Not any more, though. It was now common knowledge that anyone who talked outside of their working circle would be treated with the response that such treachery deserved. Wives and girlfriends were now treated as scornfully as the Filth, were seen to be as dangerous as the law courts. They were not party to anything even remotely pertaining to the business of their husbands or partners. It was working out wonderfully. Jonny told his wife, the love of his life, fuck-all as well. She was a great girl but, like every woman, the less she knew the better.

Tonight he would be well and truly blooded; he was going to make his mark once and for all. He didn’t want to do this because it would be bloody and callous and it would become legend. He needed to do it because once he had, no one would be in any doubt who was the main earner in the Smoke. Now it was time. Every businessman comes to a crossroads, where they decide what route they’ll take – either the easy option (always the less lucrative), or the hard option, where they have to fight for what they really want. Well, he was going to fight, and fight with everything he had. He was going to make sure that no one, no one at all, would be left to queer his otherwise perfect pitch.

This was make or break time, and he was determined to break them, little by little, bit by bit.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Joseph Makabele was a large Rastafarian, who had not been near Jamaica even once in his long and eventful life. He was actually a Nigerian, who knew that his heritage would not help him in any way, shape or form. Not in the world of drug-dealing anyway. He knew the real Jamaicans were suspect about him, and that the white boys were even more so. Mainly because they had gone to school with the Jamaicans and the Tobagonians, and every other Caribbean boy in the neighbourhood; he had never gone to school with anyone who was worth anything. He looked the part and he talked the part, but he didn’t have the creds.

Joseph knew that meant he would not get the loyalty he needed; people worked for him, but they didn’t really trust him. He offered a good wage, but nothing more, because no one knew him years ago and, in London, unless you were able to hark back at least three generations, you were no one.