Alone was now a good thing.

Lena was at the end of her tether. Nothing she did seemed to make any difference. Maggie was determined to be alone and she knew that she couldn't get through to her, knew she was wasting her time.

But the guilt she carried around with her was weighing her down, and she needed to make her daughter better, needed her to need her.

If only they had looked in on him properly that night, checked him, protected him, he would still be alive.

Lena would never know another happy day, so how could she expect her daughter to? Her Maggie was dying inside. It was not something that you could look at her and see, instead it was more subtle. Maggie's eyes were sadder by the day, she looked at you and the bleakness was terrifying because somewhere inside you knew she was right. Her hurt and pain were right, the only option left to her daughter.

Without it, she felt nothing.

'You sure about this, Jimmy?' Glenford's voice was sceptical. He knew the Jacksons fought between themselves, but this anger from Jimmy was out of the ordinary, and unusual.

'As sure as I'll ever be, Glen. He is out and that's the end of it.'

Glenford was nonplussed for a few moments. 'There'll be murders and you know it. You can't row Freddie out, that would be outrageous! He will want to kill you, he will go mentalist.'

Glenford said it all in thick Jamaican, but he meant every word.

Jimmy grinned. 'Let him bring it on, as much fucking hag as he likes. Like I give a fuck.'

Glenford was surprised, but not that surprised. This had been a long time coming, he had just not expected it now, and not in such a voracious way. Freddie must have fucked up with honours this time, and caused untold aggravation to cause this upset. Freddie, in all honesty, must have been picking the pockets of the damned to get Jimmy this fucking aerated.

Jimmy was the good guy, Jimmy always looked for the best in people, looked for the easiest way out of things, tried to keep the peace, tried to make it all better.

Not any more by the looks of things.

Glenford had to question, though, the logic of aiming him out now. Freddie collected quickly, without arguments. He gave people ten hours and they never failed to deliver, they always paid up on time. He did the job, he talked the talk and he earned for them. He might not be the greatest mind they had on the payroll but he knew how to frighten money out of the biggest wankers in recorded history.

Freddie was a nutcase and people like Freddie were worth keeping around if for no other reason than that.

'You can't aim him out, Jimmy, think about it. He'll never rest if you do that. He'll go fucking mental. Who would employ him other than you? All he has is you.' Glenford was trying, in his own way, to warn Jimmy about reckless actions. 'Freddie Jackson is far more useful to you if he is in your good books. Use him as a heavy, let him have his moment, let him have his creds, but don't put him out altogether. He'll never live that down, he'll never get over it.'

He was actually wary of anything happening, because he knew Freddie spent his life on the edge. Looking for trouble was his forte, it was what Freddie did for kicks. Freddie would love an excuse to widen his circle of hatred.

'But that is just what I want, Glenford. I don't want him to get over it, I want him to know how I feel. I am going to finish him once and for all, I am going to wipe his fucking name off my pension plan, he is history. He is out of everything he ever wanted, everything he has always felt he was entitled to. Freddie is over and the sooner he realises that the better off he will be. I have carried that cunt from day one, and now he can start earning for himself, earn a fucking living like all of us.'

Glenford snorted in derision and annoyance. 'This goes deeper than that, Jimmy, this is far too personal. What the fuck has he done, fucked your wife?'

Jimmy didn't answer, and Glenford wondered what the upshot of this day was going to be. Life was a series of unavoidable events – until now he had not understood what his father meant by that. But he had known what the score was all his life.

His father was a handsome Jamaican called Wendell Prentiss, who had travelled over to Britain in the fifties with nothing but a Rasta hat and a sense of humour. He had a posse of outside children, from a gaggle of different white women, but his legal wife had unfortunately only ever produced one son, Glenford. Wendell had always argued with him, saying that you had only one life, and it was up to you, what you did with it.

Of course, Wendell would say, in his thick Jamaican accent and with a grin, there would always be the unexpected, you needed to allow for them kind of thing, mentally and monetarily, that would cost you dearly. Deaths, births, and more often than not, a serious prison sentence for the majority of Jamaican boys, because the British police don't like us one bit as a race, there too many of us now. Always remember, son, he had said with all the dignity he could muster, while drinking white rum and banging his dominos on the kitchen table, those things cost money, time, and the serious use of brain power. But other than that, he would say on a laugh, your life was your own, to waste or make the best of.

Jebb Avenue in Brixton, Wendell would say, his deep voice making his words as dramatic as possible, could be the marketplace you visit for a sheepskin coat in the darkest days of winter, or where you could end up queuing to visit your friends or family. Funky Brixton, as the prison there was called, was the place where white boys had eventually become the niggers.

Glenford had laughed with his father when he had philosophised about those things, yet he knew he had actually been stating facts.

Wendell had died ten years ago, still believing he was a prince, a walking flag of Ethiopia, and still smoking the weed that had actually prevented him from fulfilling his dreams. He had always been too stoned to do anything constructive.

'Life is what you make it,' he would say on a daily basis, loudly and seriously. 'You have a blank piece of paper, Glenford, and what you eventually write on it is of your own doing. Good or bad, you have to decide for yourself.'

Glenford had adhered to his father's teachings all his life, and they had kept him in good stead. His father had taught him that sometimes you had to hurt people, be cruel to be kind, but Jimmy Jackson, he was a different kettle of fish. He had always tried to make other people's lives easier, and the responsibility had weighed on him from day one.

Glenford had few real friends. Like his father before him, he was fussy about who called him by that name, to him friends were people you trusted as much as your family. In this case more than your family. Jimmy was a real friend. Freddie, on the other hand, was just treated like one. It was a subtle difference, but there all the same.

But to Jimmy, Freddie Jackson, was family, and in their world family, no matter how big a cunt they were, got a wage. That went without saying, but they were supposed to be grateful. They were supposed to understand their fucking good luck that someone close to them had the nous to earn a crust, a crust they were willing to share out.

Now Jimmy was threatening to remove that wage, was going to drop Freddie like a stone. It was Jimmy's call, and Freddie was one dangerous fuck, after all, but Glenford knew that in one way Freddie had a point and was within his rights to believe he was owed a job.

He also knew, by the way Jimmy was talking, that Freddie had irrevocably fucked up any relationship they had ever enjoyed, and Jimmy, whatever Freddie might think, was the better man in more ways than one.