‘Yeah, we do. So do yourself a favour and fuck off out of it.’

In a lightning-fast movement, Josh smashed the glass on the brass edge of the bar and then shoved it straight into the biker’s crotch. The jagged edge ripped through the leather as if it was cotton and went straight into the flesh beneath. A yodelling howl of agony shot out of the biker’s mouth. Then Josh’s left fist pistoned out. It connected with the biker’s nose and blood sprayed as the bone broke with a crunch and his nose split in two. The biker staggered and collapsed to the floor.

‘Hey! Hey!’

The others were coming at a run, but Josh had thought this out. Four of Linus Pole’s men now shot in through the front door and joined Josh in the fight. It didn’t take long. It certainly wasn’t Queensberry rules. Biker gangs were tough, but gypsy men were born fighting – from the time they were little kids, theirs was a world of challenges issued and accepted.

When the gang was all laid out groaning, Josh grabbed the leader’s leather jacket and, ignoring his screams of pain, hauled him over to the window. Josh showed him the line of motorbikes which were now burning merrily outside. As they watched, the petrol tanks started to blow, one after the other.

Whumph! Whumph! Whumph!

‘Almost pretty, ain’t it? Like firework night. Looks like you’ll be walking home, arsewipe,’ said Josh.

He shook the gang leader’s jacket and the man whimpered and clutched at his cut and bleeding crotch. Josh put his head very close to the biker’s shattered face and stared into his eyes. ‘You listening? Good. You don’t come anywhere near this place, ever again. You got that? Or next time I’ll chop your fucking legs off and then you won’t even be able to walk home, you understand? Answer me.’

‘Ugh,’ said the man past the blood and snot pouring out of his pulverized nose.

‘That’s a yes?’

The man nodded his head.

‘Good. Now. Fuck. Off,’ said Josh, and together he and Linus Pole’s men threw the bikers out the pub door and on to the pavement.

29

29

‘I’m pregnant,’ said Shauna as they ate in the restaurant of the four-star hotel they were now staying at, since Shauna had complained that three-star wasn’t good enough. Christmas was coming soon. The blast-furnace heat of the summer was long past, nothing but a memory.

Josh choked on his steak-and-kidney pudding. ‘You’re what?’

Shauna stared at him. They’d been smashing the life out of each other for months now, using no protection at all, and yet he looked almost comically surprised at this turn of events. Men! It was what she’d longed for, of course. Planned for.

‘I’m going to have a baby. Your baby.’