Jack Callahan didn’t answer; they all knew she didn’t shop or go anywhere local any more. Her name was a byword for treachery and so it should be. Every time he thought of what she had done he felt a murderous rage that he had fathered her. If she wasn’t so like his own mother in looks he might have accused his wife of all sorts after his daughter had grassed everyone within her orbit. That she was capable of something so fucking heinous, so disgusting . . . He shook his head once more in absolute disbelief.

‘Poor old Celeste. She still feels guilty about it – after everything she still tries to make excuses for her sister.’

Jack Callahan didn’t even bother to reply; Cynthia had been nothing but trouble since she could open that big painted trap of hers. He didn’t want her anywhere near him now. As long as she left the kids here regular like, he couldn’t give a toss whether he ever saw her again. Good job she didn’t know what was going on now, or they’d all be up shit street. His son-in-law Jonny was coining it in, and sailing a bit too close to the edge, even by his standards. Truth be told, even Jack was getting a bit shirty at the lad’s audacity. But Jonny seemed to know what he was doing. He had a knack for skulduggery, and he had the sense to temper it with legitimate enterprises, so he could at least explain where the houses and cars came from. But sneaking over to South London was a daring little escapade, and it could cause nothing but grief to everyone concerned. Not that anyone involved seemed to be bothered about that. It was as if the old standards had died, and anyone who still believed in them was classed as a dinosaur.

Well, maybe Jack was a dinosaur, but he felt that the old guard, with their boundaries and their guidelines, had it right. You can’t go around taking other people’s earns without a fight, no matter who you were. It was the principle of the thing. He had a bad feeling about these new premises. The men on the receiving end of Jonny’s new enterprises would not take it lightly, he knew that much.