‘Ow!’ She was hopping around on one leg. ‘Are you made of fecking steel or what? I think I might have broken it.’ She sank to the ground to examine her heel.

Carly hurried to Bridge’s side. ‘You okay?’

‘It’s nothing, queen,’ she said, grimacing, tears in her eyes. ‘Have they stopped?’

‘They will.’

Aleš was lumbering back up again, looking like an enraged rhino, Ash eyeing him, ready to pounce.

Carly stormed between them. ‘Will you both STOP. THIS. NOW. Or you’re not getting fed or fucked for a month, understand?’

‘Touché!’ Bridge rallied, hopping back up. ‘No food, no sex and I’ll raise you no laundry or childcare.’

‘Oh, bravo!’ Auriol cheered from the sidelines.

Behind Carly, Flynn muttered, ‘What’s so unusual in that?’

Ash and Aleš turned away from each other, arms up, conceding an angry, resentful ceasefire, trying to look like it was all a joke.

‘Now shake fecking hands!’ shouted Bridge, and to both women’s amazement they did.

‘Us too,’ she muttered sheepishly to Carly, holding hers out. ‘I’m truly sorry, queen. When I get a cob on, there’s no fecking stopping me.’

‘That kick was bloody brilliant.’ Carly hugged her again. ‘I can’t believe Aleš went straight down like that.’

‘He had to.’ Bridge winked, stooping to pick up her husband’s discarded woolly hat. ‘Ash would have made him look a much bigger fecking mug than I just did.’

‘You mean he…?’ She started to laugh, realising the big man had staged the fall like a footballer.

‘That was quite marvellous!’ Auriol hurried forwards. ‘Would you both be interested in running some female empowerment and self-defence workshops together for my Year Six girls?’

‘And there was me thinking you were going to fire me for public affray before I even started.’ Bridge looked hugely relieved.

‘Quite the opposite,’ Auriol insisted. ‘You are the jewel in Maggers’ crown, Ms Mazur.’

‘Does that mean we can have the coffee pod machine after all?’

Leaving them to it, Carly made her way to Ash who gave her a suspicious look, still simmering just below boiling point.

‘Don’t try that number on me again,’ he warned.

‘This isn’t your fight, bae, you know that. Keep your powder dry, hey?’

He set his jaw, looking sideways at her, wise enough to let it rest when physical and sexual starvation were threatened this close to a family bout.

She looked sideways back. ‘You’re a dark horse. Army first-aid training came in useful, then?’

His eyebrows curled questioningly, then he remembered. ‘Yeah, your mate was in a bit of a mess that day.’

‘My hero.’ She reached up to his face and he responded with a long, hard kiss.

Something still bothered Carly. ‘So why’d she want Skully’s number?’

‘Turf,’ he said smoothly, nodding in the direction of Bridge who was walloping Aleš with his woolly hat. ‘Ask her yourself.’

Carly let it go. She also needed to keep her powder dry if, as she suspected, Skully dealt his in small packages. She’d see him off eventually.