Terry turned his head toward her and Nula was shocked by the vicious expression in his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was harsh.

‘You make sure Charlie keeps that little arsehole away from my girl. You got that?’ he spat out.

‘Well, I . . .’ Nula floundered.

‘I told him. I’m not mucking about. I catch him anywhere near her again and I’ll cut his fucking throat.’

Nula nodded dumbly. Again?

‘I mean it,’ said Terry.

‘I can see you do,’ said Nula, wishing she’d said nothing. ‘Has something happened then? Something I ought to know about?’

Terry shook his head in irritation. ‘Nah, it was a while ago. Caught him trying it on with her in the garage. Gave him a slap.’

To their mutual surprise, Charlie did keep going with the lessons. Months later, Charlie got his licence and took delivery of his very own Jet Ranger. Meanwhile, Harlan was busy in town. He was starting to make a few alterations on the manor. And that slap Terry had given him over Belle? He’d never forgotten it. And he never would.

71

Harlan had spent months quietly simmering over being sent away from the family home. So his parents didn’t want him there with them. Fair enough. They weren’t his parents anyway. Actually, he didn’t remember ever having a father. He remembered his mother, just about. A pitiful junkie, always crying and heating up dope on little squares of tinfoil on a kitchen floor covered in dirt and burn marks from past hits. He couldn’t remember her ever feeding him properly or acting as a real mother should. He remembered blokes coming in and the noises of screwing from the next bedroom, then she’d have some money and peel off a couple of quid and send him down the fish and chip shop. By the time he got home – if you could call that filthy, rat-infested squat a home – she’d be spark out of it on the kitchen floor again.

But maybe this banishment had compensations. Harlan liked the city. He got bored in the country, even though he could wind Nula up and eye up Belle, both of which activities he enjoyed to the max. But this was where the action was. He moved out of the flophouse Charlie sent him to in double-quick time and moved into Charlie’s favourite five-star hotel, the grand one near the BBC building, charging the room – well, the suite – to Charlie’s account, knowing that Charlie would rage about it but would cough up anyway.

‘Your dad won’t like this,’ said Beezer, one of Charlie’s old mates who had been, Harlan guessed, instructed to keep an eye on him while he was in the city.

‘So?’ said Harlan uncaringly. ‘What’s going down at the moment, Beezer?’