‘I think it’s time, but don’t get her pregnant,’ Lenny said.

‘OK, Da, thanks for the tip.’

‘Are you sure?’ Grace said to Lenny.

‘He can always come back,’ he said. ‘Best thing I ever did was leave home and stand on my own two feet.’

‘Can I move out?’ Ryan asked.

‘No.’ Lenny and Grace said together.

‘I can afford it more than him,’ he said, and he was probably right. He was also only sixteen.

‘NO.’

‘I’m never moving out, I’m living with me ma forever,’ Bernard said, as if it was a badge of honour.

‘Sap,’ Jeffrey said, before announcing he’d be moving in with Ryan.

‘My bollocks.’

‘Ryan, none of that language, please,’ Lenny said.

‘I know all your secrets,’ Jeffrey said, and he touched his nose with his index finger.

‘Fuck off, cyber-nerd!’ Ryan said, unnerved.

‘Ryan!’

‘Sorry, Da,’ he said. Jeffrey had replaced his love of food with computer coding. He told his mother he wanted to be a hacker when he grew up. Maybe he already was one. That’s all we need, another bloody criminal in the family . . .

Lenny broke Grace’s train of thought with a kiss and a large stack of sandwiches in tinfoil. ‘Just in case you’re there through lunch.’

‘Thanks.’ She kissed him. He kissed her back and it went on a bit, much to the disgust of Bernard and Jeffrey.

‘Ah, Ma, please,’ Bernard said.

‘Gross,’ Jeffrey said.

Grace was sure they would be in and out, no need for a packed lunch, but she was grateful. Ryan demanded he go with her.

‘Go to school.’

‘I’m way ahead of those morons and you know it,’ he said. He was but she didn’t want him anywhere near the courthouse.

‘Juliet’s going,’ he said.

‘Yeah well, you are not Juliet.’

‘It would be good for me to experience a courtroom setting,’ Ryan said.

‘No.’

‘Might put me off a life of crime.’

‘No.’

‘For fu—’

‘Do not push me, Ryan.’

‘Fine,’ he said, and he handed her a small book. ‘Give this to me gran.’

She took it and looked at it. ‘The Little Book of Prison, a Beginners Guide?’

‘Just in case.’

‘Jesus.’ She put it in her handbag, just in case.

She walked out to the car with Lenny following. She looked at the caravan parked in her front garden as she passed it. ‘It’s time to get rid of that.’ She knew it was no longer required. Juliet was safe. Her eldest was moving out. Life was moving on.

Chapter Seventy-One: Molly

Chapter Seventy-One

Molly

MOLLY WOKE TO THE smell of a fry. She emerged downstairs in her dressing gown to find Jack frying bacon and enough sausages to feed an army.

‘Sit down there, Molls,’ he said, pointing to the place setting, and he handed her a cup of tea. ‘Won’t be long now.’

‘I’m not really hungry.’