‘Whatever’s going on? Leave my boy alone,’ Alice screamed, as the two Old Bill grabbed hold of Jed.

‘Calm down, you dinlo,’ Jimmy yelled, as Jed tried desperately to free himself.

Georgie and Harry had followed everybody else and were now standing at the kitchen door, holding hands.

‘They wanna let my chavvies visit that slag in prison,’ Jed shrieked.

‘Over my dead body are they visiting that evil whore,’ Alice yelled.

Guessing that they were discussing her mum, by the words ‘visit’ and ‘prison’, Georgie put her two penn’orth in. ‘But me and Harry want to see Mummy. That’s why we ran away, ’cause we wanted to find Mummy.’

As Jed began to scream at Georgie, Jimmy shoved him and Alice out of the back door and locked it. ‘Jed don’t mean to get angry. He’s so stressed at the moment, what with his boy being murdered,’ he explained.

‘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.’