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'I'm just saying that you should put your bleeding foot down, love, four kids and he still thinks he's a fucking teenager.'

Lil sighed. 'Put a sock in it; he is all right. I know he wouldn't do anything to hurt me or the kids so let it go, will you?'

This time her voice had an edge to it and Annie knew that she had gone as far as she could. Lil was still protective over her husband and even in the club and feeling like shit she would only take so much.

'Where is he anyway?'

Annie always wanted to know Pat's movements and Lil rarely obliged her by explaining where he was supposed to be. There was something about Annie that told her daughter not to trust her with any information whatsoever, no matter how innocent that information might be. Even her stepfather had an unhealthy interest in what was going on. She wondered once more why she needed her mother so much when the woman had never given her an ounce of loyalty or care. Annie Diamond had treated her with utter contempt all her life, even as a small child, and yet she still felt the need to be near her. As she watched her mother wipe down the kitchen worktops and rinse out the cloths, she once again questioned her own motives for keeping the woman who had despised her in her life.

The children were playing in the parlour and their voices drifted into the kitchen. She could hear Pat Junior telling the girls to keep quiet so they didn't disturb their mummy and she loved her eldest child for his kindness and his thoughtfulness. Then she heard Lance telling them to piss off and his voice grated on her like scratching on a blackboard. His voice set her teeth on edge and she knew her mother was aware of that and used it against her. There was the same whine in it that her mother had; it was a nasal kind of voice that had no real inflection to it. Just a flat and constant drone that made Lil feel like punching his lights out at times. Especially now, at five months pregnant and feeling seriously under the weather.

She wished that she could take to her younger son, but it had never happened and she knew it was too late now to do anything about it. She pretended a love she didn't feel and this made her so ashamed. She knew it was also partly the reason her mother was still in her life but she could never admit all this out loud; especially not to her husband who doted on the twins and loved his two boys with a passion. Both of them.

'There will be ambulances arriving, Pat, and you know it.'

Spider said the words without passion and Patrick knew that what he was saying was true. The situation was becoming unbearable for them all and the atmosphere was starting to make everyone nervous. In some ways he wanted it to go off so they could finally bring it to an end. Resolve it once and for all; it would be a bloody and vengeful affair but at least it would be over. Patrick could hear the want in Spider's voice and knew that he had to sort this out sooner rather than later.

Spider was oozing menace and hatred; he was old school like himself and he was on the verge of total annihilation. Despite himself, Patrick Brodie was also getting caught up in his excitement.

'I am telling you that we can't swallow this any more; if we carve this lot up, what's next? The clubs, the pubs, the fucking cab ranks, what?'

Patrick shrugged. 'I'll talk to Dave. He ain't a cunt, he'll understand the seriousness of the situation and sort it out.'

Spider rubbed his large hands over his dreadlocks in agitation. 'He won't, Pat, he is as bad as them now. He asked me how much I was going to pass on to him not an hour ago, as if it was his fucking birthright or something. Like we were doing them out of a wage. They are in the fucking bar now, acting like they own the fucking place and making snide remarks. This is our boozer, we bought it fair and square. Fuck them, fuck them all. I ain't fucking swallowing this in front of everyone.'

Spider was spoiling for a straightener and Pat knew he had every right to feel that way but he was also confident that this could all be sorted amicably. He didn't want to take sides but if he did, he knew it would be Spider's, and he had a gut feeling that the Williams brothers knew that too. They owed him; he had paid out for their brother's death and given them a living the likes of which they could only have dreamt of. They were flexing their muscles and he was beginning to feel that a lesson might need to be distributed. If that was the case, he was going to enjoy doling it out himself. They were starting to get on his nerves and that was never a good idea where he was concerned.

They needed to be put in their place, that was all. No one in their right mind seriously expected a drink off work they had not taken any part in either creating or, more to the point, working up from scratch. The Williams brothers were pushing their luck and he knew that, as much as he didn't really want to admit it out loud, Spider had a valid and honest beef with them. Pat also knew it was Spider's hold over the London drug scene that was the bone of contention; the fact was that they had overlooked a fucking serious wedge because deep down inside they had not wanted to work with the blacks.

No one had ever said any of this out loud, but it was glaringly obvious to him, so he knew that it had to be obvious to Spider as well. Spider was one of the most astute people he had ever come across in his life so he had to have sussed that much out from the off.

Dave and his brothers were bully boys, no more and no less. They were basically muscle and, without Pat, they would have been scratching a living debt-collecting or bouncing. An original thought in any of their heads would die of fucking loneliness and they had the nerve to try to cause aggravation when they had their very livelihoods to thank him for in the first place. Spider and himself had made all the connections needed, paid out where necessary and strong-armed anyone who had been averse to their having control over the merchandise that hit the streets. There was no way Pat would carve that up to keep a few bullies in place, it was a ridiculous thing to expect and the Williams brothers had gone down in his estimation because of it.

Without him, and without Spider, they were nothing. He had tried to bring them up in the firm and it had been a fucking waste of time, so if they needed that pointed out to them then he knew it was up to him to do it. Spider and his opinions would not go down well with the Williams boys. He was going to have to sort this out himself.

Lisa Callard was tired and as she pulled on her underwear, she was attempting to stifle a yawn. She had a thin body, boyish almost, and her feather-cut hair gave her the look of a very pretty elf. She had small breasts and a tight behind which made most men give her a second glance. She was on the ball enough to put out only for men who could either give her a few quid or enhance her reputation, and as Dennis Williams could do both these things for her, she was more than happy to let him have carte blanche over her adolescent body. At a very young age she had understood the power that youth had over men and she had exploited it ever since. Her mother had wasted too much of her youth and looks on the ponce who had fathered her and Lisa had decided early on that the pill and opening her legs would gain her what her mother had never had: a few quid in her bin, a nice car and peace of mind. That she was also seeing Brixton Cain was not on her mind, though she knew it was part of her charm as far as Dennis was concerned.

Dave and Dennis Williams watched Lisa lazily; she was only a kid really, but she was a game bird for all that. Earlier, Dave had walked into the bedroom and sat down quietly on the small white wicker chair his mother had purchased on the Portobello Road and watched his brother finish his business. As Lisa pulled on her skirt she said hoarsely, 'Am I staying?'

Dennis shook his head, and leaning over the side of the bed picked up his trousers off the floor and took out a small roll of money and gave it to her. Kissing him gently, Lisa grabbed the rest of her clothes and walked from the room. She nearly collided with Doris Williams who had a tray of teas and a plate of biscuits.

'You off, love.' It was statement, not a question.

Doris placed the tray on the small dressing table noisily and her sons watched her with wary eyes.

She looked at Dave then, and her eyes were like ice. 'You got my money?'

Dave sighed. 'Leave it out, Mother. You know the score where that cunt is concerned. Tell him to pay his own fucking debts.'

The words had a finality about them that anyone else would have picked up on but his mother had no intention of letting this go. 'What's a couple of grand to you two?'

She sat on the crumpled bed and, picking up Dennis's pack of cigarettes, she lit one with a slow deliberation that told her sons she was willing to sit this one out for the night. Doris Williams was a fighter, had always been a fighter and would continue to be a fighter. Since her husband's death two years previously, she had gone through a series of men; men her sons saw as either ponces, or right fucking ponces, depending. There was no way anyone was going to take their father's place and she understood and respected that, but now she had been given a taste of freedom and she liked it. Her boys were not going to change that fact.

Her new beau was a gambler ten years her junior with long black hair, sad blue eyes and a cock that was so big it could easily get its own postcode. She had put in her time with her old man and now she was having a bit of fun. Even though her sons knew the life she had been led by their father, they still thought she was too old and too stupid to know her own mind.

'Don't fucking start lecturing me either, I ain't in the mood. I want the poke; it was me as well as him having a flutter and, let's face it, you lot fucking owe me.'

There was truth in that statement. She always spoke in statements somehow, she was a very dramatic woman, much taken to brightly coloured clothes and too tight skirts. In their hearts they knew the truth of it, but she was still their mum when all was said and done, and she was an embarrassment.

'I just want me due, that's all.'

Dennis was covered by the blanket but now he wanted to get up and go to the toilet and his mother sitting on the bed was making that impossible.

'I know everything about you lot and you better remember that, boys. I stood between you and your old man when he was giving you a hiding and took the brunt of it meself. I have provided an alibi for every one of you at some time or another, as I am sure I will in the future, and now I am asking you lot to let me have a bit of life.'

In the harsh light of the naked bulb, Dave could make out the scars around his mother's mouth from his father's fists, the lines around her eyes that they had all helped put there over the years and the thick eye make-up that she had taken to wearing because her husband would have scrubbed it off with a Brillo pad had he still been alive. She was in her second childhood and, in fairness to her, she deserved a bit of excitement. She had been chained to this house all her married life; his father had been a hard man who had been quick with his fists and even quicker with a leather belt. But she was going through money like it was water and they were not actually as well-heeled as everyone seemed to think. They lived well and spent well and even though they earned a decent wedge, the money was going out as fast as it was coming in.

Dave had also made a lot of bad business decisions over the last year and he had lost a small fortune on dope deals that had not come to fruition. The trouble with the puff was that the money was always paid out upfront and if the merchandise was intercepted before it arrived at the correct destination, everyone lost their initial investment. The police had been waiting at the last three drops, two at airfields and one on the Thames estuary. It had been no one's fault, even though that fucking Spider and his brother seemed to produce cannabis out of thin air and his brothers had questioned why they never had a fucking capture of any kind. In his heart he knew that the underlying accusations were not only unfair, but complete rubbish.

Spider had sewn it all up a long time before they had decided to try to get an in themselves. Spider's stuff came straight out of the docks and it was good gear; the stuff they managed to procure was low-grade and had more seeds in it than a packet of Trill. The reality was that they had been had over, not once but many times, and without going to Patrick Brodie and asking him to step in and sort it out, there was not a lot they could do about it.

The realisation that they were only regarded as part of his workforce bothered them more than any of them cared to admit. It seemed that the truth did indeed hurt, and Spider's growing place in Patrick's heart had not only been observed, but acknowledged, by all the powers that be.

Basically, they had been shown up for the motley crew they actually were and without any real poke to spread around they were in danger of going broke.

Dave had lost over two hundred grand in the last ten months, and his brothers had lost a similar amount between them as well. It was a lot of money. Money they didn't have any more and money they were not in a position to replace any time in the near future. They were all boracic lint and they were starting to panic; they owed money all over the Smoke and they knew it was only a matter of time before the creditors started whispering to Patrick.

Bank robbery was on the cards; it was the only earner left to them. The bugbear with that though, was that they would need to run it by Patrick first and give him a taste of whatever they managed to get.

'You'll get your money, Mum, but fucking go easy on it this time, OK?'

Doris nodded, pleased the conversation was over.

'Bacon sandwich, anyone?'

'Here, Annie, I got you a part-time job, love, haunting fucking houses!'

Pat Junior and Lance laughed out loud; their laughter tinged with shock, as always, that their father dared to talk to their granny like that. The girls, happily ensconced in their father's arms, were laughing because everyone else was laughing.

Annie carried on smiling her martyr smile as her son-in-law bellowed, 'Get off your cross, woman, we need the fucking wood!'