It was ‘babe’ now; Gabby could see she was really pulling out all the stops. ‘No, you don’t, Mum. You’ve never cared about anyone or anything in your life. You’re a fucking leech. You take everything from people. You pretend you care, but you don’t, you don’t know how to. You’d even blame poor James – James who you sent off his fucking rocker in the first place . . .’

‘You are not going to make me listen to this shit, Gabriella. You are wrong, very wrong. Use your bloody head, girl! I loved that little boy with all my heart . . . and, as for your brother . . . I don’t believe a word of it – they must have the wrong person.’

But Gabby could see the fear in her mother’s eyes and she knew that it was true. Every word of it.

‘I met your old mate, Jeannie, today. That’s how I know everything – she told me all about the house in Ilford.’ She could see her mother’s head working, trying to figure out exactly what she was saying, could almost hear her brain whirring as she tried to lie her way out of what they both knew was the truth.

‘What the hell have you been taking this time, eh? What the fuck are you on, Gabriella, to make you come out with this shit?’

Gabby found she’d picked up a large bronze statue of a cat. As she held it in her scarred hands she felt the weight of it. Her mother kept talking. The world according to Cynthia Tailor who, along with God Himself, was almost omnipotent in the lives of her family, who ruled everyone around her with a rod of iron. She could see her mother’s mouth moving constantly, but she couldn’t hear what she was saying any more; all she was conscious of was a rushing noise in her ears. Then she struck her.

She lifted the bronze statue back over her head and hit her mother across the face with it, using all the force she could muster, and enjoying the feeling of total retaliation. For once it was her doing the hurting, and that felt good. She hit her over and over again, watching the spray of blood as it spurted from her mother’s head, enjoying her mother’s pain, and her mother’s suffering.

She knew that this had been a long time coming, and that she should have done it years ago, should have done it when she was a young girl. She could have saved so many people so much heartache. She was determined now, determined to shut her mother up once and for all. Shut her up for good.