that stopped murders from being committed.

The phlegm looked like normal bubbles on top of the whisky and Jimmy felt his stomach rebelling as he handed the glass to the tall skinny policeman with the sarcastic smile and the air of someone who was under the impression he was far too good for the place he had landed up in.

DI Halpin was a tame filth, but he was not tame enough for Jimmy. In fact he was a flash prat until he had accidentally got himself on to the Serious Crime Squad through severe boot licking and serious amounts of cash provided, naturally, by people like Freddie and Jimmy. He was making the mistake all treacherous people eventually made. They believed their own press, they saw themselves as not only above the law they had sworn to uphold, but above the people they traded with, and they always got the fright of their life when they finally realised just how deeply they were entrenched in the shit of their own making.

They were quite happy to lie and cheat old friends and colleagues, were comfortable with their double dealing and the fact that violent criminals, as well as the usual blaggers, walked free and clear while they fitted up someone they either had a grudge against or who they had once more been paid serious money to take off the street.

Consequently, the criminals they dealt with saw them as the lowest of the low. When he was a humble filth, if Halpin busted a dealer with five weights of dope, the dealer knew that only two weights would be taken into evidence, the other three would be back on the street within hours. He helped himself to monies and firearms located on searches, which he also recycled back on to the streets. He honestly believed he was above the law.

It was this greed that had brought him to the attention of Freddie and Jimmy in the first place, and tonight he was going to find out the real reason they had bought him. For the last six months he had been courted by them, had taken a luxurious holiday, and pleased his wife no end because he had finally agreed to the conservatory she had been desperate to have built on to the back of their mock-Tudor, four-bedroomed detached house in Manor Park.

Halpin was flavour of the month at the moment and he was loving it. He did not see what he was doing was wrong in any way, he saw it as a means to an end. He was still young enough to feather his nest, and after talking to colleagues he was determined that he was not going to end his days on a police pension, reminiscing about a bygone era when he was useful, and when he was still being listened to.

He had seen that time and time again with colleagues, and it frightened him. His own father had seemed like a god to him but now he saw him for the man he really was, a small man who had lived for work. Well, Halpin was determined that he would work to live. He wanted a good life, wanted money in his pocket, and if it meant he had to bend the rules to achieve that goal, then so be it.

He had married above him, and he was painfully aware of that fact. He loved his wife and his kids and he wanted them to have all the things he felt they were entitled to. He had loved being in the force, but as the years had gone on he had come to understand that there was not only a ceiling to what he could earn, but also, that to get on properly he had to court the right people. Drink in the right pubs and ignore the flagrant bending of their rules.

The feeling of pride he had felt in his job had gradually been eroded. It was on a drugs raid a few years earlier that he had finally burned his boats. Until then he had taken the occasional drink, meaning he had received money for turning a blind eye and leaving people to ply their trade as long as they were not too blatant about it. The attitude being they were better off with the devils they knew.

Then he had been teamed up with an older man who had tipped him the wink on their way to the raid. He told him that they had a deal with the man in question, and that they were to go to the pub for a couple of hours before the raid took place to give him plenty of time to sort himself out. It was stepping over the line, and this had bothered him.

But it had been the dealer's house that had convinced him he was a mug. It had blown him away, from the kitchen that looked like something from NASA to the glass and chrome lounge. It had been a learning curve, the sheer luxury of it, the way the man's family had been dressed, and the kids in their private school uniforms.

The dealer, a close friend of his governor's, had opened a bottle of Scotch and sat down to chew the breeze with them. It had been an enjoyable afternoon and the beginning of his double life.

He had gone home that night and as he had let himself into his semi-detached in Chigwell, with its cream-coloured nets to stop the neighbours peering in, and its constant smell of damp, it had occurred to him that crime did pay, and it paid a lot better than he had first thought.

Now his wife was happier than she had ever been, as were his kids. Money did buy happiness in its own way, he was proof of that. As for the adages about money not buying happiness, well, he had proved that was utter crap. They were sayings to keep the poorer parts of the population quiet, mainly those without any real money. It might not buy good health but money bought the best doctors in the world. Money might not make your relationship better but it certainly kept the relationship going, because it was the lack of money that caused most of the rows in most of the households.

Halpin's whole concept of life had been challenged and he had finally found the solution to his worries. A decent holiday built a marriage, the break gave them all a chance to recharge their batteries and the hot sun did wonders to break down barriers between man and wife. The strolling along a beach, the few drinks before bed and the smiling children crashed out from a day's swimming and playing went a long way to making people happier.

His life was better than ever, and he felt he had a hold over the people he had to deal with. At the end of the day he was a policeman, they needed him and he held all the cards. It was this belief that allowed him to show his disdain for these people. It was also the reason he was going to be brought down to earth in the next twenty-four hours.

He heard Freddie before he saw him.

As was his wont, Freddie came in the pub like a conquering hero, smiling and laughing, a word for everyone and a drink offered. He knew his job, he also knew it was important to keep good relations with people because you never knew when you might need them. The Clancys had found that out, and it had been a lesson well learned for all concerned.

Freddie was still smiling as he sat opposite the DI, who watched warily as Bernie Sands eyed him for long seconds before drifting over to the bar.

'Hello, mate, all right.'

It was a greeting, not a question.

Freddie snapped his fingers towards the bar. 'Drinks all round, please.'

Paul nodded. He liked old Freddie. Since he had taken over, trouble in the bar had all but ceased, even the lairiest among them were wary of Jackson. Even Bernie Sands said please and thank you, that alone was a touch.

Freddie knew his job and he kept everyone, except himself, on an even keel. He was worth every penny, and he knew it.

As he looked at the policeman with the beer gut and the weather-beaten look of a man who had drunk too much too soon he said happily, 'You and me need a talk, mate, because tomorrow me and you have to sort out a bit of skulduggery at the Old Bailey.'

Jimmy noticed that the man's smile was now frozen on to his face. It was funny, but they always thought they were never going to be called on for anything serious.

But Halpin was about to find out that they owned him, and that he owed them far more than he had thought possible.

Maddie Jackson and Lena Summers were in the waiting room of Rush Green Hospital in Romford, waiting for news. Jackie's backache had been the onset of labour, and she was now causing untold aggravation to everyone in her orbit.

Rush Green had a special baby unit, and they were both concerned for their grandchild. It seemed that the child might be breech and Jackie, being Jackie, was screaming the place down.

For the first time ever the two women were in accord, they both felt that Jackie was making far more of it than there actually was. Both women had given birth at home, then got up and cooked a dinner within twenty-four hours.

Like their mothers before them, they saw childbirth as a natural occurrence, unlike the girls of the day, who saw pregnancy as some kind of illness. Saw it as an excuse not to work, not to do anything heavy.

And Jackie acting like she was the only person ever to have a child was irritating them both no end. Her screams echoed the length and breadth of the hospital, and, as they both agreed, it wasn't like she had not done it before.

'Can you hear her?' Maddie's voice was angry and even though Lena was in agreement she had to show some kind of loyalty.

'She wants her husband, that's what wrong with her.' It was said in a nasty, arrogant, 'your son is in the wrong' kind of way.

Maddie laughed then and said. 'Wants her husband? Didn't we all?'

The truth of the statement made Lena want to smile. They were both thinking of lonely births with husbands who had gone out to celebrate and not come home for three days. That was, to them, how it should be. It was women's work – why try to make the men interested in something they could never be interested in by their very nature? The two women started to laugh then, and a few minutes later when a nurse brought in a pot of tea they drank it together in peace.

Even Jackie's screaming and swearing didn't affect them, as they had decided to pretend they didn't know her until the child was delivered.

They wouldn't do that, of course, but for now they were both enjoying the respite.

Chapter Six

Tommy Halpin was nervous, and this was a completely new concept to him.

He had always felt in charge of his life. Every decision he had ever made was for a reason, either to further his career, or to squeeze as much money as he could out of the low lifes he used for his own ends.

Until now, even though he had mixed with these people on a regular basis, he had always felt that as he was the major contributor to their little arrangements, he was safe. They needed him far more than he needed them.

He had felt important enough never to consider the way he treated them. Unlike his governor, who had a rapport with those he dealt with, Halpin had always felt that he was letting himself down by associating with these people, let alone making out they were friends. Even though these were the men who, after all, were paying his real wages. The wages that provided his family with all the little extras they had come to expect from him.

But tonight the atmosphere was different, it was charged somehow. From the minute Freddie had sat down opposite him Halpin had sensed something was off kilter. Suddenly he felt like an outsider, like the kid at school who tried to be in with the main crowd and could only achieve it by selling out his friends and ultimately himself.

This was not a good feeling for him, it was too close to home. Plus he had drunk a lot of Scotch while he had been waiting, so he was also worried that mentally he was not the full ten shillings. He felt unable to control the situation, something that had rarely happened to him in his life. He was, as his wife said in private, a control freak.

The sad thing was that he was disliked by most of the people in his orbit. Police colleagues and the criminals he dealt with all had that in common. Tommy Halpin was an arrogant bully who had never listened to anyone's advice and had always considered himself far too clever by half to listen to anyone else's opinions.

When his governor had shown him the ropes, he had always stressed the main rules: never get pissed on the job, no matter how comfortable you felt with the people you were with; never forget you were dealing with criminals and that they lived by a different set of rules to everyone else; and no matter how nice they were to your face, you could never really be a part of their circle by the very nature of the job you did. To them you would always be a filth, and a bought filth at that.

He knew what he had said was true and he had listened accordingly, all the time thinking that his boss was stating the obvious. He wished he had listened to him properly. He had also told him, watch your back, and never put moody money in the bank, it was too easy to trace. Never leave cash in the house and never buy a car that was under two years old. His main chant, though, had been, never relax, remember who you are dealing with and treat them like you would a rabid dog. You are only useful to them while you can provide a service that they need. His governor had made a big deal about it all, because if he had a capture he would automatically take all his work mates down with him.

The enormity of this was only just seeping into Halpin's consciousness, the extent of his treachery was finally sinking in. If he had a capture, no one he associated with would ever be trusted again. It was this one fact that made his governor so paranoid. Every honest collar they had felt would automatically be suspect, if they were proved to be on the take. Now, he finally understood his governor's paranoia about what they were doing and his constant reminders of the seriousness of their situation.

He had forgotten the golden rule, that he was only a means to an end for these people. That there were plenty more where he came from.

Maggie had arrived at the hospital and had automatically taken over from Lena and Maddie. Maggie could handle Jackie and her sympathy was in place, it had not been worn out yet by her sister's constant swearing.

'Where is that fucking bastard!'

Maggie didn't answer her, instead she folded up the bedding from the floor and placed it on a chair.

When a doctor came in another volley of abuse was spewed at him and he retreated without saying a word.

Maggie sighed. 'You have to be the stupidest cunt on the planet, Jackie, do you know that?'

Jackie's head snapped towards her little sister in shock. 'What did you call me?'

Maggie sat on the chair. The bedding was more comfortable than the plastic seat and she appreciated that. She had been on her feet all day at the salon and she was tired out.

'Oh, don't give me the shocked looks, it's your favourite word, you've called all the nurses and the doctor it. When are you going to grow up, Jack?'

She pointed at the dishevelled woman angrily. 'That baby is in distress. If it's breech then they need to sort it out and if anything happens to it because of your antics, Freddie will go mad.'

She waited while her sister digested this bit of logic before she carried on. 'We are trying to track him down, but whether he arrives or not, that child has got to be born so why don't you shut up, stop all this showing off and let the people here get on with the jobs they are paid to do?'

She was calmer now, and Jackie was listening. Maggie knew that the mention of her husband would bring her round.

'But it hurts, Maggie.'

Maggie smiled sadly. ''Course it hurts, it hurt the other three times and all, remember? So let them help and for fuck's sake act your age, not your bloody shoe size!'

It was a silly saying of Maggie's and they both smiled then.

'There's a young girl in the room next door, and she is only seventeen and your screaming is terrifying her.'

Jackie wiped her running nose with the back of her hand. She felt bad, she was hurting and she needed a drink. Not that she would say that out loud of course. She knew Maggie had a bottle of champagne in her bag and she wished it was all over so she could neck it and settle her nerves.

She wished that just once Freddie would be there for her, see the child born. She had read somewhere that it gave the man a better bond with his children. She couldn't see it herself, she had been at her children's births and it had not made any difference at all. They still got on her wick.

'You have been out of order and if you ain't careful they will refuse to treat you, Jackie, and your threats will end up with Lily Law at the end of the bed. Now just once in your life, Jackie, stop thinking about yourself, think about someone else.'

The fact that Jackie took it from Maggie told her she was nearly home and dry. But Jackie always caused ructions when she was in labour and she had always got away with it before. This time the staff were not willing to swallow it and Maggie didn't blame them one iota. She wouldn't have taken it either. They were threatening to call Old Bill in, and that automatically brought social services. Jackie was such a mess, and if she wasn't careful she would end up with social workers breathing down her neck again. Maggie loved her sister but at times she really didn't like her.

'You are going to let the doctor examine you now, because if the baby's breech they have to get it sorted.'

Jackie nodded then, digesting her sister's words. Even she knew she had gone over the top, but it was in her nature. Everything with Jackie had to be a fight, had to be a drama, she couldn't help it. She had to have the spotlight on her, and her bad behaviour had always guaranteed that she got it.

Now, though, Maggie's sensible words had made her think about what she was doing. She had threatened one of the nurses with her water glass and she knew that, unlike years before, that could now get her a court appearance and Freddie would not be impressed if that happened.

'Bring them in.'

Freddie was watching the different expressions on the man's face and he knew they had him by the short and curlies. He had seen it before so many times with the tame filth and he loved the feeling it gave him.

People like Halpin had to be brought down gradually, it was a psychological thing. For a while you had to make them feel that even though they were the takers, they were the ones who were actually in control of the situation.

It was easy to do, you just pandered to their natural vanity. Halpin had been under the illusion he was in some way the aggressor in the partnership forged by his old boss, who had in effect served him up to Freddie Jackson as a favour. This manipulation of anyone weaker than yourself was something the likes of Freddie Jackson learned very early in life. Where he had come from you had to learn what his father had jokingly called psychological warfare.

From a kid, Freddie had understood that if you weren't clever enough, or strong enough, to beat people at their own game, you made sure you either cultivated an innate cunning or learned to use a weapon and developed a good rep as a nutcase, otherwise you became someone else's gofer.

Halpin was his gofer now and he was going to enjoy explaining that to him. Halpin, like most of the police who were on the take, had been on the receiving end of people like Freddie all their life. It was the main reason he had turned to crime fighting. The natural respect for the uniform, the very nature of the job, it was an automatic choice for a lot of people, because it was the only way they could ever be in a position of authority. But the Halpins of this world didn't just want the respect from Joe Public, they also wanted inside the wallets of the criminals.

They were so easy to bring into the fold, they were like lambs to the slaughter, and they were also what made Britain so great.

There was a fine line between the robber and the filth, and in most cases the robber would rather have a capture off a decent Old Bill. Not off a taker like Halpin. In its own way that was an insult to them and their craft. It was hard to get to the real strong policemen, they were decent men who were quite happy to live their lives on the right side of the law and they did not see the dealers' or the bank robbers' lifestyles as something to emulate. They saw it as something to destroy.

Now Halpin, who could sense the change in Freddie and young Jimmy, was just beginning to understand that the people he thought he controlled, actually controlled him.

Freddie loved this bit, it was what he lived for. Freddie Jackson loved to bully, it was instinctive and it was what got him out of bed every morning.

Jackie was in agony, real agony and Jackie being Jackie was letting everyone know that once more. At least now she had good reason, as she was well on for the birth itself.

'Oh, keep your noise down, you silly mare.'

Her mother's voice was not as sympathetic as she expected. It was upsetting for Jackie to hear her mother talk to her like that, considering her mother-in-law was also in the room with them. Maddie was not impressed and Jackie could see that, but Jackie was the one having the baby and she was determined to make the most of her time in the limelight whatever her mother thought.

Maggie had shot off somewhere and Jackie's good intentions had flown out the window again. It was late and no one seemed able to track Freddie down. She was convinced he was with a prostitute. The picture of him with some young girl with tight skin and no stretchmarks was becoming larger in her mind by the second.

A young Chinese nurse was trying to get her to sip at a glass of water, and Jackie was abusing her loudly, trying to knock the glass from her hand. Lena was ashamed of her daughter and the way she was acting. From her bad language to her racist comments to the nurses, she was a disgrace.

The young nurse, who had been brought up in Upney above her parents' chip shop, was losing her patience.

'Fuck off, and leave me alone, you fucking Chinky bastard!' Jackie's voice was loud, determined and full of hate.

The girl, a superb nurse who was already sick and tired of her job and the abuse she had to take on a daily basis, said angrily, 'Sod you, too. You want to make it harder then you go for it.'

As she left the room in a huff, Lena smiled at her apologetically. At least the girl had a bit of spunk, which is more than could be said for her daughter.

She walked over to the bed, where Jackie was kicking the bedding on to the floor for the umpteenth time, and writhing around as if she was possessed. Anyone would think this was the first child ever to be born. She knew the child was OK, the doctor had already assured them it was a normal delivery, so now Jackie was back to her normal obnoxious self. She had alienated all the nurses and all the doctors again, so even a cup of tea was now out of the question.

Lena felt she was just about ready to blow herself. 'You have to stop this, Jackie, you are making a fool of yourself. It ain't like it's your first, is it?'

Jackie was clenching her fists once more, in temper, but her mother's voice was telling her she had pushed them all to the limit and she knew when to let things go. Freddie's mother was looking at her like she was nothing as usual, and it was hurting her. But Freddie loved his mother and if it took Maddie Jackson to get him here then she would do whatever it took.

'Has anyone tracked him down yet?'

Lena shook her head and said in exasperation, 'What do you think? What do you want him here for, anyway? He would only get in the way.'

Jackie was not listening, she was at the end of her tether with the thought of her husband out enjoying himself while she was in agony giving birth to his child.

'He would rather be with those whores in that brothel than with his wife. Has anyone rung the place in Ilford?'

They had rung everywhere, Freddie knew where she was, there was no way he had not heard about the situation. Liselle at the pub had indicated that he was there, and that he had already been appraised of the situation regarding his wife.

Freddie could not give a flying fuck and they all knew it. Why didn't Jackie just accept that he would not come until the child was delivered? Maggie had just left to cab it over to the pub, so hopefully he might deign to make an appearance, but no one was holding their breath.

Maddie sighed heavily, and Lena followed suit. For once the two women were united, and it was this sudden friendliness that made Jackie take notice of what they were saying.

Lena started in first. 'That fucking child has got to come out, right? So stop fucking about and get on with it. If the baby is born Freddie might be more inclined to get his arse over here.'

Jackie was crying. Her big moon face was red, covered in a heat rash, and shiny with her tears. Maddie stared at her for long moments. She looked awful, and the way she was lying with her legs open, the purple stretchmarks on show, and her toenails ingrained with dirt did not help her one little bit. In her heart Maddie didn't blame her son for wanting to keep away, she was more amazed that he had impregnated the dirty bitch in the first place.

Jackie's crying was getting louder now. She wanted her husband and the fact he would not be coming made her want him all the more. She sounded like an animal, but not a nice animal like a cat, mewling gently as it gave birth. She sounded like one of the animals where Maddie had grown up. And the worst of it all was she looked like one of them. From her bloated face to her dirty feet. Her mother had always referred to the dirty women around their estate as animals, it was an Irish thing. Maddie's mother judged people by the way their children were turned out and how well they managed their money. She had followed suit, and still felt that a woman's kids said more about her than anything else. If the children were clean and cared for, fed and watered, the woman was classed as decent. Jackie's whole way of life disturbed her. Her son's wife should be a reflection on him, and she had a terrible feeling that this girl was.

Jackie was groaning once more, and her face was screwed up in pain. She was only having a baby, anyone would think she was dying of cancer or something the way she was carrying on. How her son had ever seen fit to mate with her was beyond Maddie's comprehension. Yet she loved his girls, and they in their own way loved her. But she found it difficult to go to the house, because Jackie made it all so hard. Jackie was jealous of her, his mother. She had never tried to make a friend of her, even when Freddie had been banged up she had not attempted a modicum of friendship. The prison visits had been timed so they would not meet.

It grieved her that her favourite son had married this baggage, who, even now, could not keep herself clean and tidy for the hospital. To Maddie, appearances were everything, and how the world perceived you and your wifely skills was of tantamount importance. Yet all she ever heard about Jackie was how she was making a show of herself. When her Freddie had been put away, she had had to step in when Jackie had overspent on catalogues and then not even attempted to pay, and deal with the embarrassment of finding out that Jackie had gone all over the place ordering stuff and then threatening women with her husband's family if they tried to get what they were owed. To top it all, she'd had her own husband telling her that she had better sort it all out because the embarrassment was killing him. Then, after all she had done for her, she had to contend with Jackie looking at her in that disrespectful way she had, the girls sitting there all scruffy, with their pretty faces stained with sweets.

She remembered Jackie telling her that she needed help now Freddie was gone, that she needed clothes for the kids and food on the table, when everyone knew any money she laid her hands on went on drink and drugs. Expensive hobbies that once more put her daughter-in-law in debt.

Another one of Maddie's foibles was debt. She could not understand spending what you didn't have. When she had found herself paying off her daughter-in-law's debts it had been the final straw. Hundreds of pounds on clothes for her and the girls, clothes she wasn't even going to look after, that ended up in a washing pile and stayed there. It was all wrong, everything had gone all wrong.

Now, though, what else did she have, other than her children and her grandchildren? And a husband who was suddenly in love with a twenty-two-year-old girl.

The humiliation was still smarting along with the knowledge that this time it was different. Over the years he had tried to save her feelings, but this time he was not bothered about her at all. Had lost all respect for her, because he was enamoured of a child, a girl who already had two children by two different men, and a mouthful of expensive teeth that had been paid for by the man Maddie had loved all her life.

A girl who he took everywhere with him, like she was some kind of trophy, like a prize that said he wasn't getting old. It was laughable, and she would have laughed if it had happened to anyone else but her. Freddie Senior was staying with this girl most nights and he was parading her around the place without a thought for her. It was as if he had gone mad overnight, and now she was reduced to seeking out her son's mother-in-law, someone who she had prided herself on avoiding for all those years. She knew Lena was aware of the situation, but then it was nothing new to her, she had lived with it all her life. She also knew that Lena, knowing the score, felt for her, because she understood just how hard this situation was. To think she had looked down her nose at Lena for years and now, when life was overwhelming her, it was to Lena she was turning.

Once, Maddie would have caused murders, she would have fought him every inch of the way. But not any more. She was past fighting now, because she knew in her heart that if she pushed it, he would actually leave her this time. He was older, and he needed the reassurance of youth more than ever. She also knew he was working for his son, and experiencing a renaissance of his younger days and the skulduggery he had loved so much.

Freddie had given his father a new lease of life and she would never forgive him for that.

'I want my Freddie. Where's Freddie?' Jackie wanted her husband, she wanted him beside her as she produced his son. It was what she had dreamed of for months.

Maddie rolled her eyes at Lena. In the waiting room they had already consumed a large amount of brandy, courtesy of Maddie Jackson's emergency supply that she kept in her large, mock-crocodile-skin handbag. Maddie liked a drink occasionally, when life was getting her down.

She had only come to the hospital because her husband was on the missing list with his young girl, and her son was nowhere to be found, but for the first time ever she was warming to Lena, a woman she had always seen as below her, mainly because Lena and her brood had never moved on from the estate they had all grown up on. Whatever her husband was, he had moved them away. It grieved her that Freddie was still more comfortable in the council house he had with Jackie than she would have liked. All the money he had earned, and he still had nothing.

But they were both spendthrifts, they both saw money as something to use unwisely. She had hoped that Jackie, at least, with three kids, would have learned the value of a pound. It was not to be, now the girl was sweating and groaning out another child that would be brought up on the rock and roll. Because her son and his wife were claiming benefits, she knew that for a fact. Jackie was still getting her social security every Monday, she saw it as her bunce, as her money. When Freddie had been banged up it had been a necessity, now she should be making ends meet without bringing in government agencies and everything they entailed.

The word Jackie always used when she approached her about it was entitled. But more people had been captured over claiming benefits than was realised. Once they started poking their noses into your business, the law nearly always followed.

Maddie closed her eyes and tried to forget about the circumstances of her family because she was worried, more worried than she had ever been about her life. Freddie Senior was reliving his youth, and this had made her realise that she had never lived hers even when she had had it. She had not known how to be young, and suddenly this was important to her. Her life had been wasted, and it was only now she was becoming aware of that fact.

It was this more than anything that was playing on her mind. All her life, since her first child at seventeen, she had been a mother or a wife, and now she was being discarded. Her husband's leaving was only a matter of time, of that much she was sure. And the knowledge hurt, it was like a physical pain.

All her anger at Jackie was being suppressed now, because without the girls and this new baby her life would be over. Her husband had been everything to her for so long, and had always respected her and cared about her. She had never thought for one moment that he would stop. Now, though, her life was off kilter and she had a lot more in common with Jackie than she had ever thought possible. So she had no option but to concentrate on her family, and, like many another woman before her, she was finding out that at the end of the day that was all you really had.

For a proud woman like her, it was harder than she could ever have believed.

'Tomorrow we have a couple of mates up at the Bailey for a bail hearing, we want to make sure they get it.'

Halpin nodded warily.

'How can I do that?' His voice was quavering and he knew that Freddie and his sidekick could hear it and were enjoying it.

Freddie grinned, and pushed a new drink towards him. 'It's easy, see. We have done this loads of times.'

He lit himself a joint and then, blowing the smoke in Halpin's face, he coughed heavily before continuing. 'We need you to explain to the judge, quietly like, in his chambers, that my two mates have been a great help to you in solving other cases and so they deserve a break. But obviously it all has to be on the hush hush, as they can't be seen to be helping anyone with anything, that goes without saying.'

He could see the beads of sweat on the man's face and thanks to the cannabis he wanted to start laughing, but he knew he couldn't.

'Stop worrying, this kind of thing is done all the time.' Freddie motioned to Jimmy, who took a sheet of paper from his pocket and laid it on the table. 'These are their names, and what they are being charged with. The judge has already been given a large drink, so he will be ready for you and then it's just a formality. They will be granted bail.'

Halpin sipped at his Scotch to gain himself some time. It was one thing turning a blind eye, or relocating drugs and firearms. But to walk into the Old Bailey and lie to a judge was asking for trouble. It was putting yourself in the frame, in the public eye. It was making yourself visible to your own.

'Who were these blokes nicked by?'

'South London filth, it's all on the paper. They have all been ironed out by some friends of ours, but that's nothing for you to worry about. They know the score and they are willing to back up your story.'

Halpin saw a way out of his predicament and the relief he felt was almost tangible. 'But I am Serious Crime Squad, why would I be a part of that? It doesn't make sense.'

Freddie was getting fed up now. He wanted out of the pub, he wanted to celebrate his baby being born. He hoped it was a boy, he was sick of daughters. They were more trouble than they were worth, like all women.

'Look, mate, just do what the fuck you are told. They have a lot of form between them, they need to be seen to be helping out the big boys. You are one of those big boys and it's about time you earned your fucking keep.'

Jimmy was impressed. This was Freddie's forte. He had been born to intimidate, and no one could do it with such quiet menace or screaming terror as Freddie Jackson.

The next step with Halpin was to get him to recruit for them and he would do it. He had no choice in the matter. As Jimmy watched the policeman down his Scotch in one nervous movement, he knew they had him and he also knew that Halpin was just beginning to understand what he had got involved in.

Chapter Seven

Maggie watched the little performance from the bar, and as always when she saw Jimmy at work, it made her nervous.

She was not in the mood to go back to the hospital just yet, and she was hoping she might be able to shame Freddie with her continued presence. She didn't hold out much hope though. Freddie was already off his face and looked set for the night.

She guessed that the man with them was being shaken down for something, and as she observed Jimmy's and Freddie's body language she felt a prickle of fear. She didn't like this Jimmy, she knew she would never be comfortable with this side of him. Even her father treated him differently nowadays, she had seen the respect he afforded him. The way he listened carefully to everything he said, as if overnight he had become the fountain of wisdom. The overblown gratitude, when Jimmy slipped him a few quid for a bet.

One part of her was thrilled, she knew better than anyone that in their world it was his standing in the community that would ultimately get them a better life. Her sensible side, though, also knew he was into serious business now and that could mean serious prison time.

She pushed the thought away. Jimmy was too shrewd. As young as he was, he had Ozzy watching his back, he was as safe as he was ever going to be, and she had to stop worrying. The worry blighted the good times, and it was always there in the background. And watching her sister in the hospital bed being delivered of another child, she had seen how her own life with Jimmy could end up if she wasn't careful. Even though he loved her, and she knew he did, he adored her, she also knew that Freddie had once loved her sister in the same way. Now that feeling was all one-sided. Jackie still worshipped her husband, Freddie only stuck around because Jackie was his legal. But even that didn't guarantee anything these days. Men walked away from long marriages, something that had been unheard of not that long ago.

Her mother had always said that, once the kids arrived you were on your own. Maggie had not understood that statement until now. She was too young to know so much about life, and she was acutely aware of that. But she had made a promise to herself a long time ago. If Jimmy ever slept with anyone else, she would never let him near her again.

They would be finished for good, for ever. She would never let him talk her round, make her feel less than she was. Once they fucked you over, if you let them talk you round it was as if you were giving them permission to do it over and over again.

It was imperative that he never lost her respect, she was cute enough to know that much. She was not going to have the life her mother and sister had, she saw herself above that kind of treatment. She was better than that and she was never going to let herself forget it.

'People only do to you what you let them.' How many times had she heard that old chestnut? Her granny had said that to her mother a hundred times a day. Her mother had not listened to her advice, but Maggie would. Her father would chat up women in front of her mother, and she could still remember the fights they would have about it. Her father even used to take her round to his girlfriends' houses when she had been a kid. Her mother had believed that because she was with him he wouldn't get up to any of his usual tricks. Not with his daughter in tow. Her childish presence was supposed to have made him remember his responsibilities. Her mother had tried everything to keep him true to her and what had it got her?

Maggie still had vague memories of cheap perfume, and strange houses. Other kids to play with sometimes, or being given sweets and plonked in front of a TV set. He had always made a big fuss of her, made her feel special. She knew now, of course, that that was second nature to him. She was a female and he loved women, especially his youngest daughter who had thought he was a god. Her father would tell her not to tell Mummy where they had been because it was a surprise. She had believed him at first, then she had sussed him out. She had finally refused to go with him, even though her mother would tell her to. Her mother, who had still thought his daughter would keep Joe on the straight and narrow.

They had never discussed it, but he had guessed that she was on to him. It had changed the dynamics of their relationship somehow. Even as a little kid she had sensed that it was all wrong, that her father had wanted her with him for all the wrong reasons. Not because he couldn't bear to be away from her, but because she was his blind. She also knew that if they ever discussed it, it would destroy them both. He had used her, and she was determined that no one would ever treat her like he had treated her mother.

Overnight, her mother had become the bigger, more important person in her life. Until then her father had been her hero, and her mother had just been there. But it was a learning curve and she would never let herself forget what men were capable of.

As she watched Freddie and Jimmy, the similarities between them were uncanny, they were like twins born years apart. Freddie, though, was the alpha male, he was the one you looked at first. His size and looks were more striking than Jimmy's. Darker, his hair was thicker and blacker, and he had the deep Irish colouring that women loved, from his blue eyes to the five o'clock shadow. Even Maggie could see why women were attracted to him and she hated him. But he was very handsome, and his air of danger only added to his attraction.

Jimmy was the younger, sleeker version, but he was catching up with Freddie every day. He was taller than Freddie now, though he didn't have the heavy build that Freddie had cultivated in prison. Freddie had been in the gym for the best part of his sentence and he had done what many a man had done before him. Built up his body, to take his mind off his predicament. But now he had been home for so long, he was starting to run to fat.

As she watched them together she pushed all her doubts from her mind. Jimmy had been the love of her life since they were little kids, and she had to keep reminding herself that he was not like Freddie.

When the man they were with finally rose to leave she walked over to them. Freddie looked at her intently, his eyes roamed over her body as if she was standing there butt naked. He made a point of doing it, and she still felt uncomfortable under such intense scrutiny, especially when her sister was there. He knew she was frightened of Jackie sensing that he watched her, that he wanted her. She was too young to have to deal with sexual politics, but she had grown up on a diet of rage and sexual indiscretions. And she hated him for making her life harder than it already was.

At least he didn't try it on so much any more. At one point she had been frightened to be near him. Even if Jackie was in the next room he would make a play for her, try to grab her breasts. And then he would laugh at her when he saw how scandalised she was. Now though, Jimmy's rise in the world had put paid to that.

Freddie seemed to be aware of the way Jimmy was progressing, and if this kept him off her back then she was all for Jimmy's rise to power. But the underhanded way Freddie came on to her, made sure she was always wary of him and what he was capable of.

'She dropped it yet?'

Freddie sounded bored. Until he heard the word boy he was not going to let himself get excited.

'Don't you think you should come to the hospital, Freddie? Jackie is having a rough time of it.'

He raised his eyebrows and then, smirking, he winked at Jimmy who couldn't help grinning at his antics. Freddie was funny, there was no getting away from that.

Then Freddie started to laugh. Maggie hated his laugh, it was the ultimate insult. He laughed at you, rarely with you.

'You mean to tell me you hung about all this time thinking I was going to go to Rush Green to hold her fucking hand?'

Jimmy watched them both. They were natural antagonists and he understood how Freddie got on Maggie's nerves, he just didn't fully understand what the problem was with Freddie. He knew Freddie fancied her, that was apparent, but then he knew any man in their right mind would fancy her, and it went deeper than that.

'Want a drink, Maggie, or do you want me to run you back to see your sister?'

Jimmy's words told her she was wasting her time and even though she knew it, she still had to try. If Freddie would only go and see his wife then Jackie would calm down.

She used her trump card and hoped it would work. 'I had better get back to the hospital, your mum looks tired, Freddie, as if she hasn't been sleeping. I'll try and get her to go home.'

Freddie was amazed that his mother was there at all, let alone staying till all hours. Maddie loathed her daughter-in-law, it was one of the main things they had in common these days. He wasn't stupid though, he knew his father was making life intolerable for her with this new bird. It was a bit full on, even he had noticed that. The little bird was taken all over the place with him, and his father was besotted with her.

He had not seen his mother for a few days and he knew his father had not been home for over a week. He was holed up round the girl's flat, with her two bastard kids and her speed habit that Freddie was inadvertently financing, because his father was not bothering to do any actual work. He was disrespecting the woman who had brought up his son, and who had made sure he was clean and fed.

He was suddenly worried about her. She had been a good mother, the only woman he had any respect for at all. He stood up.

'Come on, let's go and see how the old bird's doing,' he said. 'She better have a fucking boy after all this.'

Jimmy was relieved. He had not wanted another night of it in the pub. He wanted to be with Maggie, and just relax.

Freddie was feeling good about himself now, he could be delivered of his son and heir this very night. The thought excited him, he wanted someone to carry on his name. It would make his life bearable. He loved his girls, especially his Dianna, but a son would be the ultimate.

His mother would love him to be there, anyway, she needed him and he knew that. It wouldn't hurt him to make her happy, and turn up at the hospital for five minutes. She was big on family stuff, always had been.

Jackie watched her husband as he gazed down into the handsome face of his son.

He grinned at her then and she smiled bravely. She was feeling OK but she was determined to milk this for all it was worth.

He was perfect, nine pounds seven ounces of dark-haired Jackson. Lena and Maddie were over the moon, and she was experiencing the pride she had felt after all her births. She loved the babies when they were brand new and it was only when the novelty had worn off and everyone stopped coming round that they started to get on her nerves.

But with this child, from the first time she had looked into his eyes it had been different inasmuch as she had felt a physical tugging inside her chest. It was like looking at Freddie. The baby was the living image of his father and she felt the exhilaration of knowing she had at last given Freddie what he wanted.

When Freddie had arrived she had been triumphant. Her mother-in-law had insisted she tidied herself up and brush her hair and she was so glad she had done it. He had taken one look at the baby, and she had watched in sheer amazement as his face had lit up, and for a few seconds he looked seventeen again. All the love she had for him was once more to the fore. The hurt he had caused, and the neglect she had felt over the last six months was all forgotten as they both shared the miracle of their little son.

Maddie and Lena had looked on with relief as they had observed the little tableau, mother, father and son together.

Lena, as thrilled as she was with her grandson, was worried at how fast her Jackie was knocking back the champagne. Her eyes were glassy and she was talking loudly, but thankfully no one else noticed that she was already half pissed and the child was not yet an hour old.

'What a handsome boy, eh?'

Maddie smiled her agreement and enjoyed the look of pure happiness on her son's face. It was so rare these days.

'Maggie said she kicked off in the hospital.'

Maddie nodded. 'It was embarrassing, I wish she wouldn't carry on like that.'

Freddie sipped at his cup of tea and watched his mother's face, scowling now. He knew that for someone like her, his wife's way of carrying on was scandalous. He had to admit that he was coming round to her way of thinking more and more as time went on. No matter how much money he gave Jackie, she was always skint, no matter what they bought for the house, the place always looked like a tip.

Sitting like this, in his mother's lovely front room, he missed the orderly cleanliness of his childhood. He missed the feel of crisp clean bedding he'd had as a child. Maddie had starched the sheets and he had loved the feel of them, the smell of them. She would pop a hot water bottle in for him when it was cold, and he had snuggled down into the warmth and felt safe.

With Jackie, he was lucky if she bothered to sling the duvet on the bed about five minutes before they got in it.

He had been proud of his mother and father when he was growing up, from their lounge diner to the York-stone fireplace. He had felt different from all his contemporaries because his home had been superior in every way.

Now he was working for Ozzy, he felt that his home should reflect his standing, but he also knew he could never trust Jackie with a mortgage. If he got banged up it would all go pear-shaped in no time, since she didn't even pay the rent until they threatened her with eviction.

He picked up money for Ozzy every month from people who owed him for a variety of reasons, and through this collecting he had been given an education. The way some of the people lived had opened his eyes to a life he had never known existed. But the most amazing thing was that they were all like him, they had come from council estates. The difference was that they had made their money work for them.

Ozzy had made him see what he called the big picture. He had sat and listened to Ozzy explaining about this new order, about how Thatcher was going to put money in everyone's pocket, starting with a housing boom. How it had never been cheaper to borrow money, which for people in their game meant easier laundering of their profits. He loved Margaret Thatcher, he saw her as the saviour of Britain, and Freddie had listened and he had learned.

Freddie wanted to be a part of that world, because he knew people treated you differently when you had money and possessions. It was human nature. When he went inside the great big gaffs and saw the way they were decorated and the way they were kept, he respected the people who lived there because they had achieved that status.

It wasn't like when you saw rich ponces on the telly who had never done a day's collar in their life, and inherited fortunes and then pissed them away. Who could respect people who had never earned a penny in their lives? It was not the way of his world, you earned shedloads of dosh, so you earned respect.

As he sat in his mother's house, and watched her as she plumped cushions and brought in biscuits, he could not believe that once he had thought this little semi the height of sophistication. His father had been an earner all his life. A grafter, and yet now he realised that if his old man had used his loaf he could have been drinking his tea in a drum worth fortunes.

Even Jimmy was saving up for a deposit on a house, and he knew the boy would get one as well. When Ozzy had explained to him in prison one boring Saturday afternoon about how you worked your way up the housing ladder he had been fascinated. Until then it had never occurred to him, he had thought people who got in debt for a house had to have been off their heads. He had never understood the logic of making money work for you long term.

Freddie's world had been so small, but now he had a son and he was determined that he would have everything a son could possibly have.

'You all right, Mum?' She looked distracted, this woman who had always had a perfectly made-up face, who no matter what happened had always been above hysterics, who was as cool and calculating as a two-ton-an-hour barrister.

She smiled, and he saw the new lines around her mouth, the papery thinness of her skin. She had got old and he had not even noticed.

'Not really, Freddie.'

For the first time in his life she wasn't being strong. He had always relied on her strength because it was what had got him through his darkest hours. No matter what he had done she had been there for him. She had lied, cheated and committed perjury for him and he saw for the first time that she might actually need something back from him.

He sat up and said magnanimously, 'Whatever you want, Mum, it's yours.'

He really meant it and Maddie felt the urge to cry. Her big, blustering son, who like his father was so self-centered he would only give himself a kidney, was trying to be there for her. It was in some ways too little too late. But she was desperate, if she hadn't been she would not be asking. She knew he would understand that.

'Can I ask you a favour, Freddie?'

He smiled. He was being charming, he had a handsome new son whose birth had made him realise that he loved this woman with all his heart. She had gone through that pain to bring him into the world. She was his mother and he was suddenly aware of what that really meant.

She seemed embarrassed and he noticed that her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes were pleading with him to help her out, help her say what she wanted to say, and his immediate thought was that she was going to mention his father's latest amour. So he kept silent. He didn't want to start a conversation about his father that they would both regret. Once things were said out loud you could not take them back. It had to come from her and he had to listen and then make a decision over what steps he was going to take to relieve her of her worries.

After a few minutes his mother said quietly, 'I have no money, Freddie, could you please lend me a couple of pounds.'

The shock of her words was like a bucket of ice water hitting him in the face.

Maggie was cuddled up to Jimmy in the back of his car.

It was not ideal but it was warm and roomy and they had made it as comfortable as they could. Jimmy kept blankets in the boot and they snuggled under them together, happy just to be in each other's company.

Jimmy loved the feel of her against him, when they were together like this he understood how men could kill for a woman.

'He's a lovely baby, ain't he?'

Jimmy shrugged and then kissed the top of her head.

'He's a baby, they all look the same to me. At least Freddie's happy, anyway.'

He felt her body shudder against him as she gave a loud snort of derision.

'Fucking happy, he'll make a fuss for a week and then get fed up with it like he always does.'

'That's their business, Mags, don't let it interfere with tonight.'

She wanted to laugh, he was always trying to keep the peace. She understood Jimmy and Freddie were close and she knew he didn't like the way Freddie treated Jackie, but his loyalty was one of the things she loved about him.

In fact it was his loyalty that she would have to depend on in years to come. When she had a couple of kids and the relationship was older. She knew that as time went on and he made his way in their world he was going to have young girls throw themselves at him. You only had to look at Freddie and his father to see how life could develop.

'Let's get married soon, Mags, eh?' He squeezed her to him. 'I have enough to buy a place, we can go looking at the weekend. I want us together like this all the time, I am sick of having to take you home and pretend we ain't shagging at every available opportunity.'

She laughed. 'I am ready when you are, mate.' He kissed her on the lips, and she felt the urgency in him once again.

Sooner rather than later suited her, she just wanted out of her mother's house and into a place of her own. She had it all planned, and she was determined to see that her plans did not go awry. No kids for at least six years, and a nice little business to see her through the future. She felt so lucky, and she prayed silently that they would not end up like Freddie and Jackie.

If he ever stopped loving her like this she knew that she would die inside, and it was this knowledge that helped her understand why her sister and mother acted like they did.

Freddie Senior was in his element. He was experiencing a high the likes of which he had never thought possible.

Kitty Mason had just blown him off and it had left him weak as a kitten and feeling like Tarzan.

She was now rolling herself a joint. She sat cross-legged on the floor, her naked body shining like marble in the lamplight. All the years he had been married he had never seen his wife in the nude, and though he had sown his wild oats he had never had a woman so at ease with herself and her body like Kitty. Even after two kids her body was like a well-chewed Blackpool whelk, not a mark on it!

He could watch her for hours, there was something about her that made him want her like he had never wanted any woman before. He had always had his sidelines, and he had enjoyed them, and then he had left them. They had known the score and that had been their attraction. He took them out and he wined and dined them, gave them a seeing to as and when it suited him. They, for their part, had the opportunity to be seen with a well-known Face and experience the criminal lifestyle of money and long nights out.

It was an arrangement that suited everyone and this state of affairs would carry on until the relationship died a natural death.

But from the moment he had seen Kitty it had been a totally different experience. He had been besotted within seconds.

This was an alien concept to him. Never in his life had a woman affected him so strongly. He knew he was setting himself up for a fall, that the thirty-odd-year age gap could only bring him grief, but he was drawn to her. When he wasn't with her he wondered constantly where she was and what she was doing. Drove himself mad wondering if she was with someone else, more to the point, if she was sleeping with anyone else.

Freddie Senior knew in his heart the way he felt about her was unhealthy. She was like an addiction, yet he could not bring himself to try to give her up. Her little flat was lovely, and even though she had two kids she kept the place spotless. It was nicely decorated, and her kids were well behaved. Kitty was a free spirit, and he was attracted to that. She looked after herself, paid her own bills, had even done her own decorating. She had a strength of character that wasn't apparent to most people and it was that independence that most attracted him.

The downside of Kitty, though, was she never knew when to shut her mouth. She opened it without ever once thinking about what she was saying. In his world, women were rarely afforded that luxury and she had put a lot of backs up with her outspokenness. When she had a drink she got very loud, and she also had a problem with any other women around her. It had not taken her long to see that it was her involvement with him that allowed her to say more or less what she liked. But he knew he was going to have to put the hard word on her soon and he was dreading it.

Kitty was capable of having a knock-down, drag-out fight, and afterwards giving him the most amazing, mind-blowing sex he had ever had in his life.

He lay back on the sofa as he listened to Sade. He had a dry mouth and his heart was beating fast, the sound of it loud in his ears, and he knew he was getting the rushes from the amphetamines he had snorted earlier.

He felt sixteen again and he loved it. The feeling of being completely free was like a drug in itself. He snorted, he smoked dope and he listened to music that until Kitty had turned him on to drugs had sounded like shit. He had been an Elvis fan, had loved Sinatra. Now he was listening to 'Papa Was A Rolling Stone' and actually liking the stuff.

The drugs had been a revelation to him, he had not been turned on or tuned out in the sixties. He had been a fifties man, a man who saw alcohol as his only vice. He had loved his wife, who he now saw as nothing more than a brick gradually helping him sink into his old age. Maddie was a decent woman, and he respected her. But all his married life she had been respectable, he had never had a decent shag or a decent conversation in thirty-four years. His generation had stayed married whatever. They had consciously looked for decent women who they knew would take care of the home and any kids they might accrue. They had married their mothers and felt honoured to be doing so.

Now, though, he wanted excitement, he felt the sap rising inside him and he knew that Maddie, God love her, would never be enough, had never been enough. Even before the kid, when she had been well stacked and had a face like a movie star, she had been cold. He knew that people from their background believed that women who enjoyed sex were wanton, were untrustworthy, and he felt cheated because of it.

Freddie Senior had spent the best part of his life looking for what this girl gave him, belief in himself as a man. Not as a giver of children or a provider. Kitty lay back and let him take her. She would howl her enjoyment out and he got off just watching her as she came.

She passed him the joint now and he toked on it deeply. The speed was making his heart beat erratically and he wanted to come down a bit.

As Kitty got up and slipped her dressing gown back on, he heard a knock on the front door. It was the middle of the night and Kitty, being Kitty, did not even think it was unusual. He jumped up and pulled on his trousers and shirt.

'Who the fuck could that be?'

Kitty laughed at him. 'Probably a mate, Fred. Relax, for fuck's sake.'

Kitty was used to people coming round at all hours. She had a flat and she had gear, so it was a natural occurrence for her.

She opened the front door a few minutes later and Freddie Senior was surprised to see his son walk into the room.

'All right, Dad.'

Freddie was smiling, the picture of friendliness and camaraderie. He heard a child crying and the low voice of Kitty as she went in and hushed it. As he looked around the room he was surprised at how nice it was and this showed on his face.

'She keeps this place lovely.' Freddie Senior was explaining himself away and they both knew it. 'So, what brings you here?'

Freddie could hear the nervousness in his father's voice, he knew the fact he had come here would throw him.

'Jackie had a boy tonight.'

Freddie saw the smile on his father's face, the genuine pleasure he was feeling for him, and he grinned back.

'Handsome fucker he is, built like the proverbial, a Jackson through and through.'

Freddie Senior shook his son's hand and hugged him tightly. 'Sit down and I'll get you a beer.'

Freddie sat on the sofa, observing the room. In spite of himself he was impressed. He would not have put Kitty and this flat together in a million years, and she had certainly gone up in his estimation. He clocked the speed that was lying in neat lines on the smoked glass coffee table and the half-smoked joint in the ashtray.

His father came back with a bottle of Scotch and two glasses. 'Let's have a proper drink.'

Freddie accepted his whisky and downed it in one gulp, then he knelt on the floor and snorted a line of amphetamine quickly. Sniffing loudly, he held his forefinger to his nose for maximum effect. The speed was good and it hit his brain in seconds.

'Might as well have a party, eh.'

His father laughed and poured them out more Scotch.

Kitty came back in. She had put on a pair of jeans and a cheesecloth shirt. She looked very young and very pretty. Freddie Senior was grateful to her for getting dressed, it seemed wrong somehow for her to be in a state of undress in front of his son. She sat on the sofa and poured herself a glass of wine.

'Nice little drum.'

She smiled at Freddie then, and he saw why his father was like a dog with three lampposts.

'So you've got a boy, then?'

He grinned again, and Kitty was reminded of how good looking he was. She felt she was looking at his father at the same age – the resemblance was uncanny.

Freddie stood up and said gaily, 'Yeah, me son and heir. Can I get a refill?'

She nodded happily. The fact he was here said that he accepted the relationship with his father. To her this was progress indeed.

Freddie picked up the bottle of wine that Kitty had placed by the whisky, and turned and slammed it with all his might over his father's head. He then stabbed at him with the broken bottle five times, leaving the man a bloody mess.

Kitty saw the blood everywhere, spurting all over her new cream carpet and spraying her walls. Stoned, she was unable to move from the chair. She just stared at the seeping blood in morbid fascination wondering if this could really be happening.

Freddie Senior was lying there, the skin on his face open in gaping flaps. He was literally trying to hold his face together with his hands.

'You cunt! You'd treat my mother like she's nothing? She ain't got a fucking pot to piss in and you're here with your fucking slag?'

He started to punch his father in the head then, heavy, thudding punches that left his hands covered in his own father's blood.

Kitty started to shake, the shock of what had happened was finally kicking in and she tasted the bile as vomit filled her mouth. She swallowed it down and she shouted in horror, 'What the fuck are you doing? I have got kids in there!' Her voice sounded to her as if it was coming from miles away.

'Fuck you, you ugly fucking cunt, and fuck your fucking kids. You ever talk directly to me again and I'll ram that dope up your box and then use you like a fucking bong!'

Freddie turned back to his father.

The children were crying now, loud sobbing cries that told their mother they were frightened. The noise had woken them up. Kitty ran from the room in terror, worried now for the safety of her kids. Neighbours were banging on the walls but she knew they would not phone Old Bill. They just wanted the noise to stop.

'My fucking mother ain't got a fucking bean, you useless cunt.' He watched his father groaning in pain without any kind of compassion. 'You fucking ever treat my mum like that again and I will fucking kill you.'

Freddie Senior, who in his day had been classed as one of the hardest men around, who had worked with the Krays and who was still revered for his past reputation as a bareknuckle boxer, looked at his son and saw the future of their world.

He wanted no part of it.

Life had changed drastically, their world had changed dramatically, but he had never believed that this day would ever have come.

He watched his son snort another line, take a drink from the bottle of whisky, and finally pick up the half-smoked joint, and then he passed out.

Freddie washed up in the spotless bathroom. He liked the colour scheme and decided he might go for something like that when they next decorated.

When he left the flat and the sound of Kitty sobbing and the children's distressed voices a few minutes later, he had a spring in his step and a light heart.

Chapter Eight

Jimmy watched his father's face. It was puce, and it was riddled with bewilderment and genuine disgust.

James Jackson Senior was livid, and Jimmy could understand that. His brother had not only been beaten badly, he had also been publicly humiliated.

It was hard for anyone of the old school to get their head round what had happened. It was unheard of, it was breaking every unwritten law and the worst of all was, the jury was out until Ozzy's feelings were known.

Freddie's attack had reverberated around the manor in nanoseconds, thanks to Kitty and her big mouth. Jimmy understood his father's ire but he wanted him to keep out of the aftermath if possible.

Unlike his brother, Freddie Senior, James had never been that entrenched in the business. He had been a heavy, still was a heavy if needs be, but basically he liked a quiet life. He had never had the acumen to make it to the top, he was a drone, a day-to-day worker. He had never wanted the spotlight. Why would he? The spotlight was for people who needed to feel validated. James was quite happy with who he was.

Freddie's attack on his father had blown everyone away, not least young Jimmy who had not believed it until he had seen the man for himself. As disgusting as it was, in a way Jimmy understood why it had happened – not that he would voice that opinion out loud, of course. But in a strange way he knew that Freddie was doing what he thought was right. He had, though, as usual gone about it the wrong way.

Freddie Senior had left his wife without any means of support and that was a definite no no. Husbands and sons were there to protect the wife and mother. It was how things worked in their world and Freddie Senior had to be reminded of his responsibilities. No one had a problem with that, it was the punishment meted out that had caused the uproar.

Jimmy also knew that Freddie Senior had pushed his luck over the last few months. When you considered the facts, mainly that he had never in his life had such an easy ticket and was consequently milking it for all that it was worth, you might get an understanding of just how the whole episode had occurred in the first place. If he had just once tugged his forelock the whole chain of events might have been avoided.

But Jimmy kept his own counsel. His was not to reason why, his job was to clear up the shit as and when it fell on them all from a great height.

Maddie, for her part, was devastated at the turn of events, but had taken her husband back with quiet dignity. Yet, in reality, what choice did she have? He would be scarred for life and he was blind in one eye. It would be a reminder every time he looked in the mirror of what his son had done to him, and it would remind him of why. It was a reminder that they could all have done without.

Freddie, meanwhile, acted as if nothing had happened and refused to talk about it. Jimmy had garnered the truth of the situation from Maggie who in turn had got it from her mother.

Maddie and Lena had become bosom buddies overnight.

The child had been the catalyst for that friendship and they both spent every waking hour near the baby. Jimmy almost hoped he had a brood of girls, if boys meant it brought the witches' coven down on them.

Jimmy's mother, Deirdre, a small woman with a pretty face and a slim figure, was cooking as usual. No matter what time of the day or night, she cooked. If you walked into her kitchen at four in the morning, within five minutes a hot meal would be placed in front of you. She had done it enough times for him, and he had been grateful for it. He knew she would not give an opinion either way on the events of the last week and he, like his father, would have been surprised if she had. She was old school, this was men's business and she would leave the men to sort it out.

She watched and listened, but kept her own counsel.

'You and him are tight, so tell me, what's the fucker had to say to you about it?'

Jimmy knew his father hated the closeness he had with Freddie, and he sighed. 'He ain't said a dicky bird, but I heard it was over him leaving his wife high and dry, not a penny piece or a bit of grub in the house, while he shagged that Kitty and snorted drugs.' Jimmy knew he was trying to justify what Freddie had done.

James Jackson Senior was annoyed. He loved his brother and though he knew his faults better than anyone, what Freddie had done was wrong. It was out of order and, worst of all, in their world there was no precedent for it. He had attacked his own father, left him maimed for life and to compound that act it had been on the night his son was born.

'Nothing warrants what he did. Freddie will find out soon enough that people will not tolerate that kind of behaviour, no matter who they fucking work for.'

It was a veiled threat and Jimmy felt his heart sink down to his boots at the words.

'You keep out of it, Dad.' His voice was sharper than he had intended and his father looked at him in abject shock.

'Don't you fucking talk to me like that, I ain't me brother. I'll rip your fucking nuts off, boy, you disrespect me like I am a fucking cunt!'

Jimmy could see the fright on his mother's face and hastily tried to make amends. 'Look, Dad, just let it go. I would never disrespect you and you know that. All I am saying is that Freddie must have had his reasons, and at the end of the day it is nothing to do with me or you.'

James Jackson was on the point of hysteria as he listened to his only child's words. Then he was bellowing out at the top of his considerable voice, 'Nothing to do with me? My fucking brother looks like the Elephant Man and you say it's nothing to do with me? His own child fucking mugs him off and leaves him for dead, and you think it's a private fight? What fucking planet are you on?'

He looked at his wife for confirmation of this statement. Jimmy knew they hated Freddie and all he stood for, but she shrugged as if in complete bewilderment at what she was hearing. She had done this many times before, she knew how to play the game.

James Senior was a shouter, he shouted at the least provocation. It was something that had irritated his wife and son for many years. Yet while he was shouting they were safe. When he finally stopped shouting, trouble was sure to follow. Thankfully, nine times out often, he shouted himself out. Jimmy was hoping against hope that that would be the case now. Freddie would take Jimmy's own father apart, without a second's thought, and he had a sneaky feeling that James knew that. He was depending on him to make sure that if it all went off, he would protect him from a similar fate, and Jimmy would do that. His father was safe, safer than he realised.

This was a worrying time for Jimmy, he knew that everything could collapse around them if this was not handled properly. And if it all came on top he would have to take Freddie out. That would mean out of the ball game, out, once and for all.

Because Freddie was not a person you could fight and beat, and then expect to be left in peace with a cheery wave and a handshake. Freddie would hunt you down like a dog until he had wiped you off the face of the earth. It was his nature, it was why he was so good at his job. It was what was frightening everyone in their orbit. Everyone was thinking like his father, but no one actually wanted to do anything about it. They were all hoping someone else would do the dirty work for them.

Anyway, Jimmy wasn't sure he could beat Freddie in an out-and-out straightener. If it went off with Freddie, he knew he would have to kill him stone dead. He hoped it wouldn't come to that, but at the end of the day, family was family.

He left the house a little while later, and, going in the shed at the end of their tiny garden, he took out a small handgun he had hidden there. If necessary he would use it without a second's thought. Freddie was a man where a gun was mandatory if you needed to explain anything serious to him.

Deep in his boots Jimmy knew he was just waiting to see how Ozzy took this latest turn of events, because no matter what anyone else said or did, he knew it would be Ozzy who would decide what the final outcome was going to be.

The new baby was being adored by his mother, his grandmothers and his sisters. He was a happy child who was never alone.

All the females in his orbit were absolutely thrilled with him and he was thrilled with them. He was ruined. Only a week old, and already he was crying every time he was laid down. The grandmothers were convinced that this cleverness on his part denoted a brain the size of Albert Einstein's.

His father, however, was impressed that his little son was shrewd enough to already have women running at his every beck and call. Even Jackie was still enamoured of her child, although her nerves were shot with the events of the last few weeks. He allowed for that because he knew that women and hormones were a lethal mix. Jackie had the brain capacity of a gnat, and he was not about to turn her into a fucking gibbering idiot. He would leave the drink and the drugs to do that to her. But either way he would not be blamed for that as well.

She had given him a son, and he was quite happy to give her a pass until she pushed him too far once more. He knew it would happen, Jackie was the kind of person who always fucked things up for herself. It was what she was good at.

Since the turnout with his dad, Freddie had stuck close to home. He was being father of the year, and who could denigrate a man who wanted to be with his new-born son? It was the perfect alibi, it was the perfect excuse and he was determined that no one would ever put two and two together.

He knew he was being discussed from one end of the manor to the other and he didn't give a flying fuck about that. He was worried, though, about how Ozzy might perceive what he had done. He would swallow his knob if Ozzy took umbrage, but even then he knew it would only leave him with a grudge against Ozzy, and he held grudges like other people held bags of shopping.

No one scared him. He was not so much proud of that fact, as he accepted it as the truth. There was not a man walking who could put any kind of fear in his heart. He was completely confident of his capabilities. He was always focused on the job in hand, he never deviated from anything he decided to do and he would die before he admitted he was wrong.

At the end of the day he had seriously injured his own father, a man he had loved and revered, because he had crossed the line. His dad had left his wife without even the price of a packet of biscuits, left the woman who had visited him in prison, kept the home going while he sat on his ring doing fuck all, or spent most of his time with his birds. This was the same woman who had never once made his father ashamed of or embarrassed by her. She was respected around and about for her clean-living ways and her devotion to the church.

How dare he think he could abandon her for a slag like Kitty Mason? Freddie would not have given a shit if he'd had a hundred birds on the go, so long as he took care of his business beforehand. His mother should have had first grab at his wallet, then what he did with the rest of his poke would have been his business.

Freddie knew he was trying to convince himself, as well as everyone around him, of why he had taken his father out. If he was completely honest, he knew that the confrontation with his father had been a long time coming. He had needed to make the man aware of who he was now. Freddie Senior had still treated him like a kid, had talked over him when they were in the pub. Expected Freddie to finance him and his legion of hangers-on. It was all wrong. He was due the respect of everyone, his father included, and over the months it had been eating at him like a cancer. Even his father was competition to Freddie, and he should have bowed down to the superiority of his son's new status.

His mother had inadvertently given him the perfect excuse. He had defended her honour when in actual fact he had been defending his own.

Maddie brought him in a mug of tea and, as she put it on the small coffee table beside him, he grabbed her hand and kissed it.

'You all right, Mum?'

It was more a statement than a question.

'Never better, son.'

It was what he wanted to hear and they both knew that.

'I love him, you know.'

She smiled sadly and nodded, unsure if he was talking about his father or his new young son.

Joseph Summers was in the pub and he was being bought drinks left, right and centre. He knew it was because people wanted the SP on Freddie and his father, and he made a point of not discussing it. No one had asked him outright, and he knew they never would. They were hoping he would come over all indiscreet, and the amount of beers he was being bought were to hasten that happening.

Joseph was a lot of things, but stupid was not one of them.

He saw Paul and Liselle eyeing him and smiled in their direction. Like everyone else they didn't know what to do. It was an unheard-of situation and they were waiting to see how the main man himself reacted. After all, Ozzy had the final word on everything.

Jimmy walked across the pub and was aware of the people watching him. Joseph grinned at him and he motioned to Paul to refill his glass.

Paul brought them over two pints, and Joseph noticed how everyone was gradually moving away to make room for his daughter's boyfriend. He loved this boy like his own, and he was over the moon that at least one of his daughters had got herself a decent bloke.

'How's everything?'

Jimmy shrugged. 'How do you think?'

His voice said to drop the subject, and Joseph did not need to be told twice.

Paul gave Jimmy a small envelope and he slipped it into his pocket. He made small talk until he had drunk his pint and then he slipped out of the pub with everyone's eyes burning a hole in his back.

Liselle automatically poured Joseph another pint and gave it to him on the house. He smiled his thanks and looked around the pub. He was glad to be in Jimmy's good books because this thing could come on top at any moment, and he was interested to see what the outcome was going to be, though he didn't want any actual part in it. His daughter's husband was a piece of shit and in one way he hoped that he would be brought down a peg or nine. He certainly needed it, but Joseph had a sneaky feeling that Freddie Jackson, as usual, was going to get a pass.

Ozzy needed him. He needed him because he was a lunatic with no scruples or morals or conscience. The law of the land might take a dim view of what Freddie had done, but if Ozzy said it was OK to nearly murder your own father, then that would unfortunately be that.

Freddie and Jimmy were at the house in Ilford, the girls were all busy and Patricia was making sure that the ones to be cabbed to punters were all given their times and addresses. They always gave them a time, and if they were late they were looked for. It was one of the reasons they worked a house.

The law was peculiar in that if the girls solicited on the pavement they were breaking it, but if they were cabbed to an address and got out of the cab on to a private property they were as safe as houses. It was laughable really, but the girls liked the cabs because they made a change, got them out of the house for a few hours and also meant they could take their time and maybe have a drink or a coffee before getting back to the fray.

Patricia smiled at Freddie in a friendly way for the first time in weeks, and he felt his heart lift. He knew she must have heard about the altercation with his father and her smiling told him that she must believe he was in the right. It heartened him that someone he respected could see the justice in his actions. He needed her approbation at the moment.

'You know that you have a call coming here tonight, don't you?'

He nodded. 'Jimmy relayed the message, don't worry.'

His voice told her he felt that Jimmy passing on the message to him was out of order, but he would swallow because it was from Ozzy.

Patricia smiled once more. 'I am sorry for your troubles.'

It was an Irish saying, something that was said at funerals. She was telling him she agreed with his actions, agreed with what he had done. He had not been imagining it, she liked him really. The world was once more an exciting place to be. He loved the chase and this bird would make him chase her all over the show. He couldn't wait.

Suddenly there was a crashing sound from upstairs. Two of the girls ran towards the sound through force of habit. They tried to get up the narrow staircase together, and Jimmy lifted them backwards bodily as he rushed up to the bedroom with Freddie.

The girls were good at taking care of each other, especially if there was trouble from a punter. They might fight, argue and try to muscle in on each other's action, but if one was threatened they knew they were safer in a pack than they were on their own. They needed each other because of the loneliness of their occupation. When you were alone with a complete stranger the danger was astronomical, and they all tried in their way to see that they were as safe as possible. They looked out for one another and they set aside personal grudges if one of them was at risk. Most of them could fight, but even the hardest had trouble fighting a big irate man.

The small crowd of half-dressed females huddled together at the bottom of the stairs and listened out for what was happening. They knew it would be Ruby who had the trouble, it was always Ruby because she was tiny, and she was innocent looking and she had a mouth like a docker and never tired of using it.

Freddie was first into the room and he looked around him in shocked disbelief. The room was a small back bedroom, it had old-fashioned wallpaper with big pink roses, and a princess-sized bed with pink nylon sheets. There was a small dressing table that held baby oil, Durex and Johnson's Baby Powder, these items being the mainstay of a prostitute's trade: A large man with a beer belly was sitting on the grubby blue shag-pile carpet holding his head in his hands.

The girl was nowhere to be seen. The room looked tidy enough, and Freddie guessed the noise had been the dressing table being smashed back against the wall because the mirror was cracked.

The man was fat and had sparse grey hairs all over his chest and shoulders, home-made tattoos and thick, wiry grey hair. The stench in the room was overpowering, and wrinkling his nose Freddie shouted, 'Where the fuck is the girl?'

It was more than a question and they all knew it. The doorway was now jammed with Patricia and the girls, whose eyes were round and full of bewilderment.

No one could understand what had happened, and they had seen everything in their time. The man was crying, an ugly, guttural sound, and Freddie proceeded to drag him up bodily from the floor.

'Where is she?'

Freddie was looking round the room, demented now. How could the girl have got out without them seeing her? His sensible head was telling him how, but he did not want to believe that. It was too outrageous even for this place. But he turned and motioned with his head to Jimmy, who he could see had already sussed out the situation.

Jimmy stepped carefully across the room and popped his head out of the open sash window. Ruby was lying across the dustbins and the angle of her neck told him she was dead.

He turned to Freddie and said quietly, 'She is down there. He must have slung her out the window, the cunt.'

Freddie did the unexpected. He threw the man across the bed and, without looking at him again, he walked from the room and Jimmy heard him taking the stairs three at time. Ten seconds later he heard the first of the screams from the girls and all hell breaking loose.

He threw the man's trousers at him and said in a loud voice, 'Get dressed, me and you have to take a ride.'

The man was still crying and Jimmy was reminded once more why he hated men who used brasses. There was something lacking in them, something radically wrong with a man who needed to rent a hole to vent his spleen.

Ozzy was walking with the vicar towards the chapel. He made a point of going to Mass at every opportunity. It was worth the time. In the lifers' unit the born-again were the majority because of the different treatment they received. They were always looking at parole, and if that meant becoming a God-gobbler then so be it.

The vicar was a nice man, but very gullible. He also had a lot of the different weaknesses he talked about in his sermons.

Patricia's doctor had rung that morning from a psychiatric unit in London explaining to him that she was suicidal and needed desperately to talk to her brother. This phone call had been backed up by another reputable doctor who had assured the vicar that Ozzy talking to her would be a big help in her recovery. They had arranged for the phone call to be at seven o'clock that evening.

This was classed as an act of God, it was what happened when men's wives or children died, when some kind of access to the outside world was important to the wellbeing of either prisoner or family. It was also very rare, and Ozzy knew the favour he was being done. The vicar knew he would get a serious drink for this little day's work. He was a gambler, and he was into local bookies for a small fortune. Ozzy had made it his business to find this out and now the vicar, who thought he was doing a one-off favour, would become their lifeline to the outside world. No one had pointed that fact out to him yet, they would let it dawn on him gradually.

Ozzy was given a cup of tea and the vicar was very solicitous, making sure he had plenty of sugar and a plate of biscuits. Ozzy smiled at him as he slipped from the room quietly to enable the poor man to have some privacy. The vicar's phone was never tapped. It was what was called an open line and Ozzy was going to use this to his advantage now and in the future.

On the other end of the phone was Patricia, who took a few moments to fill him in on recent events. He listened quietly and then waited while the phone was passed over to Freddie Jackson.

Maddie placed a large plate of steak and chips in front of her husband, and he nodded gratefully.

She hated him like this. He kowtowed to her, he agreed with everything she said, it was as if all his strength had been taken away from him. She forced herself to look at his face because she knew it was important that he did not look hideous to her.

The pain was bad, she knew that, and he looked awful even now the swelling had gone down. He had had over sixty stitches in his face and if it had been inflicted by anyone other than his son, he could have borne it. But the fact it was their only child – the son he loved, the son he had brought up to be just like him – that had annihilated him, the fact it was his son who attacked him so viciously, made it so hard to accept.

Yet her husband was the man who had made the monster, he was the man who had taken him on his robberies, who had taught him to fight. Had made sure his education had been sparse, but also that he could work out a bet to the last half point.

He had made sure there was food on the table and that their home was nice. He had always had his outside women, and she had accepted him for what he was. Yet the monster he had created was the only person she had ever really loved in all her life. Her son had become everything to her, because his father had never really been there since his birth. Freddie Senior had been her life, then his son had been her life.

She wasn't sure how she felt about any of them any more. But this man who sat at home and tried to please her just got on her nerves. He was like a caricature of the man she had known. He was polite, he was agreeable, he was the antithesis of the man she had loved.

She did not know this man. He disappeared into the bedroom if there was a knock on the door, he refused to see anyone, even his brother, and he had no interest in anything that was going on around him. He ate whatever she put in front of him, he nodded and smiled in thanks, and he frightened her.

It was hard for her to accept that Freddie had in effect emasculated his own father. It was harder for her to understand how her son could have justified the violence of the attack, even though what he had done had made her, in the eyes of every woman she knew, the luckiest of mothers.

Her friends were actually jealous of a son who would look after his mother in such a public way, though their husbands thought it was a disgrace. Not that any of them would say that to Freddie Junior's face, of course.

Life was strange. You never knew what was going to happen to you and you never knew what was going to be the outcome of the most normal and simplest of days.

Jimmy watched as Freddie spoke to Ozzy on the phone.

He watched the changing expressions on his face and knew instinctively that Ozzy was with him on the event that had caused so much bad blood. He could practically see him puffing himself up with his own self-importance.

Freddie Jackson had been given permission to do what he wanted.

Now that Freddie had the big man's approval he was back in the fold. No one was going to say a word about him, or to him. Ozzy had just made what Freddie had done acceptable.

It was about women being taken care of, it was about men being reminded of their responsibilities, but it was mainly about Ozzy keeping everyone sweet. He needed a nutter and Freddie fitted the bill. More than fitted the bill. Ozzy knew that Freddie would never be trusted after what he had done. That no one would ever forget the breach of etiquette, or the fact it had been condoned by Ozzy.

Freddie for his part had no idea that he was actually working for someone even more slippery than Old Bill.

Jimmy waited until the call was over, then he went out with Freddie and in silence they disposed of two bodies.

Poor Ruby was found three days later on a rubbish tip in Essex. The man was burned away, he would spend eternity in a school furnace just south of Brentford. He had been disposed of with the usual rubbish collected in and around a school yard. In this case that consisted of needles, wraps and empty condom wrappers.

The school really livened up after dark, a bit like Freddie and his cronies.

Chapter Nine

Maggie opened her eyes and looked at the badly artexed ceiling in wonderment.

She would end this day as a Jackson, she would be a married woman. The excitement was filling her body and affecting her senses. All her life she had wanted this one thing and now it was here.

She could never remember not wanting to be joined with Jimmy Jackson, as his better half, as his wife. Today it was going to come true.

She looked around her bedroom, at the pink lampshade, at the dark-green candlewick bedspread and the posters of Chrissie Hynde, and was euphoric that she would never wake up in this room ever again.

She stretched, her arms were over her head and she wiggled in happiness as she surveyed her little world. Then she knelt up in the bed, and looked out of the bedroom window at the same view she had seen for the best part of her life. The other flats, the same curtains, the rain-stained concrete and the underground garages where no one would dream of keeping a car because it was too dangerous.

She had loved this view. It had always been there, it had been her world. Now she was ready for a different world, and their new little house was never going to be like this. Her kids would have everything. Their rooms would be themed, they would be beautiful little palaces for her little princes and princesses. Her children would have an environment fit for them. They would not have to fight their neighbours to get to the ice-cream van, they would not have to listen to people arguing when they were drunk, or see people fighting outside their bedroom windows.

They would have the best that could be offered to them, the best that could be bought. Not like this place. This place was concrete hate. It was what was wrong with the world they lived in, and the worst of it all was, in her own way, she loved it. It was all she knew. Yet it was everything she wanted to get away from.

She and Jimmy had already bought a house to live in, and she would only ever come back here to visit. It was a small, semi-detached place in Leytonstone. It had a lounge diner, it was decorated in browns and creams, and it was beautiful to her. It was also a bus ride away from her family, which was eventually the deciding factor.

She leaped off the bed. It was six a.m. and she felt as if she was a newborn, as if the world was waiting for her to become a whole person.

She was eighteen in three weeks. Before then she would be a married woman, and she would be the happiest girl alive.

Jimmy saw the girl beside him and groaned.

The night before was a complete blank, and he knew that was how this was meant to be. He had been drinking brandy and port, a lethal combination, and he felt as if someone had hit him over the head with a billiard ball in a sock. Even that scenario was not too off the wall, given the company he kept most nights.

The girl was young, he could see that much, and she was also snoring, which had woken him up. She sounded like one of the seven dwarfs and he grinned to himself. Trust him to end up with fucking Sleepy. Yet he knew if she woke and tried to strike up a conversation he would then have to change her name to Dopey.

He sat up and sighed. He felt terrible. His clothes were nowhere to be seen and the window was shut tightly, which was why the smell of sex was so overpowering in the tiny room.

He had woken up with a tom, and at a glance he couldn't see any condoms anywhere. He could be clapped up to the eyebrows on his wedding day, and no one would think it was funny other than Freddie.

He got out of bed and stepped gingerly on to the carpet. It had the tacky feel of a tom's carpet. Covered in everything that was disgusting, it had the stickiness of what was commonly known as crud, and it smelt of cigarettes and punters.

He felt as if twenty Paddies with hammers were knocking holes in his skull. It was only after he had spent five minutes trying to open the window that he realised it had been nailed shut.

He groaned. It followed that the door would be nailed shut as well. The heating in the house was full on, which accounted for the heat and the smell, and he would lay his next paycheque on Freddie already being home and dry and laughing his head off at the predicament he was now in.

This was Freddie's idea of a joke.

If it had happened to anyone but him Jimmy would have been the first person guffawing. As it was he couldn't just see the funny side. That Freddie had done it to him made him feel as always where Freddie was concerned – that there was an underlying nastiness behind it.

His only glimmer of hope was a used condom glistening in a green glass ashtray. He breathed a sigh of relief and then tried to escape.

Patricia had been woken at five thirty, by a phone call from one of her girls.

She walked into the house in Bayswater all sheepskin coat and Chloe perfume. The elder, a girl of thirty-five with a bad tit job and crooked teeth, was panicking, and Patricia had to talk her down for twenty minutes before she could ring round and locate Freddie.

She then walked into the bedroom of a black girl called Bernice. The girl was nineteen, looked thirty, and was one of the best earners they had ever had. Unfortunately, one of her regulars, a managing director of a multinational company, had chosen her bed to have a heart attack in an hour earlier. It was put down to amyl nitrate and Patricia thought that this was probably an accurate diagnosis.

He was over fifty, overweight and overdue a medical.

Bernice was calm, for which Patricia would be eternally grateful, and the other girls were keeping a low profile.

This had happened before and so they had a protocol.

She covered the man with a bright green sheet, and, pouring herself a coffee, she waited for Freddie and Jimmy to come and sort it all out with the minimum of fuss.

Freddie Senior was lying in the bed staring at the ceiling.

It was eight months since the attack and he had been out just once. That was only to have the stitches out. Now his wife was expecting him to go to young Jimmy's wedding, and he had no intention of going anywhere near the place.

Every time he tried to leave the house he felt hot air rushing to his head, he felt physically sick and he knew that if he stepped outside the door he would faint. He looked at his suit hanging on the back of the bedroom door and felt the familiar waves of nausea washing over him.

Maddie had great hopes for this wedding. She assumed he would go and everything would automatically be back to normal. Women were complete cunts when it suited them. She had caused all this and she was now trying to make out like it was nothing, that his son had only committed a misdemeanour. That it could all be put behind them.

He had been broken in the most public way possible and there was no way he could ever get even with the perpetrator. He fantasised about killing his son, but he knew he would never actually do it.

He could hear the familiar sounds of his wife in the kitchen. She didn't sleep either these days. He heard the kettle boiling, the cups rattling and, closing his eyes, he wished the biggest heart attack ever experienced on his wife of thirty-five years.

Anything, to get him out of this day.

Joseph Summers was over the moon, and even though his wife had stopped him having his first celebratory drink of the day the moment he had opened his eyes, he was still happy at the turn of events.

His daughter was about to marry the man of his dreams. The fact he was also the man of her dreams was just the icing on the cake. He would never have to do a day's collar again in his life, and no one could say a word. He was set, settled and he was about to begin a whole new way of life.

If only his other daughter had had the sense to marry a man like Jimmy instead of that useless prick she had settled for, how happy life would be. But he was shrewd and he knew that little Jimmy was one day going to be big Jimmy, and it was that day he would dream of until it came to pass. He had wanted to take Freddie out so many times, but he knew he would never have the guts. But if life had anything left to offer him, then it would be that he lived long enough to bury the bully his elder daughter had tied herself to.

His younger daughter brought him in a cup of tea and he smiled at her like a man who had won the pools and then found out his son-in-law had died.

Happy could not even begin to describe it.

This was the new order and it was not before time.

Freddie and Jimmy were tired, but they had to finish what they were doing. It was imperative that they made sure their tracks were covered.

As they carried the man out of the house they started laughing. Jimmy knew it wasn't funny, but Freddie's eyes as he looked at the inert form between them had made him crack up.

'When I saw he was dead it shit me right up. At least it got me out of that fucking room, though!'

Freddie laughed again. 'He's fucking dead all right. But what made me start laughing just now was remembering your face when I finally opened the bedroom door. You did not even hear us nailing it shut, you mad bastard.'

Jimmy grinned. 'Thanks to you I was out of me fucking box!'

'Too right.'

They laid the man in the boot of the taxi they had purloined. He stared up at them with a half smile and milky white eyes

Slamming the boot shut, Freddie smiled. 'I'll deal with this. You get yourself home and ready for the last walk. The condemned man, that's what you are today.'

Jimmy shrugged. 'No I ain't.'

He was serious and Freddie watched the boy's anger as it rose to the surface.

'I have the best little bird in the world, she is good and kind and decent. She would stand by me through anything and she is a little grafter.'

''Course she is, mate.'

It was said as if he had never heard such tripe in his life, and as he walked round to the driver's seat, Jimmy followed him and grabbed his arm.

As he pulled Freddie round towards him, he said quietly, but with enough menace to start a real argument, 'Don't mug her off, Freddie, she is everything to me. No one will ever take her place. She is my life, she is everything good that I have, and no one will ever talk about her without respect.'

It was a threat, it was a starting point for war. It was the most truthful thing he had ever said.

Freddie took a deep breath. Looking into Jimmy's eyes he saw real love, and it wasn't just for Maggie, it was for him. Jimmy was asking him not to ever make a crack about Maggie when she was his wife. He was asking him to afford her respect in every way possible, he was asking him to remember they were blood brothers, that they had ties that went beyond everything they had ever known.

Freddie was in a quandary. He knew that this was tantamount to mutiny, but he also understood where Jimmy was coming from. He loved the little whore, and she was a whore. He only had to sit it out and wait for her to blot her copybook, because she would. They all did in the end.

So he smiled and said gently, 'It was a joke, mate. You've got a little fucking blinder there. Ease up, boy, it's your fucking wedding day.'

Jimmy watched the way Freddie avoided his eyes, and in that moment he saw him properly for the first time in years. Really saw him. From his gold snide Rolex to his diamond signet ring. He saw the ragged nails on his hands and the stubble on his chin. The rough silk suit, and his hand-made shoes. Even with all the money he was earning he still looked dilapidated, he looked seedy and worst of all, he looked what he was.

A cheap hood.

They were a lot of things, but cheap hoods should not be one of them. They were the best you were going to get in their world and Jimmy had made a conscious effort to reflect that in his manners and his dress. Freddie, as always, just expected everything to come to him because of his attitude and his fearsome reputation. The drugs and the loans were just coming into their own. People who had never had the money before now wanted recreational puff, or cocaine. Speed was for the cheapos, the Giro generation. The new designer drugs were for the new generation of people who worked hard and played hard.

This new world was going to give Jimmy everything he had ever dreamed of or wanted, and he knew at that moment that this man, the man he loved more than any other, would always be his Achilles heel.

Their world was changing and they had to change with it.

Freddie was what Ozzy called a romancer, and Jimmy finally understood what that meant. He suddenly felt depressed, but he drove back to his mother's house and forced himself to get into the enjoyment of what was to be his wedding day.

Jackie was dressed in a blue Ossie Clark trouser suit that had walked out of Maison Riche in Ilford High Street hidden underneath a sheepskin coat, and had then made its way to her house at half the asking price. It had bell-bottom trousers and was hand-stitched. In baby-blue crepe, it was cut for a woman with large breasts and Jackie's spilled over the neckline and made her look sexier than she had in years.

The kids all looked lovely, dressed like little angels in their bridesmaid dresses, and Freddie was nowhere to be seen.

Jackie had already drunk a bottle of wine and it was only eleven o'clock in the morning. The car was picking them up in an hour and she was sorry now that she was so early for once. Normally she'd be late for everything, including her own wedding.

Baby Freddie was gurgling away and little Rox was helping hold his bottle of tea for him even though he was more than capable of holding it himself. He loved tea and Maggie, being the fussy bitch she was, had dropped off a new bottle the day before, one that didn't have tea stains inside it. Jackie smiled as she opened another bottle of cheap German wine. Wait until marvellous Maggie had a few fucking ankle biters, see how she got on then!

At the moment she was like all new brides, dreaming of her lovely home and her perfect kids. Well, she had news for her – they all dreamed of that. Reality unfortunately made you see the error of your ways. Marriage was like war, and if you were lucky you managed to win a few battles.

She had watched her sister the last few months, with her wedding lists and her swatches, and now she looked at the girls in their peach-coloured bridesmaid dresses and stifled the urge to laugh once more. Madame Modèle had been there at eight that morning and put all their hair up, and she had then decorated the French pleats with little peach-coloured flowers.

Jackie's own hair looked stunning and she was grateful for the woman's light touch.

She could not help feeling jealous because this was so different to her wedding. That had been a quick marriage when she had been five months pregnant because Freddie had not been sure it was what he wanted to do.

The humiliation still stung.

It was only the way Freddie had ridiculed all these arrangements that had made her feel better about it all. He had taken the piss from day one, and then when Maggie and Jimmy had bought the house he had slaughtered them.

Deep inside, however, she knew that it was not funny, in fact it was wonderful what they had achieved, considering their ages. But even though she knew that, her natural antagonism and feeling of inferiority stopped her enjoying what they had achieved with them. Her sister had eaten, shat and slept this wedding, and she had not even tried to help her, not really. She had taken her cue from Freddie as always, and even the bridesmaid dresses had only come about because the woman who was making them lived locally and had been happy to come to her house.

She was drunk now and she knew it. The world was suddenly taking on a rosy glow and the kids were looking at her with that look they had but she was determined that no one was going to piss on her firework today.

Freddie still wasn't home when they got into the wedding car and left for the church.

Joseph walked up the aisle of the Holy Trinity Church in Ilford and felt so proud he wanted to burst.

Jimmy was watching from the front pew and he could see the worried expression on his face. It was only then that he realised they had no best man.

Freddie was nowhere to be seen.

He felt Maggie tense beside him and automatically slowed down. The wedding march was playing and the rest of their family and friends were there. No one, not even Freddie Jackson, was going to ruin this day.

As they approached the altar he heard the sighs of the women. They were all remarking, he was sure, on how beautiful his daughter looked.

And she was beautiful. She was stunning and she was his heart.

He could hear Lena crying and smiled to himself. Bless her, at least this time she was crying for the right reasons. Last time she had been crying because she had known her elder daughter was about to make the biggest mistake of her life. That had been proved time and time again. Where was her prick of a husband, anyway? He should have been here by now. Since the boy had been born he had been a bit better. At least he came home more often than he ever had before.

Personally, Joseph couldn't take to the child, not that he would ever say that out loud. His wife and all the other women in the family thought baby Freddie was the second coming. But he had his father's shifty eyes, and he was a lazy little fucker. Blood will out, as his old father used to say, and he had always been right.

Joseph was annoyed that even on his daughter's big day Freddie somehow managed to overshadow it. Maggie smiled at him as he lifted her veil over her head, and out of the corner of his eye he saw a skinny black man with dreadlocks and a morning suit moving along the front row and sitting himself next to Jimmy. He guessed this was the new best man, and held back his anger that Freddie, as usual, could not be depended on.

Maggie was finally married, and even though she had not expected Glenford Prentiss as the best man he had done an admirable job at such short notice. Jimmy had become very good friends with him, and she liked him a lot. He was nice, his girlfriend Soraya was a star, and they had had some great nights out together.

Jimmy was acting as if nothing was amiss but she knew he must be really smarting, because unless Freddie had been nicked, he had more or less snubbed them both on the most important day of their lives. Even Jackie was looking sheepish, so it showed Maggie how serious this breach of etiquette was.

In her heart of hearts, though, she hoped he didn't turn up. He was a loose cannon and she wanted the reception to go off without a hitch, a fight or drunken brawling. Without Freddie there, the odds of anything like that happening were cut by ninety per cent. But she was happy – he was finally her husband and so for her Jimmy's sake she hoped that Freddie would turn up just to put his mind at rest and make his day.

Jimmy kissed her hard on the lips outside the church and everyone cheered, but she could feel the tension in him and cursed the man who even on her big day could take the shine away without a thought. She smiled her best smile, though. Whatever she felt inside she was not going to let anyone see it. They were husband and wife and that was all that mattered.

Maddie was sipping a brandy and Coke and watching her grandson being taken round the room and shown off. It was a lovely reception, and she wished her husband could have been persuaded to leave the house to enjoy it. She had told everyone that he had the flu, and this flu had been around for so long no one expected anything else. It was like he was dead, but she had not buried him.

Freddie's absence from the church had been noticed and, she was sure, commented on. But inside, like Maggie, she hoped that he kept away. He ruined everything he touched, he was like the Jonah in the old myths. He was her son and she hated him these days.

She sighed and swallowed down her drink in one go. It was difficult, this constant smiling and pretending everything was hunky-dory when in reality all she wanted to do was place her head on the table and cry until she had no more tears left. But she couldn't. It was all about the con, all about how you were perceived. She was too old for this game. She had lost the urge for it many years before, and now all she wanted was to go home and sit with the husband she loved and who smiled at her and agreed with everything she said.

She hoped that young Jimmy and his new wife had a better shot at marriage than they had. She had a feeling that they were going to fare better than most because, as young as they were, they were so obviously in love. But then so had been the majority of the people in this room on their wedding days. It was a matter of whether that love survived the trials and tribulations of everyday life.

As Lena told anyone who would listen, Maggie wasn't even pregnant, they were young and in love, simple as that.

If only things could stay that simple.

Freddie and Patricia were in bed, and even though he was out of order, the chance to be with her was too good to miss. At least that is what he told himself, though really he knew she was an excuse.

He had dropped the taxi off at a scrap-metal yard in South London and watched as it had been crushed with Hapless Harry in the boot, then he had gone back to the house to make sure they had cleaned away everything to do with the man. He knew the girls would not be able to resist using any credit cards that might be floating around. He had disappeared, and that was that. The last thing they needed was his cards being kited around Brentford shopping centre.

Then Patricia had offered him a lift, because he had no car and had been dropped back at the house by one of the men from the scrappy who was after a freebie with the girls for his time and effort. He had realised then that the wedding was a no go, and in fact he'd known all along that he was not going to show up. He would have started a fight with a complete stranger if he'd had to in order to keep away.

Something inside him had berated him, told him that nothing should keep him away from Jimmy's big day. That it would cause bad blood, because Jimmy had put a lot of store on his wedding, and he also put a lot of store on Freddie being his best man. It was an honour, and on one level he was gutted that he had let him down, but he also knew he would now be the talk of the wedding, and, like Jackie, he needed to be the centre of attention no matter what.

Patricia got out of the bed and lit a cigarette. She sighed and yawned. 'You had better get your arse in gear and show your face, hadn't you?'

He sighed. 'Bit late now.' He grinned lazily at her and patted the sheets. 'Come back to bed, I've fucked meself now anyway.'

His arrogance, as far as she could see, knew no bounds. She stood up and said nonchalantly, 'No way! I am invited to the reception and I am going, mate. I like little Jimmy and so does Ozzy. I have to give them their wedding present, Ozzy spent ages agonising over it.'

With those few words Freddie finally realised exactly what he had done. He would have to justify a blanking of this magnitude with something big.

The Irish club was packed now, and the reception was in full swing. Even the priest was drunk, and leading a private singsong of Irish rebels' songs in the corner by the bar.

Maggie was still wearing her long ivory dress and her hair was still perfect, and Jimmy gazed at her in wonderment. She was finally his, and they were going to be together for ever.

There was plenty of food, the drink was flowing freely, everyone was having the time of their lives, yet for all his smiling and joking Jimmy had never taken his eyes off the door.

Freddie had been a complete no-show.

He felt in his pocket for the keys given to him by Patricia. They were the keys to a small hairdresser's in Silvertown, and he was astonished at Ozzy's generosity. He had yet to tell Maggie but he was saving it for later, for the right moment. When he had explained that to Pat, she had understood his reasoning and told him he was an old romantic at heart.

He had responded with a smile. 'I hope so. I want her to have all the romance and love she can handle.'

Pat had walked away then, and he would have laid money that she had tears in her steely green eyes.

Glenford was talking about his Irish grandfather and everyone around him was in stitches. He had made the day for them, had stepped into the breech, as they say, and Jimmy would be grateful to him for that until the day he died. The wedding had been a success, but to him it had been marred by Freddie's absence. He also knew he would never forgive Freddie for this humiliation.

Maggie went to him then, and she slipped into his arms comfortably. He held her tight and they swayed together to Teddy Pendergrass's 'Love TKO', a record they had made love to so many times. Feeling his disappointment over Freddie's disregard for them she whispered, 'I love you, Jimmy Jackson.'

It was heartfelt and, looking into her deep-blue eyes, he decided then and there that he was not going to let Freddie ruin this moment, this day, or this wonderful journey they were about to embark on. He would look after this girl, and he would try to ensure that she never knew an unhappy day in her life. And if she ever did, it would not be because of him.

'Maggie, I love you, girl, and I promise you will never know hurt from me.'

Jackie was dancing nearby with Joseph and, hearing the words, she wanted to cry. Not just for them and their obvious happiness, but because she was alone and she was living a lie. She saw Jimmy kiss her sister gently on the lips, his arms protective as he held her, and her sister's eyes so trusting and so bright as he whispered in her ear.

'Ozzy sent you something wonderful, baby.'

Maggie was nonplussed and she laughed as she said, 'What? What you on about?'

Pat was nearby now because Jimmy had motioned to her to join them. Jimmy placed the keys in Maggie's hand and she stared at them in bewilderment.

'What are these for, then?'

Pat took her cue and said happily, 'It's a salon, babe, and it's yours. Ozzy has also earmarked ten grand for you to do it up exactly how you want.'

Maggie's scream could be heard all over the Irish club. People snapped their heads in her direction and then smiled as they realised she was squealing with happiness. She was hugging Patricia and then jumping up and down with glee as she told everyone what had just happened.

Jackie stood back. Unlike her father, who was congratulating his daughter profusely, she felt the usual jealousy and antagonism. As always, Maggie had been given it all on a plate.

The news went round, the congrats were given, and Jimmy was once more proud that Ozzy had seen fit to reward them so generously. It set the seal on a perfect day and he took her back into his arms to the strains of The Temptations and 'My Girl'.

As they swayed together, Freddie walked through the door. He was in his morning suit and he looked dishevelled and drunk. Sighing, Jimmy watched as he strode purposefully over to his mother.

Maddie stood up and greeted him, but the smile did not reach her eyes.

Then Freddie began walking her out of the room. He shrugged at Jimmy, who, against his better wishes, followed him outside with his new wife in tow. He knew the eyes of the room were on them and wondered if he was going to have to fight him this night, of all nights.

'What happened to you, then?' he asked.

Freddie held out his arms in supplication. 'I am so sorry, Jimmy, but me dad's topped himself.'

It was Maggie's, 'Oh my God,' that started Maddie off". She was wailing like a banshee, a terrible, lonely sound like a wounded fox, high and filled with such pain it was almost unbearable to listen to. It was this terrible keening that brought everyone outside to hear the terrible news.

But even as he commiserated with him, spoke all the appropriate words, Jimmy was sure that it was not the real reason for his blanking his wedding, and he knew that Freddie was well aware of that.