Jimmy was angry, angrier than he had been for years. Well, he had some news for this ice cream, and he hoped that he took it on board sooner rather than later, and did not attempt to talk his way out of it. Because he was not a happy bunny at all, and this little reprimand was just what he needed to let off a bit of steam.

Freddie tapped on the front door lightly with his keeper ring. He always wore the ring, even though he knew that Jimmy thought it was dreck. Jimmy hated the way he wore so much gold. It was as if Freddie was advertising his wealth to the world, and it aggravated him. Keeper rings were for bully boys and fucking pub fighters. They were for teenagers who thought they were hard nuts, they were not for grown-ups and serious businessmen. But they did a lot of damage and so tonight Jimmy was willing to let the matter go, but he still thought that it made Freddie look cheap.

The porch on the house was a recent addition. It had leaded light windows, roses and green leaves, which matched the rest of the house. All the windows were recent by the look of it, as were the doors. The house was like a fucking new NHBC home, except it was a good twenty-five years into its life expectancy. The man who owned it had gone mad with his renovations, and at any other time Jimmy would have spent a good couple of hours, and a few beers, happily discussing all that with him. Unfortunately the man had gone a bit too mad, and had eaten into their profit to fund this marvellous but, in all honesty, overdone, pile of fucking stones.

Now Lenny Brewster was about to find out that he had been well and truly sussed, and that Jimmy and Freddie were not about to swallow it.

Lenny had seen the two men come up his drive. His wife, who was making a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich when the knock came on the door, noticed his unusual demeanour. He looked nervous. He looked positively/jutted, as they said in her world, absolutely terrified and guilty as if he had just had the biggest capture of his life.

He was a spinner, a storyteller, and she accepted that, but in fairness he was earning like a drug dealer in a maximum security jail. The poke was constant and it was in large amounts. She knew he worked for the Jacksons, but until now she had never had any dealings with them. Lenny had given her the impression that they needed him, that he was a key player in their nefarious businesses.

Now though, like many a woman before her, she was seeing her old man as he really was and it frightened her. More so because she had, that very day, put a down payment on a Caribbean cruise and told everyone she had ever known in her life that they were going on it, first class, in a luxury suite with portholes and a large sitting room.

'Shall I get that, Lenny?'

He nodded and attempted to smile at her.

As she opened the door Freddie said, with all the considerable charm he possessed, 'Is that bacon I can smell wafting out of your gaff?'

She smiled at him happily. He was just her cup of tea, was Freddie. She was always up for a night out, since her old man was not the most exciting shag in Christendom, so within seconds they understood each other perfectly.

Jimmy watched the little display with his usual half smile of disbelief. Freddie could pull in a mosque, he would lay money on that.

He saw Lenny come slowly into the hall. 'All right, Len?'

Jimmy's voice was friendly, but there was an underlying warning and Lenny was trying to decide what to do about it all. So he smiled, and said to his wife, 'Come on, June, make a fucking brew. Anyone want a sandwich?'

Freddie grinned. 'I'll have whatever is going, mate. Got a beer?'

June smiled and she looked at Jimmy who shook his head. Then Lenny walked them through the newly decorated hallway and sitting room into the large conservatory at the back of the house.

Jimmy and Freddie looked round them in a pleasant but distinct way. They made eye contact and raised their eyebrows theatrically to let Lenny know that they were surprised at this outlay on the wages he was pulling in. Even though they were paying him a good wedge, he could see they both felt that this house was far in excess of what he should be living in. And he knew they were right.

'So what can I do for you, then?'

'Come on, Lenny, play the white man. You know why we are here. Why would we bother to come and see a lowlife like you unless we knew you were having us over, eh?'

Jimmy's voice was low, but it was reasonable.

Lenny decided to front it out, he had no other choice as far as he was concerned. He had an expensive wife, six kids and he also had his rep. He had worked for Ozzy when he had still been on the outside and surely that should count for something.

'I had a dip. So what? I needed the money.' He looked at Freddie as he said this in as reasonable a voice as he could manage. 'I am shifting three times the gear I was this time last year. I have asked you over and over for a bigger cut, and you just blah blah me.'

He waited for a reply and when none was forthcoming he said, with what he felt was justifiable anger, 'I have brought in fortunes for you lot, and you know that.'

Still there was no answer. Freddie and Jimmy just looked at him without any kind of expression on their faces, and it was this that made him lose his temper.

'I was on the streets working for Ozzy when you were still nicking cars and drinking pints of fucking Coca-Cola in the pub. I have earned my place in this firm. You should have given me my due, and then I would not have felt the need to take it.' Lenny was smiling at them now, he looked relieved to have said his piece, almost relaxed, and Jimmy saw for the first time a look of defiance. It was as if he was standing there thinking, well, it's done now, what can they do about it? He would swallow a hiding, and he thought that would be that, it would all be over and they would be quits. Lenny was a bigger mug than he had first thought if he believed that.

But before Jimmy could say a word, Freddie attacked him, and when Lenny hit the deck heavily on his hands and knees, he saw that Freddie had more or less gutted him with a boning knife.

Lenny was trying to keep his insides from popping out, and the blood was thick and pumping fast, streaming through his fingers, and making a terrible mess on the newly tiled floor of the conservatory.

Jimmy could not believe what Freddie had done. This was all they needed.

Freddie was grinning, that mad, lopsided grin that had always got him out of everything since he had been a kid. He was like a small child who had been caught pinching from his mother's purse.

But he wasn't a kid and he had just murdered Lenny, in his own home, in cold blood. And just because Lenny had fronted them. This was like a nightmare. This was what life sentences were caused by – acting first and thinking later. In many cases, ten or fifteen fucking years later, the person concerned was still thinking of that one moment of fucking madness.

Jimmy grabbed Freddie by his jacket and shirt, and he slammed him into the wall of the house with all the strength he could muster. The noise echoed around the conservatory, the glass was steamed up now, and the floor was covered in the deep red blood of Lenny, who had now dropped forward on to his face.

He was brown bread all right, and his wife was in her kitchen waiting to feed them bacon sandwiches and cups of bastard tea.

Freddie was giggling, he was laughing as if this was some kind of joke. Jimmy held him hard and fast as he tried to push Jimmy's hands away from him, trying to get clear of the wall. But Jimmy was not having any of it. Freddie could not move and he was using all his strength to try to change that fact.

It was only now that Freddie finally understood just how strong and how tall Jimmy actually was. He was as strong as an ox, and Freddie, who had always been the strong arm of the duo, realised that Jimmy was not only younger, but also he was bigger, healthier and faster than him.