‘Where were ya going?’ Jed asked Gary, with a menacing expression on his face. He knew he wasn’t heading towards the exit, and Jed’s guess was he was trying to retrieve a gun from somewhere.

Instead of pointing towards the toilet, Gary pointed to the big building on the left-hand side of it. It was an old warehouse that was now part of the salvage yard and it was where all the tyres were kept.

‘Got guns in there, have ya?’ Jed snarled.

‘Nah, I was gonna see if there was a phone in there,’ Gary lied.

‘Jed, get back down this end, boy. Your brother’s in trouble, I think. We might have to get him to a hospital,’ Jimmy shouted out.

Kneeing Gary as hard as he could in the proverbials to ensure he wouldn’t move again for the foreseeable future, Jed legged it down to the other end of the yard. He paused as he saw Ricky lying face down on the ground and, unable to stop himself, gave him a sharp kick in the side of his head. He then checked on Raymond, who was still out for the count, before he ran back to his father.

‘There’s hardly any blood. He’ll live,’ Jed said, as he inspected the two small gashes on his brother’s stomach.

‘He don’t look good, boy. Keeps shutting his eyes and talking rubbish like he’s delirious. He might have internal bleeding or something. Mickey’s gonna have to take him to A&E in case it’s bad,’ Jimmy said anxiously.

‘And what’s he meant to say when he gets there?’

‘Mickey’ll have to say he got stabbed in a fight and tell the nurses his name’s Billy Smith. He can tell ’em he’s a traveller and give ’em the name of the site in Tilbury. If the Old Bill are called, Mickey’ll have to give a false name an’ all.’

Jed nodded. ‘Get Mickey to drop him at Basildon Hospital then, the further away from ’ere the better. There’s a building down there on the left, looks like a warehouse. Let’s tie the others up, drag them in there and torture some answers out of ’em. As soon as we get the truth, we’ll kill ’em all.’

‘Jimmy, Jimmy!’ Mickey yelled.

Jimmy and Jed ran over to their pal. Eddie Mitchell had his left hand around Mickey Maloney’s throat and was doing his best to strangle him.

Seeing a baseball bat lying nearby, Jed picked it up and smashed Eddie over the back of the head with it. ‘Give me that rope, Dad. Let’s tie this piece of shit up first,’ he said as Eddie fell helplessly to the ground.

‘I’ll tie him up,’ Jimmy said. He was worried his son would go too far and actually kill Mitchell before they got the information they needed.