Cynthia snapped right back at him, ‘Not with a cold, she isn’t. Plus, poor Gabby’s just about ready to drop, she can’t be running around after that lively little mare. Unless you’re staying home, of course.’ She knew she had him then and she smiled down the phone imagining how angry he was.

‘Well, I want her back tomorrow, all right? She spends far too much time at your drum for my liking.’

Cynthia didn’t answer him; she had won this battle and if it was left to her she would soon be winning the war.

When she put the phone down she went back into her kitchen and looked through Cherie’s drawing case. She had found a piece of paper earlier, and on it, written in pencil, were the plans to rob a security van for a bank in a place called Borough Green, which was apparently in Kent.

Cherie had drawn a picture of a nice house, and she had been admiring it when she had spotted the little diagram on the back. This was how you planned any robbery, Cynthia knew, from her time in Jonny’s circle. You used Ordnance Survey maps and you always used pencil – never pen. Then, once the route was established, the map was destroyed, along with anything else incriminating. Cynthia knew that this would have been destroyed eventually, but Little Miss Trouble had got to it first, unaware that it was her father’s blueprint for his next job. She laughed with glee. That Vincent really should be more careful about what he left in his office at the garage.

She hugged the paper to her chest. Oh, the old saying was right: God really did pay back debts without money; of that she was now sure. In her hands was the fate of Cherie’s interfering fuck of a father, and she knew exactly what she was going to do with it.

Chapter One Hundred and Twenty-Eight

Mary Callahan wasn’t well, and Jack knew it. She was having trouble breathing, and she seemed to spend longer and longer having a ‘bit of a lie down’, as she called it.