She watched her daughter take her grandson from the room and sighed heavily. Sharon had turned the council flat into a palace, all big TV sets and sound systems, wall-to-wall carpets and expensive drapes. It looked like something from a magazine. Well, it had been copied from a magazine! She pushed the thoughts away, but there was no denying that her daughter was certainly a very lucky girl. A very lucky girl indeed. Del thought the sun rose and set on this pair, and he doted on that child. So did she – she loved her grandson. But this feeling that her daughter was getting it all a bit too easy plagued her. No one could be this lucky. Happiness came at a price; everyone with half a brain knew that.

Sharon came back into the room with two glasses of ice-cold Chardonnay and, giving one to her mum, she clinked their glasses gently as she said happily, ‘Cheers.’

Ivy sipped her wine, and wondered at how her daughter had developed this habit of drinking wine in the evenings. Honestly, she was like something off Play for Today.

But she drank the wine anyway.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Geraldine Dornan was a very good-looking girl with a spectacular figure, and a mouth like a Tilbury docker. Lenny could certainly see what had attracted Jason Prior, especially if he was looking to rent her out. She had the face of an angel, and the body of a porn queen – a lethal combination by anyone’s standards. She was on the ball though; she was listening intently to her brother as he explained what she had to do, and he respected the fact that she asked how much she would be getting paid for it.

Jason Prior surrounded himself with the lowest of the low. And so even though he might be mob-handed, none of the people with him would put themselves in danger to save his sorry arse. He lived just off the Railton Road in Brixton, in honour of his black roots. He was a mongrel – a bit of Jamaican and a bit of Mexican, with a white mother. He had grown up a troubled boy and he was now a seriously damaged man. Jason was known as a good earner; he could get his hands on literally any pharmaceutical known to man, which he did regularly.