‘My boys don’t lie, Freddie. I haven’t raised them that way. If they say they didn’t do anything, then that’s the truth.’

‘Mrs Beard’s in quite a bad way, Queenie, so I do have to investigate what happened. She’s definitely broken her nose, wrist and lost some teeth.’

‘Never had no teeth anyway,’ Vinny remarked.

Queenie clipped her eldest around the head. ‘Don’t be so bloody rude, you.’

PC Angel produced some string from his pocket. ‘A neighbour found this tied to Mrs Beard’s fence. She said she saw Vinny go into the garden to retrieve the rest.’

‘No I didn’t. I only went into the garden to check the cat was all right. I thought she’d fell on it.’

‘The boys are gonna have to empty their pockets I’m afraid, Queenie.’

‘Do as the policeman says,’ Albie ordered.

Vinny wasn’t daft. The first thing he’d done was hide his penknife and string in a bush. ‘See none of us have got nuffink, but sweets. We’re innocent. Loads of kids round ’ere tie string to fences so people fall over. It could be any of ’em.’

PC Angel wagged his finger at all three boys. ‘Tying string to people’s fences is a very dangerous and stupid thing to do, lads. Mrs Beard could’ve died. She might still die. You see anyone doing that again, you need to tell me, OK?’

Vinny nodded. ‘We will,’ he lied.

‘I’ll be off now then. Thanks for your time.’

‘No problem,’ Queenie replied. ‘How’s that beautiful little girl of yours doing, Freddie? I saw her sitting outside Mr Singh’s shop last week in her pram. Looked a picture, she did, with her lemon knitted bonnet on.’

Freddie smiled. ‘Thanks, Queenie. My little cherub, she is. Light of my life.’

Queenie said goodbye and shut the front door. She would wait until the morning until telling Albie and the boys she was pregnant again.

‘Did you hear how Mrs Beard is?’ asked Michael, the second his mother returned from the shop the following day.

Seeing Vinny slyly poke his brother in the back, Queenie’s suspicions were confirmed. She decided to scare the life out the deceitful little sods. ‘She died.’

‘What! When?’ Roy asked.

‘Last night. The police’ll probably come round here again later. They got to get to the bottom of this now. It’s a murder charge.’

‘But whoever did it wouldn’t have meant to murder her, Mum,’ Vinny pointed out.

‘Doesn’t matter. The string caused her death, so the police will find the boys who did it and lock them up. They’ll search the street for the rest of the string and probably find the culprit’s fingerprints all over it.’

Watching the colour drain from her sons’ faces infuriated Queenie. She didn’t mind them lying to the police, but not to her. She’d given birth to the little rascals, for Christ’s sake.

When Michael started to weep, Queenie wagged her forefinger. ‘It was you three, wasn’t it?’

‘We were only mucking about, Mum. We didn’t mean to kill her. We thought she would land on her broomstick and fly off,’ admitted Roy.