They left the kitchen then and she didn't attempt to stop them. Instead, she opened the fridge and took out another bottle of wine.

Her husband and her girls – Maggie had taken them all.

June Brewster was in a state of shock, but she was still sensible enough to know that Jimmy Jackson was not the main culprit here, and that he was the one she needed to sort this out with. Freddie Jackson was a murdering ponce, but she had already heard that expression in connection with him, many times before. She knew the score, she knew the life they were involved in. She had lived it long enough and she was a realist like many a blagger's wife before her.

When she had walked into the conservatory, she had screamed once, then she had contained herself as best she could. She had not phoned the filth, which she knew had endeared her to Jimmy Jackson.

He was also much calmer now, though when she had entered the conservatory she had seen the utter contempt he had for Freddie Jackson on his face.

Freddie had fucked up, and it was only her rep as a close-talking wife that had kept her on their good side. Married to Lenny, she had more secrets than the Dalai Lama, but they knew she had always kept them close to her chest.

Lenny had said once that it was young Jimmy Jackson who was the real brains of the outfit, and after tonight's debacle she was inclined to agree with him. Jimmy was already on the blower trying to salvage something for all of them. She knew she would get her comp, which had better be huge, but she wanted the life-insurance money on top, so now they had to make poor Lenny look like he had died in far less suspicious circumstances.

Jimmy was talking sixteen to the dozen, and in between his talking and scheming he was pouring her brandies, trying in his own way to lighten her burden.

But how could he?

Lenny was a ponce, she knew that better than anyone, but he was her old man and they had been together for the duration, over twenty years. Even though the last child was suspiciously dark in comparison to the other five, he had swallowed, he had given her the benefit of the doubt. So she had never gone on holiday to Tunisia again with her sisters, big deal. Lenny had neglected her shamefully and he knew it. In fact, it seemed that her ducking and diving with a young waiter with a six-pack stomach, a large cock and hardly any English had made Lenny realise what he had in her. So they had got over it somehow. In fact, the child, a daughter, had been the apple of Lenny's eye. They already had the five boys, and she was a very beautiful little girl who worshipped her dad.

Now she was on her Jack Jones with six kids and a house that they had only been doing up because she had insisted on it. Lenny, being a thieving toerag, had skanked off these two fucking Faces, and now he was dead, and all she could think about was Tunisia and the young fellow who had given her back her confidence and her sex drive.

She was seeing him in her mind's eye, with his tight little arse and his muscle-bound arms, a smile that was whiter than a Colgate advert, and his soft dark hair that was long, thick and tied back in a ponytail. She had thought about him every time she had slept with Lenny, because Lenny had stopped ringing her bells many years before. He had slept around and he had left her to basically bring the kids up alone, and it had hurt her. It had made her resent him, and she had often had a flier with a bloke on the quiet.

All the time she had been cooking the bacon sandwiches she had been thinking about Freddie Jackson, and pondering his prowess in the kip, and now he had killed her husband, the father of nearly all her kids. The man who, even though she was getting battered around the edges, and so her chances for romance were getting less and less, had pledged his undying love for her, had taken in a child that was not his, and who had ripped these two fucking lunatics off to give her the house of her dreams.

How many times had she imagined him popping off over the years, and her being her own boss, being in a position to go away on holiday and shag herself stupid with men she would never see again? How many times had she wished for Lenny's demise? Now she had got it, and what she really wanted at this moment in time was for her Tunisian waiter to take her in his arms and give her the rogering of a lifetime.

She had actually been contemplating shagging Freddie Jackson, and now she was contemplating shagging someone else. Her head was going mad, she was thinking of all the wrong things, but with six kids hanging around her neck, she needed money, and she needed the insurance. She needed the house paid off and the loans off her back, not only for the cars, but also for the building work and the new furniture. She needed to focus on that now, and then when it was all over, she could fall apart in peace. Maybe in Tunisia, where the sun shone every day and where her mother phoned her and told her that the kids were fine, and where she could pretend to be footloose and fancy free, and where maybe she might forget about this night and what it entailed.

Every time she thought of Lenny on the floor in all that blood, she felt ill with the worry and the fear of what was going to be the upshot.

Freddie Jackson was eating the bacon sandwiches she had made earlier, and it freaked her out. He was drinking his tea and acting as if this was a normal evening. He had even winked at her. She had four kids in bed, and her eldest two were due round the next day and her husband, the stupid thieving fucker, was dead as a doornail in her new conservatory.

It was surreal, and yet she knew it was really happening because her brain had acknowledged it and was now helping her to try to make some kind of sense out of it. She knew to an outsider she would seem mercenary, cold-blooded, and even hard and uncaring. But she had no intention of falling out with the Jacksons or with Ozzy himself. She had already seen what they were capable of if provoked.

She had six kids aged three to nineteen, and she had to keep her head above water. Get your priorities right had been Lenny's mantra, and that was exactly what she was attempting to do.

Maggie lay in the big bed alone, and wondered what time Jimmy would finally get home. It was three in the morning, and he had left a message saying that he had a bit of business to attend to, that she was not to worry and he would be home as soon as he could.

He was so thoughtful, and she knew he was worried about her and the way she was acting, but she couldn't do anything to allay his fears.

She was wide awake as was usual these days, but she had listened to his message without picking up the phone and talking to him since he would have guessed she hadn't slept yet. She didn't want him home yet, not really. He wanted to hug her, and kiss her, and try to make her happy. He wanted to love her, and she wasn't ready for that. Didn't want any of that, because with Jimmy a cuddle always had to end in sex. Now she just allowed him to take her, and she knew he was aware she was just letting him, that she was not joining in any more.

From the first time they had made love, she had enjoyed it. She had not climaxed then, but she had loved the feeling of him inside her, even though it had hurt. She mirrored his own excitement, and had felt a natural reaction as he had reached his orgasm. He had known that, and she knew he had loved her for it.

At fourteen she had been made aware of what sex was really all about, that it was not just for procreation, not just a quick release, but was the joining of two people who could not get close enough to each other, but who tried to with each encounter they had together. For every deep thrust that Jimmy had penetrated her with, she had arched her back up to meet him with the same fervour and excitement as he felt for her.