Maggie shook her head sadly, 'He is out of control, Jimmy. I think he should be put away.'

Jimmy shrugged and finished his milk. 'That might be closer than anyone thinks.'

She frowned. 'What do you mean?'

'According to Freddie, the social workers want him to go to a special unit. It's for troubled kids and although he would be the youngest one there I think even Fred sees that something has got to be done.'

Maggie didn't say anything, though she hoped the boy did go away. If what she had heard was true the sooner he got professional help the better. But she also knew Jackie would never countenance it.

'Is me mum still getting her hair done tomorrow?'

Maggie yawned slightly. It had been a long day. 'She's popping over in the morning.'

Since the day they married, and Freddie Senior topped himself, Jimmy's father rarely had anything to do with his son. He never visited them, and no one ever mentioned it.

Jimmy nodded and rinsed his glass under the cold water tap. He didn't look bothered but she had a feeling he was. He would choose Freddie over anyone, except maybe her.

Though sometimes she even wondered about that.

Freddie was in bed with Stephanie. She was a good-hearted whore and he liked her. She was as thick as two short planks and her sense of humour was childish, but they had a rapport and best of all she never asked him for anything, ever.

If he turned up he turned up, if he kept away for months she never batted an eyelid in his direction. While Pat had worked out of the Ilford house he had kept away from her. Now, though, she was back on his list of things to do and she loved it.

As they lay together smoking a joint they heard the bedsprings in the next room creaking. They started to laugh.

'She don't half get some poke next door,' Stephanie said.

'In more ways than one!'

Stephanie was rolling up now, because she was so stoned and because, when Freddie was like this, he made her happy. He was being his most charming, and his most sexy. She loved the darkness of his skin, the whiteness of his teeth. He was always chewing gum or mints, so his breath was always fresh. She appreciated little things like that, in her job some of the clients' bodily hygiene left a lot to be desired.

Freddie cuddled her to him and she felt safe, safe and happy.

Then he flipped her expertly on to her tummy and, lying on top of her back, he bit her on the back of her head. As she struggled he pushed her face harder and harder into the pillow. As he entered her from behind she was grunting like an animal, and the pain in her head and thighs brought flashing lights into the blackness of the pillow. She could feel her chicken takeaway from earlier in the evening rushing into her mouth, and clogging up her nose as she tried desperately to get it out of her mouth so she could breathe.

She was choking, and the overpowering feeling of helplessness was terrifying in the extreme. She could hear him calling her names, and telling her that she was nothing, a whore, a slut. The words were merging together into one and as she lost consciousness she felt the burning of the food in her nostrils, her mouth open in a silent scream.

Little Freddie heard the front door crash open and still didn't take his eyes off the film he was watching. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre was his favourite video at the moment, and the blood and gore were just starting to spurt everywhere. He saw his Uncle Jimmy flash by in his peripheral vision, and stayed watching the TV.

Freddie was asleep in bed with his third woman of the night – first Pat, then Stephanie and finally his wife. Hearing the noise he opened his eyes blearily. Jackie was still snoring beside him and the duvet had come off the bed, showing her fat body sprawled across him like a beached whale. Her breath was rank and he pushed himself away from her. Then he realised that someone was stomping up his stairs and heard Jimmy's voice swearing and shouting, and it occurred to him that something terrible had happened.

Freddie had smoked some cocaine earlier and, mixed with the brandy, it had badly affected his reaction times. It wasn't until he was dragged bodily from the bed by Jimmy that he started to wake up properly.

'What the fuck's going on!' Jackie was sitting up in the bed, clutching a pillow in front of her to hide her nakedness and watching in amazement as Jimmy started to attack Freddie.

'You fucking vicious cunt! You wanker!'

Never had Jackie seen Jimmy sound so angry nor heard him shout so loudly. What frightened her more was that Freddie was not attempting to fight back in any way. He was just lying on the floor taking it.

Jimmy was kicking him, and when he was finally spent, he looked down on Freddie. Shaking his head in obvious despair, he rubbed his eyes and face, and Jackie saw the tiredness that had come over him.

'You went too fucking far this time. She's dead, Freddie. Dead.'

Jackie heard the word dead, and her whole body went cold. The fear had hit her now. This was serious, really serious and she was terrified that she was going to lose her husband over it.

'Who's dead? What the fuck is going on here, guys?' The fear in her voice communicated itself to her husband, who seemed suddenly to come out of his stupor.

Freddie got up off the dirty floor, and as Jimmy looked around him at the squalor that was Freddie's life and the mess that was his closest relative, he felt himself fighting back the urge to cry. 'Look at the way you live, the way you exist here with this lot. You're like a pack of fucking animals in a lair. This ain't a life, Freddie, you live like fucking parasites, the lot of you.'

The words penetrated Jackie's consciousness and even in her drink-fuddled brain the insult took residence, and a feeling of hot shame swept over her.

'This could destroy us, all we've worked for, everything, and all because you can't fucking control yourself.'

Freddie saw his wife trying to comprehend what had happened. She was staring at them both in horror, then Jackie was kneeling up on the bed and screaming, 'Who is fucking dead, for Christ's sake tell me, will you.'

And a little voice said, from the doorway, 'All the people on the telly, Mum, they're all dead.'

Chapter Twelve

Now Maggie knew exactly what had happened, the fear inside her was growing by the minute. She had gone to the house on Jimmy's direction and taken the girl's belongings and she had then dumped them on a landfill in East Essex. But just the thought of what had happened to that girl made her feel ill.

She understood better than anyone what Freddie was capable of, she just didn't believe that he could really have killed that poor girl in such a mindless, savage way. She had fought him off enough times as a girl, but even she would never have believed this of him.

She still had flashbacks to the times he had tried to corner her in her own home, and she had felt the unease as he stared at her sometimes, with that vacant look she knew meant he was thinking about her in a sexual way. If Jimmy knew the half of it he would have a seizure, and it would cause so much trouble that the reverberations would be felt for generations. Her own father would not take it very well, either, and that was without her mother's attitude. And Jackie, well, if she knew, she would blame her, like she always blamed everyone else except her husband.

Now this had happened, and Maggie had seen the pain and confusion in her sister's eyes this night, she knew that this was going to be in the forefront of her mind for a long time.

If it got out in their own community it would be hard enough for them, but if the filth took him in over it then everything they had worked for would be in vain. It would destroy everyone Freddie had come into contact with, it would taint them all.