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  He knew inside that what he had seen was wrong somehow, he just wasn’t sure why and that was the reason he had not said anything his older brother yet. Something told him this was not to be bandied about, as his Granddad Del would say. He didn’t know why but he felt this was a secret, and the fewer people that knew about it, the better.

  Sharon Scott stood up and placed her son on the kitchen chair gently. Then smiling, she said gaily, ‘Who wants tea and biscuits?’

  As she filled the electric kettle she felt physically sick. Her mind was screaming ‘No!’ There was no way the child could have seen something like that. But instinctively, she knew deep down inside her that Liam was telling her the truth. He had definitely seen something. But what?

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Lenny and Reggie were with Jack Johnson, making plans for the demise of Frank Barber. There was no other choice – especially now they knew about Frank taking over the Carters’ business and the trouble he would cause if he started a blackmailing scam. If he went after the likes of Smithson, then he would be party to all sorts of information that would augur well for no one. He had crossed a line and he needed to be reminded of that. This wasn’t the old days where anything went – this was the world of the new criminal.

  They wanted him outed and this was as good an excuse as any to do that. It was a win-win situation, especially for Terry, who would happily work with them to take back what he saw as his. He was wise enough to know he couldn’t do it without Jack and his boys, even if he would forever be beholden to them now. But, rather the devils he knew, than the one he was currently working with – a cantankerous old fucker who still thought Frank Ifield was the height of sophistication.

  He was quite happy to lead Frank Barber to his death. This would soon be over and they could get back to normal.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  ‘You all right, Shaz? You’re quiet tonight.’

  Lenny wasn’t sure what was wrong with his wife but he sensed there was something bothering her.

  Sharon looked at her big, handsome husband and sighed gently. ‘Just tired, that’s all. It’s been a long day.’

  He nodded almost imperceptibly. ‘That right?’

  He turned his attention back to his food and, as he bit into his steak, he watched her surreptitiously. There was definitely something bothering her and he wondered if she had heard a whisper about Frank Barber.

  ‘Sit down and talk to me, woman. You’re like a fart in a colander – all over the fucking place.’

  Sharon hesitated a few seconds before sitting at the table opposite her husband. She watched him eat. He didn’t look any different, and she still wondered why she thought there could be some truth in her young son’s words. But the reality was, she had long sensed that there was something not right about his friendship with Reggie Dornan. Things that had vaguely bothered her over the years were coming to the forefront of her mind. Gerry Dornan saying that Reggie should come out of the closet before he ended up in Narnia; at the time she had laughed with Gerry at her words. They had been said as a joke because he never seemed to have a girlfriend. She could not think of one instance where Reggie had ever brought a woman anywhere with him, even to the pub.

  She thought of Lenny and Reggie going off on the boat for long weekends fishing together. If she was honest, she had always felt that he preferred Reggie’s company to her own. But whatever her suspicions, she could never ask this man about any of it. Saying what young Liam had told her would cause untold trouble for everyone. And that was something she knew she had to avoid at all costs. There were some things that could never be brought out into the open, and this was one of those things. Deep inside she wasn’t sure she even wanted to know the truth.

  ‘Have I done something that I don’t know about?’

  She laughed at his absolute surety of this. She could see him racking his brains for some slight or unguarded word.

  She shook her head slowly. ‘Do you still love me, Lenny? Like you did when we were really young and first together?’

  He sighed in relief. It was one of her ‘tell me you love me and desire me and need me above all others’ days. He smiled at her. Putting down his knife and fork, he grabbed her hand and kissed it with his greasy lips.

  Sharon felt an urge to drag her hand away from him and his touch. Did he touch Reggie with those same lips? She forced the thought from her mind. She looked over his shoulder to the windowsill above the sink; there was a photograph of Lenny and Reggie on the boat in their shorts, arms around each other’s shoulders. They were both smiling into the camera and she felt the bile rising in her throat at what she was picturing, imagining.

  ‘Seriously, you all right, girl? You don’t half look white. You sickening for something?’

  He was genuinely concerned for Sharon now and his eyes searched her face to try and work out what might be wrong with her.

  She forced a smile. ‘I’m fine. Just feel a bit off-colour, you know?’

  He grinned. ‘You ain’t in the club again, are you?’

  She shook her head in denial; the thought of having another child with this man was abhorrent to her at this moment.

  ‘It’s women’s problems, Lenny. That’s all.’

  He nodded in understanding. He assumed she was having a heavy period or something ‘womanly’, as he had always referred to it. It was the one answer to guarantee he wouldn’t pursue the conversation.

  ‘I think I will have an early night, Len. Take a hot-water bottle up and have a rest.’

  He smiled at her, and he was so handsome she felt her heart would break.

  ‘I’ve got to meet Reggie anyway: we have got a bit of business to attend to.’

  She nodded quickly and busied herself making the hot-water bottle, but she didn’t feel easy in herself until he had finally left the house. She had a lot to think about as she sat in the bed she shared with Lenny and looked through the photos of him and his best friend. They were so happy in them, smiling and laughing at the camera, and she knew then, without a doubt, that what her son had said was true.

  Daddy had been kissing Uncle Reggie.

  She cried bitter tears as she wondered how the hell she would cope knowing what she did. Because there was no way in the world she could ever, ever let Lenny Scott know that his secret was finally out. She lay awake for a long time in the darkness, waiting for him to return home.

  Chapter Seventy

  Jack Johnson felt good about what was happening tonight. Frank Barber was getting exactly what he deserved and that was not something to worry him unduly. Lenny and Reggie had handled the details well; Terry would forever be in his debt and that wasn’t a bad thing. He was a good bloke and he was sensible enough not to make aggravation for himself. That was the epitome of a good earner as far as Jack was concerned. Trouble came in their game anyway so it was pointless going out and looking for it like Frank Barber seemed to be doing. He was too long in the tooth to start this shit now. He had been away too long and he didn’t understand the economics of the modern-day Faces. But that was his lookout. All Jack Johnson knew was that no one from the old guard was going to busy themselves for that silly old fucker. Time was when Frank Barber would have worked that out for himself. He was an old Moustache Pete, a joke to the new generation of men waiting to take what he had. In their world, there was no room for stupidity – that much was certain.

  Jack sat in his home, drinking twenty-year-old Scotch and waiting for the call that would tell him it was finally over. He was feeling quite relaxed and full of bonhomie. But, of course, he reasoned that could just be the Scotch. Or the fact that the old bastard was finally getting his comeuppance. And not before time either. He was stronging it and that never boded well for anyone, really. There was nothing sadder than a fucking has-been.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Frank Barber was pleased with himself. He liked that he had made his mark so quickly and so succinctly on the world he inhabited. He had done his time – and a fuckin
g big lump at that – and he had done it with aplomb, even if he said it himself. He had put his head down and got on with it. He would like to see that scum Jack Johnson do the same, and do it as well as he had! He had made a place for himself as such and, when they had finally released him back into the wild, he had picked up the mantle once again. Now he was making up for lost time, taking back the nineteen years he had lost – and taking back his crown.

  He saw Terry Cobb smiling at him as he entered the house in King’s Cross. This was another thing he was making up for – and the women were getting their fill of him all right. He smiled at the thought. He wouldn’t pay them either; he had never paid for a fuck in his life and he wasn’t starting at this late stage. They worked in his house so the very least they could do was fucking humour him. He was the main man after all.

  The story was already going round that he wasn’t exactly nice to the girls, and that often upset the men who they worked for. This had been a good house until now, and the girls had been well looked after, first by the Carters, and then by Terry. They were wary and waiting to see how long the new bloke lasted, especially the younger girls, who seemed to be the preferred choice of Frank Barber. Young and childish was his taste; for them, it was like sleeping with their great-granddad. But he liked them to act as though he was the dog’s knob and they had no option but to play along. It was laughable, and when they were together that is exactly what the girls did: laugh at him. It was the only way they could cope.

  They watched warily as he passed through towards the back rooms – the main workplace of the owner was always in the huge kitchens that had once been the domain of the servants. It was like a rabbit warren back there and the girls were not encouraged to visit unless expressly requested. That suited them down to the ground. It was also suiting Terry and his cohorts as they led the man straight through to his own slaughter.

  When Frank saw Lenny and Reggie waiting for him, he had every intention of putting up a fight. But when Terry took him down with a well-placed blow to the back of the head with a lump of lead piping, he realised it was all over for him. He was absolutely gutted. He remembered Eddie Richardson saying to him once that everyone is king, even if it is only for one fucking day. Never was a truer word spoken.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Jack was pleased, Lenny and Reggie were pleased, and Terry was ‘over the bastard moon’, as he kept telling them all repeatedly. It had been a hair-raising few weeks but now the future was set. It would be a nine-day wonder, like everything else in their world, and then things would gradually settle down and get back to normal.

  They left Terry to make the final arrangements and, after a few drinks, Reggie drove them to Jack’s house to finish the evening off properly. Jack would be interested in the ‘nitty-gritty’, as he called it, and they would be only too happy to fill him in on the details. This was a big night in many respects, and the two men were aware that, for Jack, it was the paying of a debt long overdue.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Sharon had bathed the boys and put them to bed amidst loud protests of ‘another five minutes’. But she had looked particularly ferocious for some reason, and the boys had picked up on that fact, deciding eventually that bed might be the best place to be. After kissing them and threatening pain, torture and destruction if she heard a peep out of them, they had looked at her wide-eyed and nodded in agreement. They both guessed rightly it was something to do with Daddy.

  Lenny had not been home for twenty-four hours and she’d not heard a word from him. This had happened before, but that was normally under much different circumstances. She was still reeling from what Liam had said to her the day before. It was at the forefront of her mind and she was unable to decide what she was supposed to do. In her heart she wondered if she would have the nerve, the guts, to tell Lenny what Liam had said. But she dismissed it. The thing was, once something was spoken out loud, there was no unsaying it. This was what worried her so much. If she questioned Lenny, what would be his reaction? But, if she didn’t question him, how could she live with the wondering?

  Every photo looked suspicious now. Times when he and Reggie had gone fishing on the boat for weekends seemed to be mocking her. She had a terrible feeling that Liam was telling her the truth about exactly what he had seen. This was something so far removed from her realm of experience that she didn’t know what on earth she was supposed to do. She felt sick when she thought of them together, him and Reggie like man and wife. Or, more precisely, man and man. She knew what those kind of people got up to, everyone did. But she would never, in a million years, have believed it of the man she had married, the man who’d professed to love her for all these years.

  She felt the hot sting of tears and was determined not to cry again. She knew this was something she could never tell another living soul. Imagine her mother if she heard something like this? Or her father. Not that he would believe a word of it. Even Gerry, who was the first to say that Reggie, her big, handsome brother Reggie, had no interest in women, wouldn’t believe it. This was one time Sharon was completely on her own; she would have to find the solution for herself.

  She looked up at the crucifix on the wall in the hallway. It was beautiful, made of carved oak with the body of Christ fashioned in solid silver, His eyes raised to the heavens as He died for the sins of the world. She wondered if a prayer would help, but she knew it wouldn’t. Nothing could help because she still didn’t know what the fuck she was supposed to do. Lenny would deny it; he had no choice in the matter. That was something she knew for sure – he would not sit down and pour his heart out to the woman he had married and given two children, beg her forgiveness and say it would never happen again. That wasn’t Lenny’s style, she knew that much. Lenny would accuse her of all sorts, be outraged and on his dignity. He would feel she had impugned his reputation and, of course, he would want to know who she had told her suspicions to. She felt that she could pick up a knife and stick it through his cheating, filthy black heart. But she would not do that either.

  She wandered into her front room, the room that they were so proud of with its grey walls and deep-red furnishings and she poured herself a generous helping of brandy. Somehow she had a feeling that wine wasn’t going to do it for her tonight.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Lenny was drunk and full of camaraderie. He had enjoyed taking that cunt out, and he had enjoyed explaining it all to Jack Johnson too. He loved Jack more than he could have ever thought possible. He loved his Reggie too, but tonight he needed a bit of strange to round off the excitement. Unlike Reggie, who he knew loved him and him alone, Lenny had found he liked a bit of a cottage – a good, faceless fuck – sometimes.

  There was a place in Ilford where like-minded men would converge to partake of their certain brand of sex, with no questions asked and definitely no fucking morning-after remembrances. Lenny parked his car carefully – the last thing he needed was a fucking parking ticket. He walked past Tiffany’s and took a short cut through to the big car park behind the club. At this time of night it was full of men just like him – men who were looking for a quick connection. He knew it was dangerous – that was half of the excitement as far as he was concerned – but he always took precautions. It was the whole concept of the strange that appealed; the different smells and tastes were the big draw for Lenny, something Reggie would never understand or even suspect.

  He stopped as a large man came out of the shadow of the bins and smiled easily. He was big, dark and hard-looking – just his type. The man was smiling now as he walked over, and Lenny instinctively moved to meet him, craving the darkness and all that he knew it contained. As the man drew closer Lenny smiled back at him. Then the man brought up his hand and, before he could react, Lenny was on his knees, a terrible pain shooting through his body, and he knew that something was radically wrong. He was lying on the floor, unable to move even a finger, when the man knelt down and said softly, ‘I just paralysed you, Lenny, but you will feel every cut a
nd blow I give you. This is payback, you cunt. Eye out first, I think.’

  Lenny lay there incapacitated and, as the man used the same sharp instrument to slice into his eyeball, he could not even scream out in pain. In the distance he could make out the sounds of traffic and people talking, the occasional shout and the high-pitched laughter of girls making their way into the clubs. The man was calm and collected and he took his time, inflicting the maximum pain and damage, so that when he finally started beating him with a metal bar Lenny Scott was almost relieved. He felt grateful that his ordeal was finally over – even if it meant his death. His last thoughts were for his boys, who would have to grow up without him.

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Jack was in a quandary and he didn’t know what to do about it. He had a call from a friendly Filth, namely Daniel Smithson, saying that a body had been found tortured and beaten to death in an alleyway in Ilford. It looked like it had been in a train wreck. But Smithson had said it seemed to be Lenny Scott.

  The body had been found an hour ago at the back of a nightclub when the cleaners had come out to empty the rubbish into the bins. He had been there a while, and Daniel thought he should give Jack a heads-up. But it couldn’t be Lenny, surely? And where the fuck was Reggie? What the fuck was happening? The men had left him quite happily the night before and he had told them he would see them Monday at the yard. It was now Saturday evening and he had assumed they were working, as per usual. Lenny normally picked up his money from the betting shop, and had a drink with his old man and Reggie – well, he assumed Reggie had gone out and ended up on the nest somewhere. With some old sort, no doubt – he wasn’t exactly the marrying kind.