‘What you need is a decent-sized pair of tits,’ said Charlie. ‘Double D or something. I like to see a nice pair bobbing up and down in this position. Your nipples are fine, look at ’em standing up there – ain’t they cute? You’d be up for that, wouldn’t you, Doll?’

Nula looked at him. What was she, a bloody plastic Barbie doll that he could adjust for his own personal requirements?

‘I had a girl once, she had tits down to here,’ Charlie went on, holding his hands against her waist. ‘Fucking great things they were. Course, she’d been feeding kids so they’d dropped a bit, but jeez they were such a turn-on. You’d like a bigger pair, am I right?’

Nula nodded. Why not?

Charlie smiled happily. ‘When we’ve done that, you’ll be bloody nigh perfect.’

Nula laughed at that. A stupendous pair of tits to go with the rest of it? Why the hell not. She didn’t care if he was a drug dealer or a bank robber or Jack the Ripper. She’d had a shitty poor-girl childhood and life with Charlie was just one treat after another.

‘But you’re paying,’ she said, and bounced harder.

23

Terry found it new and strange, the drugs taxing business. A bit worrying. He knew that sometimes Charlie would get a call from a dealer saying someone had robbed his stash and he’d like Charlie’s help getting it back. That was just fine with Charlie. All he had to do was corner the perpetrator and do a bit of intimidation. But what these small-time dealers didn’t realize at first was that Charlie Stone had absolutely no intention of giving them their stash back. Once he had it in his hand, it was his. He was, after all, lord of the manor. No argument.

‘You’re gonna make a lot of people very angry,’ Terry warned him.

‘So?’ Charlie asked. ‘What’ll they do?’

‘Kill you seems favourite.’

Charlie was moving upward very fast in this brave new world they’d found themselves in, and it was making Terry uneasy. He had responsibilities now. All this money was fine, but he was a married man. There was Jill, and she was already up the duff with his kid. He was pleased as punch about it, but fearful too, and fear was a thing he’d never really known before Charlie started on the drugs business.

Of course, Charlie was putting down roots as well. After a series of low-rent slappers, he seemed to have settled on the most unlikely one of all. Suddenly he’d married Nula Perkins and whisked her off to the Costas on honeymoon, shocking them all. Nula gave Terry a mild case of the creeps and Jill actively disliked her.