The baseball bat came out of nowhere, but Lenny and Liam disarmed the man in seconds, and then they set about giving him a lesson he would not forget. Emma Nuttall, the girl who had inadvertently caused all this aggravation, was still screaming when the police arrived. Her boyfriend, Andy Bedford, died on his way to the hospital.

The two Scott boys, it was being said, had finally gone too fucking far.

Chapter One Hundred and Seventy

Sharon was in pieces but the police would tell her nothing. It seemed that even the name Donovan didn’t hold much weight with the Old Bill when there were that many witnesses to a murder. A female DI took Sharon through to the canteen and got her a cup of tea as she waited for Ray to arrive and sort the mess out. She was terrified. If they went down for this it would be a serious lump, and she didn’t know if she could cope with losing both her sons to the prison system.

A deep, abiding hatred for Ray entered her mind that night, because he had brought them to this. He had given them an in to the same world that had left their father murdered in cold blood in a filthy alleyway. And now that is what they were too: murderers. She felt the sting of tears and, taking out her mobile, she started ringing around.

She wasn’t surprised when Reggie got there before anyone else. Ray could not be traced; his mobile was turned off and she guessed rightly that he would be with some girl somewhere. The one time she needed him – really needed him – and he had turned his phone off on her. That bothered her more than she could believe.