Leaving her grandchildren in the kitchen stuffing their faces, Alice went into the lounge to make some phone calls. Jimmy’s eldest brother was seriously ill in hospital, Jed and Sammy had gone to Southall and, seeing as none of them had bothered to call her all day, she didn’t know whether they wanted any dinner when they got in or not. She rang Jimmy first. His phone was still switched off, so she then rang Jed.

‘What can I do for you, Mummy dearest?’ her son slurred.

‘How many drinks you had? Who’s driving your father’s new horse-box?’ Alice asked, annoyed.

‘I am! Sammy’s a dinlo when it comes to driving a beast the size of this,’ Jed said, chuckling.

‘I’d do a better job than him. Nearly wrote off a motor and hit the kerb twice already,’ Alice heard Sammy shout out in the background.

‘Just be careful, Jed. Now do you and Sammy want me to cook you any dinner tonight?’

‘Yeah, we’re fucking starving. We’ll probably be about half-hour or so.’

As Alice replaced the receiver, she was hit like a thunderbolt by one of her feelings of doom. Alice believed herself to be a true psychic. She’d been born with the gift, and years ago she’d have travellers visit her from all over the country for advice and readings.

‘Oh my gawd,’ Alice said as she put her hands on her forehead. This was a similar feeling of foreboding to the one she’d had on the day that her Lukey boy had been murdered. She immediately picked up the phone and rang Jed back again. ‘Boy, I’ve got one of me premonitions. Park that horse-box up somewhere and get yourselves a cab home. I ain’t mucking about; I think you’re gonna have a bad accident.’

Jed burst out laughing. ‘We’re gonna die, Sammy boy, we’re gonna die,’ he joked in a silly tone.

‘Please Jed, I know you’re drunk, but please listen to me. Park that horse-box up. Your dad can pick it up tomorrow, OK?’

Aware that his mum had now started crying, Jed decided to humour her to stop her worrying. ‘OK, I’ll park it up and we’ll get a cab back, all right?’

When Jed ended the call, Sammy turned to him. ‘Your mother ain’t no fool when she has one of her funny turns, you know. Perhaps we should get a cab back. I mean, we ain’t got an ’orse in the back or nothing.’

Jed burst out laughing. ‘Are we fuck! I only said that to shut her up. You see, you Sammy boy, you’re a first-class dinlo.’