‘You’re her, aintcha?’ he said.

‘What’s that mean?’ asked Angel. She was a quiet girl but her dander was up, she was protective of Dora and ready to rip someone’s head off if they mocked her mother.

‘You’re her kid. The by-blow. The bastard. You look like her.’

So she’d got rid of one lot of bitches and now he was throwing insults at her. Angel turned away from him.

‘Hey – don’t go! Is that the way you cope with trouble, you just turn your back on it?’

Angel stopped in her tracks as the bell rang and everyone started trooping back into the building. She turned back and stared at him. ‘What do you want?’ she asked coldly.

‘Let me introduce myself.’ He was grinning. Her repressed fury clearly amused him. ‘I’m Tommy Sibley. We’ve never met, but you’re Dora O’Brien’s daughter, aintcha?’

‘What if I am? What’s it to you?’

‘Don’t bite my fucking head off.’ He held his hands up in a steady down gesture. ‘Dora’s my aunt. I’m your cousin.’

77

Frank had been conducting a great deal of business while he’d been inside. More time was passing, but time was his friend. Twelve years he’d been in stir now, and the governor thought he was a steadying influence on all the mad young cons, almost a father figure.

Little did he know.

All the little cons worked for Frank. They beavered away, brought him goodies; treated him with extreme respect, or else.

Twelve years.

Now he could be a lifer, couldn’t he, out on licence?

He could be.

He applied for parole.

Still Frank thought of Dora O’Brien when he awoke, and just before he went to sleep.

That treacherous bitch.

Baxter Graves visited, and every time Frank told him, ‘Keep an eye on her’, and Baxter said he would.

Frank couldn’t wait to get out and get his hands around her throat, teach her some manners. Teach her that you didn’t fuck with Frank Pargeter.

He waited, he worked in the kitchen garden, in the library, he was like a father confessor to all the lads in here; they were his boys.

His parole was turned down.

78

‘Black sheep of the family, ain’t she, your ma?’ said Tommy to Angel as they sat on the wall after school.

‘What d’you mean by that?’

She was still sniffy with him, but curious. She knew she had relatives in the East End, living not too far away, and she remembered their faces when her mum had taken her there and they said Dora’s dad had died and then shut the door on her. She knew that these days her mother had nothing to do with them. Dora wouldn’t even talk about them. Angel knew she had two aunties, and Mum had mentioned that her own mother had died a couple of years back, but that was the sum total of her knowledge. Even that information had been prised out of Dora, and then Dora had shouted at her and told her to drop the ruddy subject, they were dead to her, the lot of them, and she was dead to them.