'You're telling me to calm down? You fucking kill me. You think a few choice words are going to sort this out?'

The incredulity in Lil's voice was apparent and Pat closed his eyes. He only wanted to calm her down, that was all.

'He is a fucking moron and you know it. There is a cunning in him, Pat, a hateful, deceitful cunning that runs through him. He has to be curbed, he has to be taken in hand, Patrick. You can do it for once, you can fucking well sort this one out. For once in your life you can do the honours where that bastard is concerned, because I have had it, I can't do this any more.'

Patrick could smell whisky and it was a few moments before it dawned on him that she was drunk. She was half-cut and, as he looked around the kitchen, he saw the half-empty bottle of Bells. Grabbing her arms, he forced her on to a chair.

'Don't you dare push me like that…' Her voice was louder than she expected and she knew she was getting out of hand, that the drink was talking for her. But she had needed something to take the edge off the day, help her relax and make her sleep.

'I didn't push you, Lil, I just helped you to a seat before you keeled over. Now, for the last time, calm down for fuck's sake.'

His annoyance was in his voice now and she heard it with a thrill of pleasure. He was reacting at last and showing some kind of real emotion.

'You have to send him away from here, send him to a boarding school or something. I want him out of this house and I mean it…'

Pat poured himself a drink, anything to stop himself from answering his wife. He needed to calm down and think before he spoke to her. She was not in any mood for chit-chat and he wanted her calm and lucid before he talked the problem through.

'There's a Jesuit school in Ireland. I was reading about it a while back in the church magazine and they take problem kids. It ain't cheap but who cares about that. The priest will know more about it; we can enquire tomorrow. Either way, he has to go, Pat. He has to go away because I won't be responsible for my actions if he stays around me.'

Patrick had always known that Lil had not taken to Lance as she should have. But he had not realised that it was as bad as this. Her mother had taken the boy over and, truth be told, it was the only reason he had tolerated the old bitch, because he knew deep down that Lil had no affection for the boy. He had understood, because Lance had a similar effect on him. But he rationalised his feelings and blamed it on the way Annie had taken him over from the second he had been born. He knew the relationship between Lance and his mother-in-law wasn't healthy but with Patrick Junior being a handful and the twins arriving so quickly he had let it go. He had tried to cut the cord a few times over the years but Lil had always been the instigator of her mother and Lance being reunited.

'A Jesuit school, Lil? That's your answer, is it? Send him away?'

She nodded and stared at him defiantly, letting him know that she was deadly serious. Now this had happened, now it was all out in the open, she wanted it resolved once and for all. Knowing what her son was capable of was enough for her to know she didn't want him near her.

'He ain't going away, Lil. He might be a fucker but he is eight. Eight years old. He had no real understanding of what he was doing…'

'He knew exactly what he was doing to that child. A few days earlier he had blacked her eye and punched her to the ground…'

She was nodding now at the horror on his face. 'Yeah, punched the poor little mare for no reason at all. He is a spiteful little shit and he ain't ever going to get the chance to fucking vent his rage on my girls…'

'Stop it, Lil; he loves the twins…'

This was too far now; as if the boy would harm his own sisters.

Lil laughed sadly. 'You just don't get it, do you, Pat?' Either he goes or I do…'

'Don't be so dramatic, you silly mare, that's the drink talking. And you should know better than to get pissed in your condition. And as for Lance, he is the product of your fucking mother, and her constant mollycoddling. I'll hammer the little git and when I have finished with him he won't fucking dare put a foot wrong. Now, stop talking out of your arse, and let's get to bed.'

He had finally had enough. He was going to nip this lot in the bud. Lil needed a good night's sleep and then maybe she would see this lot in a different light.

'I am not going anywhere, Patrick Brodie, until you promise me that Lance, the unnatural little bastard, will be taken away from here. Away from my other kids. From this new baby especially. I can't look at him without wanting to harm him and that is me telling you the truth of it. I want him out of this fucking house and away from me and mine!'

As she spoke she saw Lance standing in the doorway looking at her with those calm blue eyes that had bothered her even when he had been a babe in arms. She retched then and only just made it to the sink before the whisky and the day's events finally got the better of her and she threw up. As she retched she could hear her husband's breathing in the silence of the kitchen and she knew then that he would not do anything that she had asked of him. Lance would be taken in hand by him and he would fool his father as he fooled everyone else.

Spider was in a dilemma. His mother was looking at the lifeless body of her son and he wasn't able to do anything to make it better.

Cain had been found in a skip. The skip was outside a house in Leytonstone; the people who had hired it had expected a few other things to be dumped in it alongside the rubbish they cleared from their garden. A naked black man with a screwdriver forced through his ear had not been on their list. The woman's screams had alerted the neighbours and she was being sedated by the duty doctor as Spider and his mother were in the mortuary identifying his brother's remains.

Spider knew Patrick was angry, but he had not expected anything like this.

As he looked at his little brother he felt the full weight of his grief and, as his mother began to keen like a trapped animal, he was brought back to reality.

He nodded at the policeman and then watched as his mother was led from the room by a nurse. Her weeping was loud in the hushed quietness.

The policeman was watching him warily but Spider expected that and he looked at his brother's bloodied remains impassively. The less the filth knew, the better. He had to box clever with this now if he was going to convince them it was a random attack and not gang-related. They were more than aware of his credentials, which is why they had come to him quickly and quietly. They wanted to see if this boy's death was going to have any far-reaching consequences.

Which of course it would.

But the police in question would be well looked after if and when forthcoming events warranted it.

As Spider looked down at Cain and saw the gaping hole in his ear where a screwdriver had been forced through it, he felt nothing except a coldness inside him.

He only hoped Cain had been unconscious when the fatal blow had been administered; the thought of him knowing what had been happening to him was something he would not be able to bear. Violence was a part of their world and he knew that, but to think of his little brother going through all that pain was more than he could stand.

'Do you have any idea who might have been responsible?'

The policeman's voice was low and respectful, as befitted Spider's standing in the community. Spider knew that anyone else would have been interrogated by now. The assumption being, he had to know who the culprit was.

Spider shook his head keeping his face impassive as usual and looking as innocent as a newborn baby. 'He was well-liked, popular; this had to be some kind of mugging. I don't know what else it could be.'