Danny knew the score and, within a few minutes, he had escorted a much more relaxed Dessie Graham from the Portakabin out to his car. After thanking him once more, and promising him a bonus for his loyalty, he was back with his father.

‘I’ve already got our boys out looking for the Allens, Dad – they are hunting them down as we speak. But I haven’t said a word to Uncle Peter or his lads about any of this yet. I felt it best to tell you first, and then let you decide where to go from here.’

Daniel looked at his son and he saw, for the first time in ages, just how like him this boy was. It was like looking at himself when he was a young man.

‘I didn’t think that pair of cunts would have had the guts, son. I thought this would be about the Russians – they are notorious for their fucking treachery, as well as bombings. I felt this had to be the work of someone of note, you know? Not a fucking tin pot pair of cunts like the Allens. That ponce Billy couldn’t tie his own shoelaces on his own. They are both nothing more than bully boys – they couldn’t have kept their game up without us behind them. Surely Terry had to have known that.’

Noel watched his father as he digested the information. The worst thing of all was the insult – that his wife could actually have been murdered by men so far below him and his that they were unworthy even of his notice. He sat quietly, with Davey and Jamsie, knowing that they were a unit now. They didn’t need their cousins really. They were all of a like mind on this one – just interested in seeing that whoever was responsible paid dearly for their actions. Until this moment, he had never thought of them as a family without bringing his uncles and cousins into the equation; now he saw that his father was the head of his family – of him and his brothers. His dad was a force of nature; he walked his own road, for good and bad, and he would never change. They were the Baileys all right, but they were actually separate entities – the same family, but different sides of the same coin. It had taken his mother’s untimely death for that to be brought home to them.

‘What do you think, son? Do you think the Allens have the guts to pull off a stunt like this?’