Her voice was filled with malice and something else.

It was fear.

She was scared of him, of what she had caused. Of what the outcome might be.

George dropped back into a seat. Suddenly he was exhausted. It had been a mistake to come here. He should have known that. She had stolen his childhood, his innocence and his father.

The last he could never forgive.

The number of times he had run away from her, only to be brought back, when all the time he’d had a father he could have run to. A man to take care of him properly.

He looked at his mother as if for the first time. He finally hated her one hundred per cent. She disgusted him. She was a whore. They were all whores, every last one of them.

Suddenly he began to laugh, a high-pitched laugh bordering on hysteria, and it was that frightening sound that brought Lily bursting into the room.

The old bitch! All those years of her sanctimonious rambling, listening to Joseph pandering to her, coming second to the paragon of virtue who rang her bell like a demented school mistress and shouted, ‘Get me this, get me that!’ When in reality she had been a common prostitute!

‘You lying old cow!’ All Lily’s hard-won refinement was gone now.

‘You was on the bleeding bash!’

Nancy stared at her daughter-in-law, eyes like pieces of flint.

‘You’ve driven us all up the bloody wall. Well, that’s it now, my girl. It’s a home for you. I don’t care how much it costs. Wait till Joseph gets in! I’ll give you Ruth Ellis! It’s a pity they didn’t bloody well hang you, you old bitch!’

George wiped his eyes with his handkerchief and with a final glance at his now terrified mother, walked from the room and out of the front door. Lily’s shouting carried after him.

He started the car. On the back seat was his suitcase, packed and ready for his holidays.

Wait until he told Edith. George knew he would never see his mother again.

Patrick Kelly made his way to Brighton. It had not taken him long to find out the addresses of Tony Jones’s family. If necessary he would take the elder daughter hostage until Jones came forward. It wouldn’t take long for the whisper on the street to get back to him, Patrick knew that.

The Rolls Royce pulled up at an address in Steyning. Kelly nodded at Willy and they slipped from the car. Inside the small bungalow Tony Jones was drinking Scotch while his wife watched him. On his lap was his granddaughter Melanie.

She loved her grandad and cuddled into his big flabby frame. It was Tony’s daughter who answered the door and she stood by silently as they walked in.

Patrick nodded at the girl. She was not part of this, he knew that.

‘Where is he, love?’