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Eileen was moving her stuff out and Kathleen looked happy enough about it, so Eileen didn't feel bad about it.

In fact, Kathleen seemed pleased. 'Will you still sit with me though, when I want to go to sleep?'

Eileen grinned. 'Course I will. If you get nervous I can still spend the night, can't I? I ain't going anywhere, only across the landing.'

'Are you still seeing that bloke, Eileen?'

Eileen picked up a handful of sweaters from the drawer by her bed and, hushing her sister, she nodded.

Kathleen was giggling and Eileen shushed her again. Even though she knew Kathleen wouldn't say anything, she was still nervous that one of the younger kids might overhear and repeat what they heard.

Lance was packing, and she felt sorry for him, but another part of her was also glad he was leaving. At least her mother would be happier.

'Will you be all right, Kath, with Lance leaving?'

'Course I will. Nanny Annie will be happy, won't she?'

'I suppose. Mum left you a bar of chocolate in the fridge, do you want me to get it?'

'No, you eat it or give it to the little ones.'

'You've got to eat, Kath, you're skin and bones.'

Kathleen lit another cigarette and went back to gazing out of the window and Eileen knew that she wouldn't talk again for ages.

Not to any of them anyway. The low chattering started almost immediately and Eileen wondered, for the millionth time, why the murder of their father had affected Kathleen so much and not her.

She had overheard Janie telling someone years before that the twins, her and Kathleen, had tried to hug their father's body and had been covered in his blood. She didn't remember that. All she remembered was the crying and Lance sitting on the stairs in his underpants. And she wondered, at times, if she had imagined that.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

'Are you all right, Mum?'

Eileen's voice was soft and full of concern. Lil was off-colour; she had been lying on the sofa for a couple of days and it wasn't like her at all.

'No. I feel tired again, I just feel really tired. I don't feel ill as such.'

'Go to the doctor, for fuck's sake, Lil.' Annie's voice was loud as she shouted through from the kitchen.

'I'll go tomorrow. You look nice, love.'

Eileen looked stunning and, as she brushed her long hair, Lil was reminded of just how lovely the twins were. Even poor old Kathleen; she didn't wear make-up or dress herself in fashionable clothes but she was still a beauty.

As Lil moved her arm to pick up her cigarettes, she felt a pain under her arm. It was sharp and made her catch her breath.

'Ring Pat and tell him I am still out for the count, would you, darling?'

Colleen bounded into the room and said gaily, 'I'll do it. Can I go to the Wimpy with Lance?'

'Course you can, love. Take Shawn if you like.'

Hearing his name, Shawn opened his eyes and yawning, he smiled up at the women in his life.

'Get him dressed for me, would you?'

Colleen picked the little boy up and walked from the room happily.

Pat came in then and, smiling at everyone, he said nonchalantly, 'You're going to see a bloke in Harley Street tomorrow, Mum. Might as well get you a full MOT, eh?'

'Don't be so fucking silly. I'm just tired, that's all.'

Pat was kneeling down and giving little Shawn a packet of Jelly Tots as he said, in a firm voice that brooked no arguments, 'You're going and that's that.'

Lil lay back on the sofa once more, feeling worse than ever.

'What is it with you, Lance? What the fuck goes through your head?'

The two men were laughing as they walked up the driveway of a large house in Chigwell. The gates had been jemmied open by Lance with the aid of a set of bolt cutters. The drive was gravelled and their footsteps alerted the owner to their presence. He opened the front door with a baseball bat in one hand and a twelve-inch carving knife in the other.

'Oooh, that's not very friendly, is it?'

The man was grinning but the men knew he was frightened, the sweat rolling down his face told them that, plus the trembling of the hand that held the knife.

'Fuck off. You ain't coming in here.'

'But that's just where you're wrong. We are coming in and we are removing certain objects; two of those said objects will be your bollocks if you don't get out of the way.'

Lance pulled out a shotgun from underneath his raincoat; it was sawn-off and he cocked it over his knee. Then, holding it up to his chin, he sited it on the man's crotch.

'I think a sawn-off beats a knife any day of the week, don't you, Donny?'

Donny Barker nodded as if thinking the question over seriously, and he eventually answered in a game-show-host voice, 'Without a doubt. Now, if you don't mind, we have chosen to forfeit the prizes and take the money.'

The man was shaking his head. He was bald with small dark eyes and overlarge lips, and was not an attractive man at all. His wife, however, was a real looker, as he was wont to tell anyone who would listen. Fortunately, his children looked like her side of the family. It was these children and that wife he was trying to protect.

'I ain't got the fucking money, how many times? I'll get it as soon as I can.'

Lance advanced on him, still aiming the gun, and he walked the man back through his large entrance hall and into his kitchen.

It was a beautiful property and Lance and Donny were both pricing everything in their heads as they made their way to the kitchen with him.

'Put the weapons on the worktop, please, and step back towards the table.'

The man did as he was asked, and Donny picked them up and studied them as if they were the most interesting things he had ever seen in his life.

'This knife is really sharp. You could do someone a real damage with this.'

As he spoke, Donny smiled at Lance and he nodded his agreement.

'You could cut someone's eyes out or slice off a few fingers, anything really.'

The man was white now and his eyes were on overdrive with nervous blinking. It was a reaction that Lance had seen many times over the years. He knew the man was thinking about how to get out of this, play for time, and then working out how to get the money required and get out of this once and for all. Lance also knew that he kept a small fortune in a safe, somewhere in this sprawling mansion that was hocked up to the hilt. The cars, everything in the place was rented or bought on the knock. He was like a lot of them he dealt with, all top show. Living far beyond their means and what for? That was the thing Lance had never understood. So a group of people he drank with knew he had a nice car and a nice drum. It was a fucking con, all a con. Now he had borrowed his last fucking wedge and they were not about to give him any kind of a pass.

'You owe me the money now, us. We bought the debt, see, and we are like the Mounties, we always get our man.'

'Look, I can get you the money all right…'

Lance grinned. 'Can you get it before your wife turns up with the kids? Your Bianca's ballet lesson should be over by now and it would be a shame if they were to walk into all this, eh?'

Donny nodded again. His ugly face was screwed up in mock concern.

'Poor little mares, coming in to all this. Good at ballet, is she?'

He ran a well-manicured nail down the knife blade. 'Shame if she lost a toe or two, wouldn't it? I mean, toes are what help you balance, ain't they?'

He looked at the man then and saw his fear, his terror.

'You wouldn't. Not a kid, you can't hurt kids.'

Lance answered him then. 'I can. I'll fucking hurt anyone who owes me money. I take it personally, like an insult or a fucking piss take. Now, where is your safe? Open it and pay us and we'll go. If you don't, I will slice up everyone in the house, even the new baby you're so proud of.'

As he spoke, they all heard the front door opening and a loud voice saying, 'Oi, have you seen the gates? They're wide open. You told me to keep them closed.'

The wife walked into the kitchen and saw what was going on. She turned quickly, but not quickly enough. She was holding her baby boy, and her older daughter, who had just turned twelve, was still in the hallway taking off her coat and boots. She looked up at the noise and she started crying when she saw the way her mother was flinching in fear, a man pulling her roughly back into the kitchen. The woman hunched over her baby. After seeing the gun she instinctively tried to shield the child from any shot that might be fired.

'Please, I don't want any trouble, we don't know anything, let us go…' Her voice was drenched with tears and she was stuttering with fright.

Her daughter ran to her, crying noisily, and that set the baby off. The noise was loud and Lance shouted above it. 'Give me her, now.'

Donny was as shocked as the parents of the child.

'I said, give me that kid, now.'

'Leave it out, Lance, this don't warrant anything of that magnitude.'

Lance stormed over to the little crowd and dragged the girl from her mother's arms.

The woman was now hysterical and Lance shouted at her. 'Shut the fuck up or I'll shoot the lot of you, just for the peace and fucking quiet.' He held the sobbing child in front of him and he pointed the gun at her head.

The child was quiet suddenly, as if she knew exactly how serious the situation was. The tears were rolling down her cheeks and yet not a sound emerged from her.

'All right, for fuck's sakes, let her go. You fucking bastards. Let her go and I'll give you what you want.'

Lance pushed the little girl away and she stumbled, her fear so acute she couldn't walk properly. Lance shouted at the sobbing woman, who was attempting to help her daughter up from the floor and hold on to her baby at the same time.

'Get out and shut the fucking door. Remember we can see you, so don't get clever. All right?'

The woman nodded and Donny could see she was on the verge of nervous collapse. The girl was almost in a trance and he knew fear could do that. He knew that the terror she had experienced would be there all her life.

'Well, fuck off then!'

She walked out of the kitchen towards their new conservatory, which was actually the reason her husband had wanked all his money away. As she passed him, she said angrily, 'My mother was right about you. She said you'd end up in jail or being topped and now you've brought all this into my home.'

She was pushed through the glass doors into the conservatory, and then Lance said, 'I can always top her for you, as a sort of bonus for paying up. She sounds like a right fucking nag and those kids and that racket all day and night. I don't discriminate, I'll fucking shoot anyone.' Lance waited for the man to tell them what they wanted to know.

Instead, he shook his head in exaggerated sorrow and said with a voice filled with regret, 'Please, guys, give me a week. I just need a week, that's all. Then I'll have the money for you, I swear on my mother's eyesight.'

Lance was angry now. That this man would still gamble his kids' lives was to him as unbelievable as it was disgusting.

'You
cunt.
You'd still fucking try and keep from paying a debt even though we threatened your
kids?
You know me and you know what I am capable of. You fucking low-down, filthy piece of shit.'

'Come on, Lance. You know I'm good for it, especially if you're collecting it.'

'You bought tickets off Dodger Marks to go to Spain this Thursday. I own him, like I fucking own you now. I know everything about the people who owe me money. I put the word out and I gather information, so I know what I can ask for and what I can't before I even set foot near the mark in question. You think I believe that you were going to fucking pay me from fucking Benidorm? I would have turned up there, you fucking twat; there ain't nowhere you could go to escape me once I decide I want you.'

Lance was shaking his head and laughing at the incongruity of this person's absolute stupidity.

'This is it now. You're a fucking enemy for life. If I see you around, I'll spank you and you'll regret cunting me off for the rest of your fucking days.'

He pointed the gun at the man's feet and let off a shot. The noise in the kitchen was deafening and the blood and bone from the man's feet was everywhere. The man was staring down at the carnage of what had once been expensive shoes and was unable to believe what had just happened; the pain had not kicked in yet. It took a few minutes for that to happen. The shock of the event needed to wear off first before the brain realised what had occurred and then reacted appropriately.

Lance was like a maniac now. He was pointing the gun at the conservatory door, screaming with anger and hate.

'Go and get that baby, get that little girl. I'll fucking maim them and you'll remember your fucking disregard for their welfare all your life. I'll teach you a lesson for life. I'll fucking maim them so bad, you'll wish I'd killed them. And you, you'll wish I killed you and all.'

Donny was in as much shock as the man they were shaking down. Lance was gone, completely gone. He had lost it, his eyes were glazed, his face was red with anger and he was spraying spittle everywhere as he spoke. He was completely and utterly off the game.

'You fucking heard me, Donny! Get the fucking kids in here again. I want to teach this cunt a lesson, teach him that you take care of your family and you don't offer them up.'

The man was listening and, like Donny, he was in no doubt that Lance was capable of doing what he said, just to teach him a lesson, to prove a point.

He dropped on to his knees then. 'Please, no. Please, Lance. I'll take you to the safe and give you everything; money, jewellery, whatever you want. But please, please stop this now.'

Lance stared down at the man for long moments, and both him and Donny could see him physically trying to get his anger under control.

'Come on, Lance, let's get the money and split.'

Donny's voice seemed to penetrate his brain but it was at least five minutes before he answered him. He was battling it out with himself and though both men had heard of his vicious temper, none had seen it at close quarters before. It was a definite learning curve for all concerned.