Her mum was bad, toxic – she destroyed everything she touched, and she didn’t care who she hurt in her quest to get what she wanted. Gabby knew that she had been trying to get her uncle Jonny to go and see her. Phoning the house at all hours, until he had changed the number. It had made her nana and granddad furious. Her granddad said that it was common knowledge now, that the neighbours were having a field day. He also said that, if Jonny Parker had any sense, he would shoot Cynthia Tailor down like a rabid dog, and do them all a favour. She agreed with her granddad about that; she would gladly shoot her mother herself.

That Jonny was back in favour didn’t surprise Gabby. She understood that her grandparents had turned their back on one daughter, but that they could never do it to the other one. Celeste needed her family, and they needed her. It galled her, though, that Jonny Parker had walked away more or less scot-free – that wasn’t right. He was as much to blame for her dad’s death as her mother was.

Her poor dad, that he would kill himself like that! She felt the tears once more. It seemed as though her whole life had suddenly been destroyed, and she didn’t know how to make it better. She would never see her dad’s face again, never hear his voice. While her mother, the main cause of it all, seemed no different than usual. She was acting like her life hadn’t even really been affected. Even today, she didn’t look remotely bothered that her husband was dead, that he had dropped six storeys and landed on a set of metal railings. She looked like she always looked – angry, dissatisfied and bitter. It was so unfair.

Chapter Sixty-Two

Derek Greene was chatting to Vincent O’Casey, and they were getting on very well indeed. That young Vincent was seeing the teenage daughter of Cynthia Tailor was common knowledge as was the fact that he wanted an in with Derek and his crew. The boy had potential, that much was evident. He could steal almost any car to order, and he had a natural knack with engines of any kind. He would make a good driver, and that was a very important part of the bank robber’s plans.

A good driver knew the roads like the back of his hands – the side streets and short cuts – and would not get flustered under pressure. Three burly blokes with sawn-off shotguns and a pile of cash, high on adrenaline, were not liable to be too kind to someone who didn’t know where he was going. So a good driver was considered an asset.