He needed her then because he felt like she did now. Useless, unwanted, nothing.

Her head was gone, the pills were taking over and she was actually enjoying listening to a Spice Girls record. She lurched into the bedroom and asked them to crank up the sound on the stereo, and they all laughed as Little Freddie mimicked her every word.

As she started to tell him off, he did a pretty good impression of her, and she was getting more and more annoyed at every word he uttered.

Then he jumped off the bed and did a passable imitation of her walking when she was drunk.

She tried to smack him, but Roxy dragged him on her lap and the girls were all roaring at her once more. Little Freddie was pretending to stick his fingers down his throat and pretending she made him sick, which once more set the girls off in hysterics.

Christ, but at times she hated that fucking child.

Freddie was watching Patricia and she knew he was.

She looked lovely, and she knew that as well. Even though she was not really that good looking, her confidence, immaculate dress sense and air of leadership made her more than attractive in the eyes of most of the men in her orbit.

Used as they were to women being totally dependent on their men, she was an anomaly, and also a fuck-off businesswoman whose brother was madder than the maddest person who was ever declared mad. This same brother gave her carte blanche with most of his business dealings, which in their world made her an honorary man. It also made her rich as Croesus, and once more that was something that held an attraction in itself. Her reputation as a good fuck who wanted no emotional ties was also a big draw in their circle. Most women wanted to be the new bird, the overtaker, while she had no interest in filling anyone's shoes. So a lot of men wanted her, and they wanted her for a variety of reasons.

But none wanted her more than Freddie Jackson, who would see her on his arm as a reflection on himself. Would see her as a step-up, and who would walk away from Jackie and even Little Freddie if that was what it took to get her full time.

She played him, and they both knew that. She let him think it was a possibility, then she would make him more than aware of the absurdity of the situation.

But today, Freddie looked like the cat who had got the cream and she knew by his whole demeanour that he was full of himself, puffed up like a third-rate brass on a bender with the army.

Patricia's flat was fantastic, and Freddie loved it here. It was new, a penthouse and he liked it so much he imagined himself as its lord and master. It was spotless, and the fridge was always full of beer and decent food, and the bed was always sweet smelling and crease free.

She had a nice drum, and he envied her that. He also envied the fact he was not the only man in her life. But he consoled himself with the fact that of them all, he was the most constant.

She made him shower before they slept together, and even though he knew it was an insult to him, he did it. If any other woman had ever asked him to do that he would have decked them. But with Pat, you either did it her way, or not at all.

It made such a change from the whining cunts he was normally involved with, who wanted sexual gymnastics and then wanted his loyalty and his love.

As if.

Yet he would give it to this woman without a second's thought, he would watch his step and even give up the strange, because the Patricias of this world did not believe in second chances. Once you fucked up it was over, and that was that.

If she knew what he had done the night before she would freak. She liked Maggie, everyone liked Maggie. In fact, Maggie was a lot like Pat – she was a grafter and she knew her own worth.

It was strange that he wanted to bring Maggie down but not Pat, but he understood the reasoning behind destroying Maggie. It was because, between them, Maggie and Jimmy were everything he wanted to be. He had spoken the truth the night before when he had told Jackie that he should have waited, that he had married the wrong sister. But it went deeper than that. He saw the way they lived, the way they interacted, the way they were admired and respected by their peers.

Jimmy was Ozzy's eyes and ears. It was Freddie who had been banged up with Ozzy. But Jimmy was now Ozzy's blue-eyed boy, little Jimmy who he had schooled and loved.

Maggie was also a law unto herself, with her salons and her fucking high-handed ways. Even his girls looked up to the two of them. To a man younger than him by nearly a decade. They all treated them like they were visiting royalty and he was like the fucking hired help.

Well, he had started a train in motion and now he was going to sit back and watch what happened. Maggie was his and he knew it. Jimmy was an unknown quantity, but she would never spill the beans on their little encounter.

He also knew that the fact she would hide it would be her downfall, because once she lied to her precious Jimmy their whole life would begin to collapse.

Jimmy worshipped her. Mug that he was, he saw her as the most important thing in his life, and their life was good. They had the life Freddie had expected, but thanks to Jackie and his kids, and his drinking and his drugging, and his disregard for anything and everyone in his orbit, that life had never materialised.

Ozzy, he knew from little things Patricia had let slip, saw him as the underdog now. He was no more than a heavy, it was little Jimmy who called the shots. Well, Jimmy was getting far too big for his boots, boots which, incidentally, Freddie had fitted him with many years before.

He had come out of nick full of hope and dreams. He had spent night after night in his cell planning his new life, and he knew in his heart that he had thrown it all away. He had fucked everything with a pulse, he had ponced off everyone he knew and he had basically handed the reins over to a young man who had once seen him as the epitome of everything he had wanted to be himself.

Freddie had blown it, and he was aware that it was far too late to regain any kind of foothold. He was just a heavy now, a well-respected and well-treated heavy, but a heavy all the same. His father had pointed this out to him all those years ago, when Jimmy and Maggie had married with all their pomp and ceremony, and he had known then that what his father said had been true. Well, he had shown him!

He had been due his pension, he had been due his lifestyle, and he had let it slip through his fingers.

Knowing he had fucked it up himself did not make his little cousin's rise to power any easier. All the contacts they used were his friends, all the main people were their social equals. He knew he was now only tolerated, and it was this that he could not take any more.

Hatred was preferable to toleration, and the worst of it all was that even little Jimmy barely tolerated him these days. Yet for all that, it was his rep, his fighting ability and his ruthlessness, that kept the pretenders to their thrones at bay.

Jealousy was a terrible force. It ate at people and it made them dislike and distrust the people they loved. It caused the unsuccessful parties to question their own lives, and look too harshly at their families and their so-called friends. It made for paranoia and it made for dangerous bedfellows.

Well, Jimmy Jackson might be making a name for himself, but his little love nest was now tainted and that would have a domino effect on the rest of their lives.

He would bring the flash little fucker down from the inside, and watch as he saw his life crumble, much the same as he had himself.

'Are you all right, Freddie?'

Pat's voice was coming from far away, and he knew he was on a coke trip. He had been snorting it for hours like a man with a nose bigger than Barry Manilow.