Jonny held his hand up to stop the man’s excited chatter. It occurred to him that Jimmy was not exactly au fait with what the job actually entailed, and he also knew that he would have to test the man’s abilities before he gave him any kind of real money to work with. ‘Hang on a minute, Jimmy Boy. You have to keep the day job, mate, that will be your blind for the future. Mr Respectable and all that. You’ll do my number crunching in your spare time and keep it under your hat – don’t even tell Cynthia until it’s a done deal. I’ll take you on trial for two months to see if you can do the job how I want it done, and to see if you can handle what the job entails. That way we can both decide if it’s not what either of us want, OK?’

Jimmy nodded then as if he finally understood the situation, and Jonny Parker wondered how the fuck this idiot would cope with the stress that this new world he was becoming a part of would inevitably place on his rounded shoulders. But the damage was done now, and all Jonny could do was make sure he kept a beady eye on the situation.

As if he didn’t have enough to fucking do.

Chapter Eighteen

1988

Cynthia was beside herself with annoyance, but she held her temper as she had learned to do over the last couple of years. Seeing Celeste with her detached house and her flash little sports car was bad enough, but that contented smile that was always on her moon face was the real bugbear.

Cynthia had finally got herself and her family out of the house in Ilford – and she had made sure they made their money back on that place. Not that she had ever told anyone the long and the short of that story – even that prat James was still none the wiser where that was concerned. He wasn’t capable of understanding her logic. Also he was like all villains and, when all was said and done, he was now a villain, albeit a minor one. He believed you should never publicly break the law. It brought the Filth down on your head, and made them look at you a bit closer than you’d like. And, though they weren’t exactly rolling in it, they were in a much better financial position than they had thought they would be – all thanks to her, of course. That prick would have sold at a loss, and they would never have got out of the debt. But, seeing how they were now getting an extra few quid courtesy of Celeste’s husband, the high and mighty Jonny Parker, she had to watch herself these days and it was getting harder and harder to keep her opinions to herself.