Life, he had sussed out, was nothing more than an elaborate game; you played the role required, and you watched and waited for your opportunity. It was simple really.

As he approached his nana’s house he felt the first stirrings of excitement mixed with apprehension. But it had been ten years since he had seen any of them, and that, he surmised, was to be expected.

Chapter One Hundred and Eleven

‘Come on, Mummy, I want to go to Mackie D’s!’

Cherie was already bored with being at her great-nana Mary’s. All her great-granddad wanted to do was watch the horse racing; she had picked out his winners for him and, as one had come in, she was now the queen of the horse world. At least that was what her great-grandad was calling her anyway. But it was stifling here, and she wanted to go out, go somewhere else. It smelt of cigarettes, chip fat and furniture polish, and she hated it. So did her nanny Cynthia; she had said the house was like a tomb, and then explained it was a place for dead people. Cherie didn’t really understand that, but she imagined that the smell of her nana Mary’s was that of a dead person’s house and she didn’t like the thought of that. Dead people were scary.

She liked it at her mummy’s flat because it was bright and cheerful. But Nanny Cynthia said that her mummy wasn’t a proper mummy, and the police wouldn’t let her stay there all the time because her mummy sold drugs and her daddy was in prison. She didn’t believe her daddy was in prison, and she tried to explain that he was training to be a fighter pilot and go to the war. But her nanny Cynthia said it was lies and she should remember that. It was confusing really; she had to remember so much and it was very hard to understand.

But one thing she did know for sure was that her nanny Cynthia loved her more than anyone else in the world. She knew that must be true, because her nanny Cynthia was the person she had to live with.

As they were leaving, the doorbell rang, and Gabby went to answer it. Cherie saw her mummy stumble backwards, and she was immediately alert to the fact something was happening. And she knew she had to tell her nanny Cynthia anything and everything that she heard or saw.