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'I am sorry. Lil, will you please calm down, love?'

Annie was pulling herself up off the floor by leaning on Pat's bed, and Lil saw that she was a woman aged before her time, from her severe, pulled-back hair to the deep grooves around her eyes and mouth. She was mean; her eyes told the truth of her real feelings and, once more, Lil felt the urge to murder her where she stood.

'Go home, Mother, before I do something I regret.'

Annie walked slowly from the room then and Lil didn't expel the breath she was holding until she heard the front door downstairs close behind her.

Patrick stared up at her and said sadly, 'It weren't my fault, Mum.'

She squeezed him to her once more, realising how big he was growing and how sturdy he was.

'What did he do, Pat?'

'He hurt me, he grabbed me and he hurt me.'

He indicated his groin as he spoke and Lil didn't question what he said, as most women would after hearing that said about their child; she knew Pat Junior was telling the truth.

'Go and get yourself a treat and send your brother in.'

She sat herself on the bed and waited until her younger son slipped into the room. 'Why did you grab him there? What have you been told about that?'

He stared into her eyes and, for the first time ever, she saw wariness and fear.

'I didn't…' The whine was in his voice now. The poor-me whine that had Annie running around like a blue-arsed fly.

She pushed her face close to his and had the satisfaction of seeing him flinch. 'Don't you lie to me, boy. Now, get the belt.'

'Please, Mum, please.' He was shaking his head, the shock and terror evident from the whiteness of his face.

She slapped him once more across his cheek, the force snapping his head to the side with a sickening crunch. 'Get the belt, boy, and get it now.'

Lance stumbled from the room, his face already awash with tears.

She watched him go. He was heavier than Pat, similar-looking, but with a tendency to flabbiness. It was because her mother gave him whatever he asked for. Well, he was going to get what he was asking for today, she was determined on that much.

Pat was in Brixton. He pulled up outside a terraced house in Ballater Road and, before turning off the engine, he sat back on the plush leather seats and listened to the radio for a few minutes. He needed a second to calm himself down before he went inside.

The house was small, a three-bedroom semi, nothing to write home about; it blended in with the other dilapidated properties in the road. But Pat knew that inside this house was the information he needed.

As he walked up the small pathway, the door was discreetly opened by a tall black man with dreadlocks and bloodshot eyes. Spider Block was a mate, and they nodded to each other cautiously. 'He expecting you, man.'

Pat grinned then. 'He fucking better be, Spider.'

As Pat slipped inside the small hallway, he nodded a greeting to another large black man and walked straight into the parlour. The place was as dilapidated inside as it was on the outside. There were a few bits of furniture, no floor covering, not even linoleum; just brown tiles caked with years of grime and paint drips. The smell consisted mainly of Dwyer's body odour and mouse droppings; the decay and stench of neglect was a familiar odour to Patrick Brodie. It was what he had grown up with, and it was for that reason he loathed it so much. It reminded him of what he had come from, reminded him of the hunger and the despair that had spurred him on to make something of himself. He breathed it in deeply to make sure he never forgot it because if he ever did, he would be finished in his world and he knew that. These people smelt weakness like other people smelt their own shit; it wasn't nice, but it was a necessary part of life.

Dwyer had come from the same background so Pat had no respect for him still choosing to live like an animal. Pat knew his own children would never know this stench, and never know the shame of having to live like it.

At a scuffed wooden table sat three men. Patrick knew only one of them and, standing stiffly in the doorway of the room, he said harshly, 'I take it you were expecting me then?'

Freddie nodded and sighed in a very nervous and exaggerated manner.

Pat decided he really did look like a rat; he had the long nose of his Jewish mother and the shifty mud-brown eyes of his Welsh father. Freddie was an ugly bastard, and, until now, that had not mattered one iota, but suddenly his ugliness spelt out treachery, hate, and underlying all that emotion was fear. Not just Freddie's, that was hanging in the room like a net curtain; for Pat it was the fear of what Freddie knew, what Freddie could use against him if cornered.

Patrick's head was reeling with all the information he had gathered in the last four hours. Some he knew to be true, some he guessed was gossip, gossip that had gained momentum as the day's events had been discussed and dissected by the common herd. There was always an element of truth in gossip though, and he had tried to ferret it out as best he could. He also knew for a fact that at least one of the men at the table was a filth, and he decided to wait and hear what Freddie had to say before committing himself.

No one was more surprised than Lil when the police had knocked at her door. They were warrantless, aggressive, and they turned the whole place over in a matter of minutes.

She sat on her black and orange PVC sofa with the boys either side of her and watched as her beautiful home was systematically ripped apart before her eyes. As drawers were pulled out and emptied on to the beige carpet, she lit a cigarette with shaking hands and acted as if this was a normal day. She chatted to her two wide-eyed children and listened to the police conversations all at the same time.

'Are there any guns in the house?'

DCI Kent was a tall, thin man with halitosis and stooped shoulders. He had his usual comb-over hairdo and a cigarette constantly on the go. His grubby mac had a fine layer of dandruff all over the shoulders and Lil hated him.

'What are you on about? Why would we have guns?' She sounded scandalised and angry; she knew how to play the game. 'Look at my house, you rotten bastards, what the fuck you got to wreck it for?'

'This is nothing, Lil, this is just the start.'

She didn't answer him, she just pulled the children closer to her as if protecting them from an invisible force.

Kent lit a new cigarette from the butt of the old one, breathing clouds of smoke over the boys. Lil looked wary and worried, and he noticed the brightness of the kids' eyes as they watched the commotion around them. Already they were street-smart and the knowledge depressed him for some reason. He knew he was looking at the next generation of lunatics and psychopaths. This scene would become a normal occurrence to them; one day it would all be re-enacted with their own kids and so the cycle would go on. He had seen it so many times over the years and, the older he got, the more he noticed how futile it all was. Young Pat Junior had his father's craggy good looks, he was also well set-up; even for a small boy he had the look of a fighter. He would be a lump in a few years and it went without saying that he would be a fighter.

The bigger of the boys though, Lance, would run to fat, he was already too chubby to be comfortable. He also had the furtive look that would mark him out all his life; it was the same look the little bastards who were already hanging around the estates causing trouble had.

Yet he had to admit that, in fairness to Patrick, he had provided for his family handsomely. But, as his father used to say, blood will out.

He smiled at Lil and said gently, 'You better sort your old man out, Lil, he is making a lot of enemies lately.'

'Get out and leave me and my children alone.'

Kent looked at her then and she saw the sadness in his eyes as he shook his head slowly.

'You're a mug, Lil, that old man of yours is living on borrowed time. If I don't get him, then his so-called mates will; at least with me he is in with a chance of seeing his babies grow up.'

He nodded towards her belly and she felt the truth of what he was saying; this was not the usual Old Bill mug-bunnying. Her old man paid out too much money to get turned over without fair warning. This was serious all right.

But she kept her own counsel.

Chapter Five

Lil was bone-weary, but she tidied the place up anyway. Her home was everything to her; it made her feel safe, it was the place she felt she could finally relax in. It was important to her that it was a calm, clean and quiet oasis, especially now that she was pregnant. Even more so when her old man was on the missing list.

She tried to phone through to all his known haunts, and once again she was met with either a continuous ringtone or an engaged signal, which told her the phone in question was off the hook. She knew better than to phone certain pubs and watering-holes because it would then have alerted people to what could be a serious situation. Until she knew the score, she knew she had to be circumspect.

His silence though, and the fact that no one seemed to know his whereabouts, was making her feel ill with worry, and she forced herself to calm down once more. Her belly was heavy, dragging at her whole being. Her fear and tiredness was making her movements sluggish, her back was aching and her eyes were red-rimmed with tiredness. She had sorted out the boys' room first, making it like a game, encouraging them to help and then settling them into their beds, all the time feeling the bewilderment and fright coming off them in waves. As young as they were though, they knew to keep their traps shut in front of Old Bill. In a strange way she was proud of that. Pat Junior knew where his father's gun was, he could have tracked it down like a bloodhound if the fancy took him. They often joked between themselves about how many times it had been hidden away and how many times young Pat had found it. The filth had got nowhere near it tonight, and this was a small victory for her. It gave her a little gee-up, made her feel they were still in control. The frightening thing was, until Old Bill turned your place over in front of your kids, and more importantly with what seemed like a good reason, you never really quite understood just how precarious your life actually was. Being left without a bread-winner and a father for your children, a protector, never crossed your mind. When the filth showed up, the precariousness of your situation hit you in the face with the force of a speeding car.

Now, with a belly full of arms and legs, two boys dependent on her, and an old man she loved so much it hurt her, Lil felt the cold hand of fear patting her on her back. It was warning her, making her start questioning all the things she had taken for granted. Like all villains' wives, she had received her first real wake-up call. Tonight wasn't the usual half-hearted assault by the filth to make it all look good on paper, this was serious. Her husband, the father of her kids, was likely on the wrong end of a capture; if it all went pear-shaped he could go away for so long he would be a grandfather before he came home. Judges were handing out outrageous sentences these days, the short sharp shock was a thing of the past; this new government was all for burying the fuckers and forgetting them.

Once more Lil was reminded of the fact that she had no real dosh, no hard cash, nothing to call her own. Pat controlled it all, as he should. But the seed was sown now, and that would have to be addressed sooner rather than later. When, and if, he came home, she was going to make sure she was never left in this position again.

She kissed her boys and watched as they settled themselves down in their now tidy bedroom. They were calmer now, drinking their drinks and chatting between themselves as usual. The first shock was over with, normality was gradually being reinstated. Something inside was telling her that they should have been more bothered by the night's events, but she pushed these thoughts away. Kids were resilient.

If Pat had a capture, he had a capture. There was nothing she could do about it, but the thought terrified her. Her heart was racing at that thought and she breathed in deeply, knowing that she could easily dissolve into hysterics at any moment.

She forced herself to concentrate on the job in hand. The sitting room was destroyed. They had even taken the seat cushions off the sofa and split them open with a knife; the stuffing was everywhere and the tears stung her eyes as she cleared it all away.

She still had not heard a word from Pat and she was getting more and more agitated by the minute. She checked her purse and realised that she had less than eight pounds to her name. If Pat was nicked, or worse, she had no access to his money at all. Her mother's voice came back to her and, as much as she hated to admit it, the old bitch was right. Pat should have set her straight in case he was nicked. She needed access to money, not just for his brief, but for the daily business of living with a young family and the expense that children brought with them. These were desperate times, and desperate times meant desperate measures.

A little voice, though, was telling her that she was entitled to his money anyway, she had eight fucking quid and a family to feed. Why didn't she have a stash? Why was she dependent on him for everything when she had a fucking growing family? More to the point, why hadn't Pat thought to make provision for them? Plan fucking B was what he always referred to when discussing work, it was for when Plan A fell out of bed. And here she was with nothing, not a Plan A, let alone a Plan B. Not a brass razoo to her bastard name. She was shaking with fear for him and fear for herself and her family. Anger kept her going. She was still cleaning up when her mother arrived, all brown teeth, lavender cologne and pretending a concern she was not capable of feeling.

She let Annie give the boys their breakfast because she had no heart to do anything except sit and feel her baby kicking as if it was reminding her that it was there. Another mouth to feed on eight poxy quid. Throughout the day young Pat stuck to her like shit to a blanket but Lance acted as if nothing was amiss.