Jimmy hung his head in shame. If only he had known that the tear-up would take place at the salvage yard, he’d have driven into that poxy garage. He’d been worried it might all go off in a public street where neighbours might be able to give a description of him, and he hadn’t wanted to be caught on any cameras, just in case. He could just imagine an image of him on the garage forecourt ending up in the papers or on the news. The police had never looked very hard to find the children, but they’d look for him if he was wanted for murder, Jimmy was sure of that.

He put a comforting arm around his son’s shoulder. When they’d left Essex, he had never kept in touch with any of his old pals from the manor because they were on the run. He’d known Pat Murphy most of his life, and how he now wished that he’d kept in contact with him. He would have known where Eddie lived and he could probably have given him Frankie’s address as well.

‘I’m gonna fucking kill him, Dad,’ Jed yelled, pointing the gun at Eddie once more.

‘Keep an eye on him, Mick, while me and Jed check on the others,’ Jimmy instructed, leading his son away.

‘On my Shelby girl’s life, if that shitcunt don’t give me an address in the next five minutes, I’m gonna blow his brains out,’ Jed spat.

‘Give me that gun,’ Jimmy ordered.

Jed shook his head, so Jimmy slapped him hard around the face to knock some sense into him.

‘Killing Eddie at this point ain’t gonna get you them chavvies back, you dinlo. Now pull yourself together. Let’s get everybody tied up and we’ll torture the answers out of ’em. Now, where’s Billy?’

Jed felt a pang of guilt as he remembered his brother had said he’d been stabbed. ‘I dunno. It’s proper fucking dark now,’ he lied.

Jimmy ran to his motor and grabbed his torch and some rope. ‘Jed, over there. Look, one of the bastards is getting away,’ he said, spotting Gary moving towards the far end of the yard.

Gary was only seconds away from where the guns were kept when Jed tussled him to the ground. His right leg was bleeding profusely, but even though he couldn’t put his foot to the floor, he’d still managed to drag himself towards the newly built toilet where the shooters were kept. He’d found Ricky lying in a puddle of oil on his travels. His brother was still alive, but had been shot in the back and looked in a really bad way.