‘Even you, Dolly, his surrogate mother, were going to be fucked off out of it. He is evil, evil - and he has brought my old man as low as him. He was in this with Harry and Bunty. Oh, you may well look surprised. Why do you think Harry come up trumps the night you was turned over, eh? Loyalty to Georgio, my arse! He couldn’t drop you lot quick enough when Georgio got the capture, and this is why, love. These little children are their road to riches. Untold riches, as my Davey put it. The dirty, weasel-faced, little bastard!’

Donna stared down at her hands in distress. Of all the things she had found out, the fact that Georgio had a child, a living child, was the worst of all. In her mind’s eye she could see the tall blonde girl with the handsome dark-eyed child. As Donna walked into the prison, the girl had walked out. Donna had admired the child. She felt a scream spiralling up inside her, and fought bravely to keep it inside her head, not let it come barrelling out into the faces of the two women before her.

‘What a mess, eh? What a godawful dirty mess.’

Donna was amazed that her voice sounded so normal, when inside she was screaming.

Screaming at the injustice of a God who allowed Georgio to beget a child and left her barren. Allowed things like child prostitution to flourish, to be easily available to debauched men. Who allowed her to love someone, to trust someone who was a nothing. A dirty filthy NOTHING.

The thought of Georgio’s hands on her made her want to gag. The knowledge that she had lain in bed longing for his touch made her insides rise up as her mind rebelled.

Carol, her anger spent, sorry now for what she had said, grasped Donna’s hand in hers and said softly, ‘What we have to decide now is what we are going to do?’

Donna’s face finally crumpled, her strength finally gave out and the three women cried together.

Each betrayed in her own way, each reliant on the others now to make something good come out of it all.

Wiping her eyes, Donna said in a voice stronger than she would have believed possible: ‘What we do now is blow this thing wide open.’

Georgio stood in the rec room watching a game of pool. Big Ricky was playing the new man on the Wing, Alfie Heartland. He was a well-known face in Parkhurst and other maximum security nicks; he was respected, handsome and violent. An armed robber, Alfie was now doing a fifteen for a raid on a local building society where he had pistol-whipped a have-a-go artist. Alfie was known for his sense of humour and his knowledge of horses. An avid gambler, he had already sorted himself a screw to put his bets on, and had established a book.