Hearing the defeat in the man’s voice, Mary Callahan felt an urge to slap him across the face. This was his son’s life, and he was acting as if it was nothing more than an inconvenience. No wonder young Vincent spent so much time round here. Well, he wouldn’t be coming back for a long time, and she had to tell her granddaughter that at some point this evening. She would be devastated, and rightly so. Why were they being plagued with this bad luck? It just seemed to be one thing after another. Now Gabby was pregnant and alone. What a state of affairs.

Chapter Eighty-Nine

‘You’ve got to snap out of this, Gabby, it’s not good for you or the baby.’

Gabby knew that her nana was right, but it was hard. She was eight months pregnant, and her baby’s father was doing nine years in Parkhurst. He would be out in four with good behaviour. He had not grassed up or implicated anyone else and the men thought he was wonderful, a real mate, and a right diamond geezer. Well, Gabby didn’t share that opinion. She thought he should have told the Filth everything he knew, and got himself out a lot sooner. She shook her head as if she was clearing it. She didn’t really mean it; she knew he had to take the fall. Grasses were not welcome in their world. Grasses were not welcome anywhere.

On top of everything else, his dad and brothers had found his hidden stash of money and taken it for themselves, so she was also skint into the bargain. They had jumped on that money like a monkey on a banana tree, and that had hurt. They had basically taken the food out of her baby’s mouth. The O’Caseys had had a new TV and a good few parties on what should have been her money. Vincent was furious. That money was for her and her baby. But there was nothing he could do about it. Not from where he was sitting.

‘I just miss him, Nana.’ Her voice was a plaintive cry now.

‘’Course you do, child, it wouldn’t be natural if you didn’t.’

Her nana’s no-nonsense approach made her smile at times, even though it could annoy her too. Mary Callahan’s attitude was, it’s happened, get over it. But then her nana had had a lot of experience where being let down was concerned, she supposed. It didn’t stop Gabby from feeling lonely and abandoned once again though.