She screamed in terror, crying, calling out, her voice shaking, panic racing through her veins. In the pitch-black she stepped off the chair. ‘Hello? Hello? Whoever’s there, it isn’t funny now. Whoever you are, you can stop … You hear me? You can stop.’

‘Oh, I hear you, all right.’ The lights came on and standing in the doorway was Shannon.

‘It’s you?’

‘Yeah, it’s me.’

‘You little bitch, you did all this?’

‘No, that was me … Hello, Franny, surprised to see me?’ Stepping into view, Vaughn Sadler stood next to Shannon, holding baby Mia in his arms.

Stunned, Franny stumbled back, and held on to the chair for support as her legs gave way. Covering her mouth she sobbed into her hand, ‘Mia … Mia, oh my God, Mia – but you, I thought …’

Vaughn interrupted, ‘You thought I was dead? Disappointed, are we?’

Franny held her head, pacing around in a circle as her whole body felt like it was going into shock. ‘But they said … they called Alfie and said …’

Vaughn scoffed. ‘They said they’d found a body in the club? Yeah, that’s right they did, but I asked them to call him. I asked them to say that. You know, it’s amazing what people will do when you pay them enough. It seems everything is for sale, even your soul if you’re willing to pay enough, wouldn’t you agree, Fran, or did you never have one in the first place?’

‘Get out! Get out!’ Franny ran towards Mia. ‘Give her to me! Give her to me! She’s mine!’

Vaughn twisted away, holding Franny off. ‘But that’s the thing – she ain’t yours, is she? We all know whose baby she is.’

‘Why are you doing this?’

Vaughn laughed scornfully. ‘Why am I doing this? Franny, seriously, you need to look in the mirror, darlin’.’

Franny, staring at Mia, shook her head. ‘I don’t understand where you got her from. Ma said she’d sold her.’

‘That’s right, she did. And you’re looking at the happy buyer. I paid a lot of money for her as well because when Ma told me you were trying to get her back, well of course, I couldn’t have that, and I couldn’t have anyone else taking her either. It was easy because you know how much Ma likes her dough.’

‘I can’t believe it was you!’

Vaughn handed Mia to Shannon, walked across the room and poured himself a large glass of scotch. ‘Shannon filled me in on everything. She told me she’d seen Mia in your car and taken her, though she didn’t know it was me who’d bought her from Ma. I thought the fewer people that knew, the better. She only learnt that later, when I needed her to look after Mia.’

‘What? You got her to look after Mia?’