He wished he had listened to Bertie and Derek, but it was too late. It was way too late for everything and anything now; his little lad would grow up without him like little Cherie had done. His poor Gabby would be left with two kids, and no visible means of employment – without him the garage would need to be sold, he knew that. Why had he been so determined to do it? If he had listened to men older and wiser than himself, he would be at home now holding his little son and, later on, holding his lovely Gabby in his arms. Instead all he had to look forward to was absolutely nothing. Nothing worth anything anyway. He hoped Gabby would be OK, but at least she had her mother. Love or loathe Cynthia, she adored those kids, and she wouldn’t let anything happen to them.

He would kill the fucking Gold brothers! One of them must have had a loose lip, because he had told no one, absolutely no one, about the blag. So it had to have been one of them. The worst of it was they had been nabbed before they had even got out of the fucking car. How humiliating was that?

Lying down, he put his face into the pillow and, like many a man before him, he cried like a baby; he cried for his family, for the life he had lost, and for the life he would now be living. But mostly he cried for Gabby and the knowledge he had left her high and dry for the second time in six years. That was what really hurt. Her world as she knew it was gone. The life they had planned was not to be. She had a baby less than three weeks old, and no one to tell her they loved her late at night. That, he knew, would be the hardest for her to bear.

Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Four

2008

Cynthia was tired but pleasantly so. At three years old, little Vincent was a real handful, but she had enjoyed the day at the zoo as much as he had. With his sister Cherie loving the bones of him, and his nanny Cynthia treating him like a king, he was a very contented little boy.

As she put the pushchair away in her hall cupboard, and walked through to the lounge, she saw the children dutifully taking their coats off and removing their shoes. They were such good kids, did anything at all she asked without her having to yell or bully them into it. So different to her own son and daughter. The thought brought her back to Gabriella, and the news she had imparted earlier that day. It seemed that ‘her Vincent’, as she sickeningly referred to him, might get early parole. A bit too bloody early for Cynthia’s liking.