Liselle placed a large Scotch and Coke on the bar in front of Maggie, but she wasn't interested.

'My Jimmy has to sort out your shit all the time, but you have gone too far with this. My sister might fucking think you are the dog's knob but I know you for what you are, and my Jimmy does as well now.'

'Fuck off, Maggie.' He sounded bored, but there was an underlying fear in his voice and both Maggie and Liselle picked it up.

'Go home and have a few kids, might shut your fucking big trap up once and for all.'

'My Jimmy is a decent man, and he is bailing you out as usual. You are a joke, mate, but I warn you now, Freddie. One more fucking stunt like this and he will walk away, and if my sister has any sense she will do the same. You have no respect any more, you have no real rep, you are a bully boy, a fucking ice cream and you have finally gone too far.'

He looked at her, imagining how it would feel to punch her lights out and fuck her until she screamed. But he just smiled and said to Liselle, 'Hark at her, eh? The cunts are in control, the split arses are on the rampage.' He moved towards her quickly and she jumped in fright, which just made him laugh louder.

'Go home, Maggie, before I forget you are a relative.'

'I am no relative of yours, mate. You are fucking scum, and it's only Ozzy's wrath that is keeping you out of the courts. You do realise that, don't you?'

'Piss off, go and cut someone's hair, it's all you are fit for. Go and suck Jimmy's cock, put a smile on his face for once, eh?'

He was laughing once more, and she wondered at a man who could kill someone and not care about it.

'If you ain't careful, Mags, your husband will be bedding the brasses again. He has had his fair share, I can tell you.'

She knew he was lying to her and she spat at him then, and the globule of phlegm hung off his chin.

'Go home yourself, cunt, Jackie's looking for you as always and you never know, you might need an alibi.'

He smiled at her once more but she knew she had scored a major point. He was a real enemy now and she didn't care. That girl was dead, and because of her husband this man was going to walk away from it all. This grieved her.

She left the pub with her head held high and her heart nearly broken.

Freddie wiped his face with his hand and licked off the spittle with relish, much to the disgust of Liselle.

The point had been made and Liselle admired young Maggie for that much at least, even though she knew Freddie would never forgive her.

Jimmy was sitting with Pat, and they were discussing the events of the night before. Both were aware that there was no way Ozzy could ever get even a hint of what had really happened. He would go ballistic and he would be within his rights, they were all aware of that, so this was a serious case of saving their own arses.

Freddie did not know that Patricia had been alerted by one of the other girls, and the fact that he thought he might just walk away from it really annoyed her. She was the main boss, her brother's hologram for when he wasn't there, and he had not been there for a long time thanks to his natural aggression and the judicial system.

'We can't have this ever get out. I have threatened all the girls with death, pain, torture and destruction if they ever open their mouths, whether it is to each other or to their pimps.'

'Pimps?'

Pat wanted to laugh, even Jimmy was a fool where brasses were concerned. Brasses loved their pimps, because every man in their orbit used them for money. At least with the pimp they had a level of respect – all the time they were earning they were treated with decency. That was why Jimmy would never be a good brothel boy. He didn't have the innate cunning needed by pimps to keep the girls in line, or in love, however they looked at it, or the complete disregard for other people that was the main requisite of a man who lived off women. She knew he hated the fact they had the houses, saw himself as above all that. But it was a decent money-spinner and the sooner he accepted that the better off he would be.

'I think he has learned his lesson, Pat, I think he is as frightened as we are about what happened.'

His loyalty knew no bounds. If only Jimmy could hear the way Freddie cunted him when he had had a drink. The way he laughed about his perfect life with his perfect wife. The jealousy was there, and even though she knew in another way Freddie loved and admired his younger counterpart, at times she understood how hard it was for him to see the boy who had looked up to him actually making more of his life than he ever would.

The world they lived in was a funny place. You could be the biggest piece of shit but if you achieved and did not tread on anyone's toes you were fêted. If you fucked up, or someone decided to take what you had and succeeded, then you were forgotten about. It was the way things worked. No one gave a toss who they were earning with as long as they were earning.

Jimmy, she knew, had never understood her relationship with Freddie, and she could not explain, even to herself, the excitement a truly dangerous man generated inside her chest. The knowledge of his exploits and the fact that he treated her with kid gloves was a heady package. Every time she stripped him off and saw the want in him, it made her almost come there and then with the thrill of it all. He was like a wild animal who she had tamed. And now, although of course she would not say this out loud, she practically owned him. She would hint that she knew about the event, make him realise subtly that she had him over a barrel, and watch as he tried his best to make her want him even though he had fucked up big time.

And want him she did, like she had never wanted anyone in her life before.

She liked to be in control, money did that to a body. When you could keep yourself, make your own decisions and most of the men you met were wary or even scared of you and your connections, it was a natural progression. Now she used the men, they did not use her. She needed sex, nothing more and nothing less. There wasn't a man walking who could give her more than she could give herself, so why bother?

She would have Freddie again. She knew without a doubt that he actually cared about her, and it was probably the nearest that bastard had ever come to loving a woman. She was willing to give him another whirl, and this time he would be so far under her thumb she would leave an imprint.

But until then she had to talk Jimmy round and let him believe that she was only swallowing because of him, that she was willing to keep Freddie on the firm because of all the money they had invested. After all, as she would remind him, Ozzy was her brother and it would mean lying to him, at least by omission if not to his face. He would owe her, Freddie and Jimmy would owe her big time.

She wondered if Jimmy would see through her. He was a clever little fucker and she respected that in him. She was also wary of him because her brother thought the sun shone out of his every orifice, and that included his arse.

She knew that Ozzy had a good head for people and she also knew that as long as Ozzy wanted him, then she wanted him as well.

She knew how to play the game. She wasn't stupid.

'You all right, love?'

Freddie was holding a crying Jackie and she was letting him hold her. Enjoying the feel of him as his strong arms tightened around her.

This was what she wanted, what she needed. He poured her another generous shot of vodka and still holding her he motioned with his head to the glass. Deep down she knew that normally he would have been telling her not to drink, accusing her of being a piss head, a drunkard. Today, she knew it suited him to get her drunk, to get her on his side and as always she was quite happy to let that happen.