‘One more outburst from your son and he’s nicked,’ Fletcher replied meaningfully.

Carol felt dreadfully sorry for Georgie and Harry. Life with the O’Haras seemed even worse than she’d anticipated it to be.

‘Can we see Mummy now?’ Harry asked her innocently.

Carol led them into the lounge and sat down next to them on the sofa. ‘I’m going to take your case to something called a civil court and then hopefully you will be able to see your mummy again.’

Eddie Mitchell was not in the best of moods. Driving to Milton Keynes to extract money out of some prick who had underestimated him was one reason, and the other were the looks on Gary and Ricky’s faces when he’d just told them that Gina was pregnant.

‘Fucking hell! Anyone would think that I’d just told you someone you were close to had died. Ain’t you happy for us, or what?’

Gary glanced at his brother. Both were thinking about their future inheritance. ‘Yeah, course we are, but a newborn baby’s a lot to take on at your age, ain’t it?’

Eddie slammed his foot on the brake and mounted the kerb. ‘I’m fifty-three, not eighty,’ he yelled angrily.

‘Does Frankie know yet?’ Ricky asked. His half-sister was not going to be pleased; she hadn’t even come to terms with her dad being with Gina yet.

‘I’m visiting Frankie tomorrow, so I’ll tell her then. Joey, I’ll ring tonight. I saw him yesterday, but with all the chaos over Georgie and Harry, it was neither the time nor the place. Now check that map and see where we are. It’s Bradwell village we’re looking for.’

Ricky gave him directions. Five minutes later, they’d found where they were looking for. ‘This is it. Do a right here, then first left and it’s number sixty-six.’

Eddie pulled up a few doors away from the address. He glanced around to make sure nobody was about, then got out of his Range Rover. ‘Does he live here with anyone?’ he asked Gary.

‘Dunno. The geezer never said.’

Ed grabbed his baseball bat from under the back seat. It was a standing joke between him and the boys that they carried the full baseball kit around with them. They even had catcher’s mitts and a helmet complete with ear flaps. They’d got tugged a good few years back, just before Ed had got put away, and the filth had swallowed the lie that Gary was training to become a professional baseball player. They’d cracked up for days over that one.

‘You knock,’ Eddie ordered Ricky, as he stood to the side of the porch and placed the bat beside the wall.

‘Is Colin in?’ Ricky asked, as a plump, dark-haired bird with big knockers answered the door.

‘No, I think you’ve got the wrong house. My fella’s called John,’ she said.

‘This is definitely the right address,’ Ricky insisted.

The woman shook her head. ‘We’re not from round here, we’re from East London. We only moved here two weeks ago, so maybe you’re looking for the previous tenant.’