She still could not find out what exactly had happened. Gerry would lay money that he had managed to rape the girl; she had seen the bruises on her in the bathroom. But that was something for Sharon to say yes or no to. She was the victim and it was her call. Gerry shuddered, trying to imagine the horror of your dead husband’s father trying to have sex with you. It was gross, unnatural – especially with a man like Big Lenny Scott.

Sharon knew that it would be pointless trying to keep the attack from Ray, but what she knew she had to keep secret was that she had been raped. He had managed to penetrate her, and the thought of it made her feel physically ill. The smell of him was still in her nostrils and she wondered if it would ever go away. She could still feel his hands on her breasts, between her legs and his tongue probing inside her mouth. She felt like gagging again and she tried to stifle the reflex.

She could see poor Gerry watching her, and she knew her friend had guessed a lot more than she was letting on. It was strange because Gerry was normally full of inane chatter, but now she was quiet and calming. Sharon was pleased she was there. She knew that she would go along with whatever Sharon wanted to do about the situation. She would need someone watching her back – none of the people she was dealing with were fools.

She had to lie, because as bad as what they thought Big Lenny had done was, if they knew he had actually succeeded in his quest to take her, he would be a dead man. As much as Lesley Scott irritated her at times, she was still her boys’ grandmother, still Lenny’s mother. She didn’t know why it mattered so much. But it did. The boys needed family in their lives and that meant she had to lie for their sake, not for her own. She hated Big Lenny, but she did not want his death on her conscience, however much she craved it. Because, God knew, she wanted him dead more than anything.

The last few months had been a nightmare for her with the late-night visits and the drunken lectures that she needed a man to take care of her and her fatherless sons. She had known she had to be careful but she had also been frightened to tell anyone about it. She lived in a world where certain things were only settled with extreme violence, and trying to take on your dead son’s wife was definitely up there with the lowest of the low.