He took another deep toke on his newly lit twist and then he laughed even as he said seriously, 'You see, Jimmy boy, if me don't believe that, me life not worth it, is it?'

Jimmy looked at his friend and smiled, and they both knew that this was the final piece of their friendship falling into place. Neither had ever really trusted anyone with their deepest feelings before, but now they were willing to do just that.

'She ain't right, Glenford. She has become like a different person. Her nerves are so bad, every knock at the door she jumps, it's like she is waiting for something, but she won't tell me what.'

Glenford shook his head as if he understood perfectly. 'That's what me trying to tell you, it's the life, boy. They get to an age and a state of mind, and they frightened of the consequences of our chosen professions.'

Jimmy pondered his words for a while, then said sadly, 'Nah, it ain't that, Glenford. We are legal, mate, and if I get a capture it's through a grass. This goes deeper. Something's happened to her and I can't get to the bottom of it. I don't know what to do, and I try and make her talk to me and she goes into one.'

Glenford was suddenly alert. Unlike Jimmy he had the knack of shaking off even the most severe of stoneds. Not an easy feat by anyone's standard. 'What could have happened to her?'

Jimmy sighed. 'I don't know, but I'll find out. It started when I went to Glasgow, and she ain't been the same since.'

Glenford was silent, but his mind was now working fifty to the dozen. He was a great believer in never saying anything to anyone until you had all the facts. He was annoyed now for getting so stoned, because something Jimmy just said had struck a chord with him. But he was gone and he knew this was too important to try and suss out now. So he got up from his chair unsteadily and did what he always did when he was rocking and he needed to remember something.

He went to his kitchen and he wrote it down in his notebook.

Then he got two more cans of Red Stripe, returned to the lounge and sat with his friend and buzzed happily.

'Come on, Maggie, we're all waiting for you!'

Dianna's voice was loud in the salon and everyone automatically turned towards it. Dianna knew that would be the case and she winked at Kimberley as Maggie finally emerged from her office.

This salon in Chingford, Essex, was the biggest of them all, and it was Maggie's baby. The girls, like Maggie, knew that this was the forerunner to the others now. It had worked so well that she was now investing a lot of money to bring the others up to spec. It not only had the hairdressing salon, it had sun beds, a nail parlour, and they were also offering waxing – legs, eyebrows and bikini, anything that was required. It offered facials, Reiki, massage and even a slimming clinic once a month where a doctor prescribed anything the clients needed.

It was a goldmine.

Maggie offered wine, spritzers, frappés and cappuccinos. She also let her customers snort to their hearts' content in her toilets, as long as they did it discreetly.

It was, to all intents and purposes, the place to be.

Dianna and Kimberley were now there all the time, Kim as a hairdresser, along with her college course in beauty, and Dianna as a trainee.

But Maggie was not her usual self, and they were determined to get her out of her shell today if it killed them.

Maggie wanted them there not just because she loved them, which she did, but also because they kept Freddie away. He was nervous of his girls, who had sussed him out at a very young age. They loved him in a haphazard, 'Oh, he is me dad, and what can I do about it?' kind of way. But Maggie knew that he loved them, and like he loved any woman in his orbit, he owned them. She also believed that he would be frightened of them knowing about what had happened. Unlike their mother, they would be inclined to believe her side of the story.

She had been a big part of their lives for so long. They knew her so well and they trusted her. They respected her, and their father had destroyed her.

Now as she looked around her, saw the busy salon bustling with people, pumping out loud music and coining in money, she felt the urge to scream.

'Come on, Maggie. Everyone keeps asking where you are lately, we can't keep telling them you're doing the books, can we?'

She looked into Kimberley's face, and, as had been the case since the girl had hit her teens, she saw herself. Kimberley looked like her, she could see it plain as anything and people remarked about it. She had her father's darkness, his dark hair and his sallow skin, but she had Maggie's fine bone structure that was at odds with Jackie's heaviness.

The thought of Jackie sent her heart racing.

'All right, Mags, long time no see. You sick or something, girl? You look dog rough!'

Maggie smiled widely at the woman who'd spoken. She was sitting there all tanned skin and streaked hair, having a manicure and a pedicure in the new and expensive black leather pedicure chair, with its own heated little foot bath, and its own drink holder, and once more Maggie wanted to scream. To tell this woman what a vacuous prat she was, how she loathed her selfish existence like she loathed the men like Freddie, because a lot of these women were with Freddie wannabes. Were with men who would shag a table leg if it was available, and who would not even have the decency or the sense to wear a condom. She knew women in this salon who had been given everything from a dose of clap to herpes from a foray their men had made to Thailand. Suddenly, all the gossip was like the Old Testament to her, like some kind of revelation. It showed her life and what it had become because she had once tried to save her sister's sanity, and tried to make her marriage whole. Look what it had got her.

She felt an urge to tell everyone to fuck off, but she didn't, she had taken to doing all her swearing in her head lately. It eased her somehow, but she was not sure for how long it would work.

Instead, she said as gaily as she could to the bleached-blond no neck who was apparently waiting for her answer, 'You only want me because I do the strongest drinks!'

All the women in the salon laughed. Maggie looked around at the perfect teeth and the perfectly toned bodies, and she broke down and cried.

Kimberley, who had a very good shit detector inherited from her grandmother, walked her back in the office before too many people saw what had happened.

Maggie held on to her young niece for dear life, and she sobbed her heart out. She was talking incoherently, and all Kimberley could make out was her saying over and over again, 'I am so sorry, sweetheart, so very sorry.'

When she finally calmed down, she still would not let on what the hell was wrong with her.

Freddie and Jimmy were at a house in North London. It was a large property in a nice tree-lined avenue. It had his and hers BMWs in the drive, and it had the air of an expensive and extended family.

Also in the drive were mountain bikes, slung down on to the concrete with no regard whatsoever, and a child's electric car. Judging by the state of its paintwork and the fact that it was full of leaves, it had obviously been dumped there a good while ago and left out in the recent rainy spell. Jimmy, who still knew the value of a pound, could not for the life of him comprehend how anyone with half a brain could have left over five hundred quid's worth of children's toy out unless they were either stupid, or, as seemed to be the case here, they thought they were always going to earn a serious crust.

There was also a double garage that had a door that was open halfway. That again was a mug's game – why would you invite thieves into your yard? Jimmy knew that the electric door was fucked, but even in the twilight he could see freezers, and he also counted three different lawn mowers, one a ride as you cut, and other expensive gardening equipment. Even he didn't have all that in his sheds, and his garden was like the fucking Serengeti in comparison to this fucking mong's.