He threw the man's trousers at him and said in a loud voice, 'Get dressed, me and you have to take a ride.'

The man was still crying and Jimmy was reminded once more why he hated men who used brasses. There was something lacking in them, something radically wrong with a man who needed to rent a hole to vent his spleen.

Ozzy was walking with the vicar towards the chapel. He made a point of going to Mass at every opportunity. It was worth the time. In the lifers' unit the born-again were the majority because of the different treatment they received. They were always looking at parole, and if that meant becoming a God-gobbler then so be it.

The vicar was a nice man, but very gullible. He also had a lot of the different weaknesses he talked about in his sermons.

Patricia's doctor had rung that morning from a psychiatric unit in London explaining to him that she was suicidal and needed desperately to talk to her brother. This phone call had been backed up by another reputable doctor who had assured the vicar that Ozzy talking to her would be a big help in her recovery. They had arranged for the phone call to be at seven o'clock that evening.

This was classed as an act of God, it was what happened when men's wives or children died, when some kind of access to the outside world was important to the wellbeing of either prisoner or family. It was also very rare, and Ozzy knew the favour he was being done. The vicar knew he would get a serious drink for this little day's work. He was a gambler, and he was into local bookies for a small fortune. Ozzy had made it his business to find this out and now the vicar, who thought he was doing a one-off favour, would become their lifeline to the outside world. No one had pointed that fact out to him yet, they would let it dawn on him gradually.

Ozzy was given a cup of tea and the vicar was very solicitous, making sure he had plenty of sugar and a plate of biscuits. Ozzy smiled at him as he slipped from the room quietly to enable the poor man to have some privacy. The vicar's phone was never tapped. It was what was called an open line and Ozzy was going to use this to his advantage now and in the future.

On the other end of the phone was Patricia, who took a few moments to fill him in on recent events. He listened quietly and then waited while the phone was passed over to Freddie Jackson.

Maddie placed a large plate of steak and chips in front of her husband, and he nodded gratefully.

She hated him like this. He kowtowed to her, he agreed with everything she said, it was as if all his strength had been taken away from him. She forced herself to look at his face because she knew it was important that he did not look hideous to her.

The pain was bad, she knew that, and he looked awful even now the swelling had gone down. He had had over sixty stitches in his face and if it had been inflicted by anyone other than his son, he could have borne it. But the fact it was their only child – the son he loved, the son he had brought up to be just like him – that had annihilated him, the fact it was his son who attacked him so viciously, made it so hard to accept.

Yet her husband was the man who had made the monster, he was the man who had taken him on his robberies, who had taught him to fight. Had made sure his education had been sparse, but also that he could work out a bet to the last half point.

He had made sure there was food on the table and that their home was nice. He had always had his outside women, and she had accepted him for what he was. Yet the monster he had created was the only person she had ever really loved in all her life. Her son had become everything to her, because his father had never really been there since his birth. Freddie Senior had been her life, then his son had been her life.

She wasn't sure how she felt about any of them any more. But this man who sat at home and tried to please her just got on her nerves. He was like a caricature of the man she had known. He was polite, he was agreeable, he was the antithesis of the man she had loved.

She did not know this man. He disappeared into the bedroom if there was a knock on the door, he refused to see anyone, even his brother, and he had no interest in anything that was going on around him. He ate whatever she put in front of him, he nodded and smiled in thanks, and he frightened her.

It was hard for her to accept that Freddie had in effect emasculated his own father. It was harder for her to understand how her son could have justified the violence of the attack, even though what he had done had made her, in the eyes of every woman she knew, the luckiest of mothers.

Her friends were actually jealous of a son who would look after his mother in such a public way, though their husbands thought it was a disgrace. Not that any of them would say that to Freddie Junior's face, of course.

Life was strange. You never knew what was going to happen to you and you never knew what was going to be the outcome of the most normal and simplest of days.

Jimmy watched as Freddie spoke to Ozzy on the phone.

He watched the changing expressions on his face and knew instinctively that Ozzy was with him on the event that had caused so much bad blood. He could practically see him puffing himself up with his own self-importance.

Freddie Jackson had been given permission to do what he wanted.

Now that Freddie had the big man's approval he was back in the fold. No one was going to say a word about him, or to him. Ozzy had just made what Freddie had done acceptable.

It was about women being taken care of, it was about men being reminded of their responsibilities, but it was mainly about Ozzy keeping everyone sweet. He needed a nutter and Freddie fitted the bill. More than fitted the bill. Ozzy knew that Freddie would never be trusted after what he had done. That no one would ever forget the breach of etiquette, or the fact it had been condoned by Ozzy.

Freddie for his part had no idea that he was actually working for someone even more slippery than Old Bill.

Jimmy waited until the call was over, then he went out with Freddie and in silence they disposed of two bodies.

Poor Ruby was found three days later on a rubbish tip in Essex. The man was burned away, he would spend eternity in a school furnace just south of Brentford. He had been disposed of with the usual rubbish collected in and around a school yard. In this case that consisted of needles, wraps and empty condom wrappers.

The school really livened up after dark, a bit like Freddie and his cronies.

Chapter Nine

Maggie opened her eyes and looked at the badly artexed ceiling in wonderment.

She would end this day as a Jackson, she would be a married woman. The excitement was filling her body and affecting her senses. All her life she had wanted this one thing and now it was here.

She could never remember not wanting to be joined with Jimmy Jackson, as his better half, as his wife. Today it was going to come true.

She looked around her bedroom, at the pink lampshade, at the dark-green candlewick bedspread and the posters of Chrissie Hynde, and was euphoric that she would never wake up in this room ever again.

She stretched, her arms were over her head and she wiggled in happiness as she surveyed her little world. Then she knelt up in the bed, and looked out of the bedroom window at the same view she had seen for the best part of her life. The other flats, the same curtains, the rain-stained concrete and the underground garages where no one would dream of keeping a car because it was too dangerous.

She had loved this view. It had always been there, it had been her world. Now she was ready for a different world, and their new little house was never going to be like this. Her kids would have everything. Their rooms would be themed, they would be beautiful little palaces for her little princes and princesses. Her children would have an environment fit for them. They would not have to fight their neighbours to get to the ice-cream van, they would not have to listen to people arguing when they were drunk, or see people fighting outside their bedroom windows.