The truth of these words didn't escape Jackie but she fronted it out as always. 'Oh, Kimmy, what's the matter, eh? You want me to score a few pills for you, calm you down, like? Or maybe you want me to take back my fucking fist and wipe that pathetic look off your face once and for all? She is a fucking husband-stealing whore and she is me own sister, me own fucking sister. Well, she's dead, as are you dead if you get in me way.'

She grinned as she dragged her clothes on to her cumbersome body. 'Come on, sweetheart, it's your call.'

Roxanna was watching the scene before her and she still had a feeling of terrible doom on her. It was like the first few days before her period, when everything had a weird aftertaste, when she could make 'Good morning' sound like a declaration of war.

She knew that if what Kimberley said was true then Maggie had been raped by her father. There was no other way that it could have happened. Maggie would sooner bed down with the local tramp than Freddie Jackson, and she couldn't blame her. If the boot was on the other foot she would have felt exactly the same. But how was this going to affect her? Her and her Dicky boy? What would happen when all this shit hit the big fan that had now metamorphosised into her mother's big trap?

She didn't want Dicky's mother and the rest of his family finding out about anything like this, it was too extreme even for the Jacksons. It was now her reputation she was worried about, but any reasoning with Jackie about this little lot was likely to be about as much use as a handbrake on a fucking canoe.

Kim had opened up a can of worms, and these were evil worms, vindictive worms and they were worms that were in her mother's mouth and would therefore be spewed out sooner than any of them might actually believe.

Jackie was still dressing herself, and as she did so Kimberley was trying to convince her that Maggie, poor Maggie, had been the victim. Rox knew that this was the worst thing her sister could do. If her father took an axe and murdered all the neighbours in front of a film crew from Channel Four, her mother would convince herself that it was not true, or that they had done something so heinous his murdering of them was justified.

Roxanna could cheerfully wring Kim's neck.

She would have to warn poor Maggie and as she wondered about Maggie's reaction to this news getting out, it hit her that Jimmy, her lovely uncle Jimmy, was as big a force as her father was. In fact, she was aware that he was now a bigger, better-connected force. Dicky was enamoured of her uncle Jimmy to the point of adoration.

This was so serious, she knew it would smash the family apart, and she wished that Kimberley had kept her big nose out of it. Like her mother, Rox liked everything on an even keel and if that meant keeping things swept under the carpet, pretending things were OK, then that was what she was prepared to do.

She wanted to cry. Everything was going to be destroyed, and she knew that life would never be the same again for any of them. But it was her loyalties that were really disturbing her, because if she was pushed to choose, her mother and father wouldn't stand a chance.

Paul had answered the phone three times and each time it had been Glenford asking if Freddie was still there, and what condition he was in.

He had said each time. 'Yes and not good.'

He knew something was going down and he was terrified of it happening in front of him and his wife. Liselle had been dispatched off to their flat with a warning that no matter what she heard, she was to keep a low profile.

Freddie was on a roll now, and his handsome face belied the evil that lurked so near to the surface. A girl had arrived an hour earlier, when Freddie had finally been about to depart. The girl was in her twenties with long hair, a crooked smile and a skirt that defied gravity. She was also, to add insult to injury, Liselle's niece, and she had taken one look at Freddie and love had been born.

What was it with women and Freddie Jackson? The worse he treated them the more they seemed to want him. She was all perfume and mint chewing gum, her clothes were New Look mixed with Dot Perkins and the stomach she was baring was not as washboard as she liked to believe.

She was Freddie's cup of char all right, up for it, been about long enough to know the score, but still young enough not to have the hard bitter look that Jackie and her cronies had acquired. Jimmy was gone from his mind now. Freddie was on the pull and in an extravagant and exhilarating way, much to the delight of Melanie Connors.

Melanie was funny, she had the chat, the look and the experienced way of young girls who had been at it from too young an age and still hadn't sussed out that sex was not a bargaining tool for most women.

Her witty ripostes were hilarious, and Freddie was enjoying the arrogance of her youth and her complete confidence in her good looks. But that could all change in seconds if she said something that he considered was disrespectful or downright challenging.

On Melanie's part, Freddie Jackson might be old enough to be her father, but she wasn't worried about that. He was, to her, gorgeous, with his dark hair and blue eyes. He also, she was pleased to note, had a wedge that could hold her mother's front door open in a hurricane, and she knew instinctively that he was hung like a horse. All in all, she was pleased with the way the day had turned out.

Paul, however, was absolutely gutted. He knew that Freddie was on the edge and poor little Melanie had not experienced Freddie with the hump just yet. As she was a relative of his wife's he would have to step in at some point and that was not something he was looking forward to.

At the moment, though, Freddie was like a sniffer dog in a crack house, happy as a sandboy and enjoying the afternoon's events. He hunted strange like other men hunted deer. He was quiet, he was watching her every move and when the time was right he was going to shoot this fucker down. If she was good at her trade she might get a second airing, if not she would be forgotten in the time it takes to find a new one with bigger tits and the pure attraction of unknown territory.

It was the chase he loved, the conquering of the girls. Once that was achieved they were history.

Dianna was in bits as both her sisters shouted simultaneously and with equal anger and annoyance, 'Oh shut up, Di!'

Maggie stared at the three girls she loved with all her being and then she turned to her sister and said quietly, 'Don't be so silly, Jackie. Kimberley heard wrong, that was all.'

Kimberley grabbed the branch she was being offered and hoped that it would stop her drowning in her own guilt. 'That's right, I was not sure what I was going on about, Mum. We were arguing, and I wanted to hurt you, that's all.'

'You fucking lying whore, you fucking junkie slag! You know what happened, I ain't fucking stupid!'

Maggie was under no illusions about how this knowledge was going to be received by the main antagonists, but she was past caring. Nothing could ever hurt her again and she wasn't sure she was even capable of keeping the peace with her sister. If push came to shove she was willing to annihilate her. If that's what it took to shut this slob up, then that was fine by her.

But she forced her voice to sound calm and civil once more. 'Come on, Jackie, have a drink, a coffee or a vodka, you choose.'

Jackie knew she was being offered a face-saver, a chance to stop this madness before it got out of hand, but Maggie's utter calmness was her undoing.

Even though she knew without a shadow of a doubt that this girl, and Maggie still looked like a girl, had been raped she could not for the life of her let that fact seep outside her closest circle.