Cherie looked at her mother and decided that she had better do what she was told; after all, she had won the fight about staying at Great-Granddad Jack’s. It wasn’t really that he smelled – she didn’t like it there because her great-granddad was all over little Vince. She used to be his favourite but that all changed when her brother came along. These days he hardly took any notice of her, except to say she was ‘too much like Cynthia’, and he said it as if it was a bad thing. Now she was lying in bed with her mummy, and she was feeling quite tired. Getting her own way could be exhausting.

‘Can I have a story, Mummy?’

Gabby pulled her close, and said happily, ‘’Course you can, darling. What story do you want?’

‘Little Red Riding Hood, please. The long version.’

Gabby laughed and started telling her the story. Cherie was asleep in no time and, holding her daughter to her own body, Gabby felt close to her for the first time. She couldn’t wait for this to be her normal life. Soon she would have her babies back, and she would have her Vincent home. He had sworn he would go straight this time, that he would not do anything that would part him from his family. She knew that everyone thought she was mad, but she loved him, and she had to believe what he told her. It had been even harder when he had gone away this time and she had not coped well at all. And poor Vincent had been stuck on the island again, and unable to do anything to help her. She knew how hard that must have been for him, but that was all in the past now. She was on the mend, and he would be home at some point. All she could do was look to the future. She would not keep the kids away from her mum; after all, she had been there for them for a long time. But she wouldn’t lose them to her. She would show them all that she was the best thing that could happen to her kids.

Gabby fell asleep smiling, thinking of how lovely it would be to have her family back together. Her, the kids, and her Vincent. It was the stuff that dreams were made of.

Three hours later, she awoke to a room full of smoke.

Chapter One Hundred and Forty-One

Cynthia let herself into her daughter’s home and stood in the darkness of the kitchen, looking around her in the gloom. It was clean, she would give her daughter that, but it was still shabby. It was still council in her eyes. It broke her heart that her grandchildren would be reduced to this. Well, not for long.