Joey couldn’t stop crying, ‘Whaddya think has happened, Nan?’ he wept.

‘I don’t know, darling,’ Joyce said, squeezing his hand. Raymond was pacing the corridors when he spotted his parents walking towards him. The doctors were worried about Frankie. She had been that hysterical, her blood pressure had shot through the roof and they had now given her a sedative to calm her down.

Joyce and Stanley glanced fearfully at one another as they spotted the huge police presence. ‘Is it Jess? Has she lost the baby?’ Joyce sobbed, as she was led into a nearby relatives’ room.

A sombre-looking policewoman urged them all to sit down.

‘Where’s Frankie? Is she OK?’ Joey asked, shaking.

Raymond begged the policewoman to let him break the terrible news to his family.

‘What’s going on, son?’ Stanley asked, his face stern.

Raymond let out a cry. ‘Jessica’s dead,’ he sobbed. ‘Dead! What do you mean, she’s dead?’ Joyce asked incredulously.

‘There was a shooting. No one knows exactly what happened, but Jessica’s dead and Eddie’s being operated on as we speak.’

As Joey let out a piercing scream, Joyce collapsed with shock. Stanley stood up and, as his legs buckled, sank to his knees. ‘I always knew that bastard would be the death of my Jessica, I always knew it,’ he howled.

Nearby, in the operating theatre, Eddie’s heart had just stopped beating. ‘Cardiac arrest. Start resuscitation,’ shouted one of the surgeons.

Everybody crowded round. It was touch and go for Eddie Mitchell.

Still unaware of the chaos, Jed and Sammy Boy headed straight to Frankie’s house and were surprised to see her driveway swarming with police officers. Jed told Sammy to stay in the car.

‘Wait here while I ask the gavvers what’s going on,’ he said as he slammed the car door.

‘You can’t go in there. No one’s allowed in there,’ said a copper, standing by the gate. He had been ordered to guard the property while his superiors searched for clues.

‘What’s happened? I need to see my girlfriend, she lives here,’ Jed said bluntly.

‘There’s been an accident, that’s all I can tell you,’ the copper replied.

Jed was never one to be fobbed off. ‘Me and my girlfriend are getting wed. She’s having my baby, so I need to know she’s all right. Can you try and find out where she is for me?’

Turning his back to Jed, the young officer spoke into his walkie-talkie. His girlfriend was also pregnant, so he felt some empathy towards Jed. ‘Your girlfriend’s OK. She’s at Basildon Hospital.’

Jed sprinted back to the car. ‘Basildon Hospital, as quick as you like,’ he yelled at his cousin.