His mother had inadvertently given him the perfect excuse. He had defended her honour when in actual fact he had been defending his own.

Maddie brought him in a mug of tea and, as she put it on the small coffee table beside him, he grabbed her hand and kissed it.

'You all right, Mum?'

It was more a statement than a question.

'Never better, son.'

It was what he wanted to hear and they both knew that.

'I love him, you know.'

She smiled sadly and nodded, unsure if he was talking about his father or his new young son.

Joseph Summers was in the pub and he was being bought drinks left, right and centre. He knew it was because people wanted the SP on Freddie and his father, and he made a point of not discussing it. No one had asked him outright, and he knew they never would. They were hoping he would come over all indiscreet, and the amount of beers he was being bought were to hasten that happening.

Joseph was a lot of things, but stupid was not one of them.

He saw Paul and Liselle eyeing him and smiled in their direction. Like everyone else they didn't know what to do. It was an unheard-of situation and they were waiting to see how the main man himself reacted. After all, Ozzy had the final word on everything.

Jimmy walked across the pub and was aware of the people watching him. Joseph grinned at him and he motioned to Paul to refill his glass.

Paul brought them over two pints, and Joseph noticed how everyone was gradually moving away to make room for his daughter's boyfriend. He loved this boy like his own, and he was over the moon that at least one of his daughters had got herself a decent bloke.

'How's everything?'

Jimmy shrugged. 'How do you think?'

His voice said to drop the subject, and Joseph did not need to be told twice.

Paul gave Jimmy a small envelope and he slipped it into his pocket. He made small talk until he had drunk his pint and then he slipped out of the pub with everyone's eyes burning a hole in his back.

Liselle automatically poured Joseph another pint and gave it to him on the house. He smiled his thanks and looked around the pub. He was glad to be in Jimmy's good books because this thing could come on top at any moment, and he was interested to see what the outcome was going to be, though he didn't want any actual part in it. His daughter's husband was a piece of shit and in one way he hoped that he would be brought down a peg or nine. He certainly needed it, but Joseph had a sneaky feeling that Freddie Jackson, as usual, was going to get a pass.

Ozzy needed him. He needed him because he was a lunatic with no scruples or morals or conscience. The law of the land might take a dim view of what Freddie had done, but if Ozzy said it was OK to nearly murder your own father, then that would unfortunately be that.

Freddie and Jimmy were at the house in Ilford, the girls were all busy and Patricia was making sure that the ones to be cabbed to punters were all given their times and addresses. They always gave them a time, and if they were late they were looked for. It was one of the reasons they worked a house.

The law was peculiar in that if the girls solicited on the pavement they were breaking it, but if they were cabbed to an address and got out of the cab on to a private property they were as safe as houses. It was laughable really, but the girls liked the cabs because they made a change, got them out of the house for a few hours and also meant they could take their time and maybe have a drink or a coffee before getting back to the fray.

Patricia smiled at Freddie in a friendly way for the first time in weeks, and he felt his heart lift. He knew she must have heard about the altercation with his father and her smiling told him that she must believe he was in the right. It heartened him that someone he respected could see the justice in his actions. He needed her approbation at the moment.

'You know that you have a call coming here tonight, don't you?'

He nodded. 'Jimmy relayed the message, don't worry.'

His voice told her he felt that Jimmy passing on the message to him was out of order, but he would swallow because it was from Ozzy.

Patricia smiled once more. 'I am sorry for your troubles.'

It was an Irish saying, something that was said at funerals. She was telling him she agreed with his actions, agreed with what he had done. He had not been imagining it, she liked him really. The world was once more an exciting place to be. He loved the chase and this bird would make him chase her all over the show. He couldn't wait.

Suddenly there was a crashing sound from upstairs. Two of the girls ran towards the sound through force of habit. They tried to get up the narrow staircase together, and Jimmy lifted them backwards bodily as he rushed up to the bedroom with Freddie.

The girls were good at taking care of each other, especially if there was trouble from a punter. They might fight, argue and try to muscle in on each other's action, but if one was threatened they knew they were safer in a pack than they were on their own. They needed each other because of the loneliness of their occupation. When you were alone with a complete stranger the danger was astronomical, and they all tried in their way to see that they were as safe as possible. They looked out for one another and they set aside personal grudges if one of them was at risk. Most of them could fight, but even the hardest had trouble fighting a big irate man.

The small crowd of half-dressed females huddled together at the bottom of the stairs and listened out for what was happening. They knew it would be Ruby who had the trouble, it was always Ruby because she was tiny, and she was innocent looking and she had a mouth like a docker and never tired of using it.

Freddie was first into the room and he looked around him in shocked disbelief. The room was a small back bedroom, it had old-fashioned wallpaper with big pink roses, and a princess-sized bed with pink nylon sheets. There was a small dressing table that held baby oil, Durex and Johnson's Baby Powder, these items being the mainstay of a prostitute's trade: A large man with a beer belly was sitting on the grubby blue shag-pile carpet holding his head in his hands.

The girl was nowhere to be seen. The room looked tidy enough, and Freddie guessed the noise had been the dressing table being smashed back against the wall because the mirror was cracked.

The man was fat and had sparse grey hairs all over his chest and shoulders, home-made tattoos and thick, wiry grey hair. The stench in the room was overpowering, and wrinkling his nose Freddie shouted, 'Where the fuck is the girl?'

It was more than a question and they all knew it. The doorway was now jammed with Patricia and the girls, whose eyes were round and full of bewilderment.

No one could understand what had happened, and they had seen everything in their time. The man was crying, an ugly, guttural sound, and Freddie proceeded to drag him up bodily from the floor.

'Where is she?'

Freddie was looking round the room, demented now. How could the girl have got out without them seeing her? His sensible head was telling him how, but he did not want to believe that. It was too outrageous even for this place. But he turned and motioned with his head to Jimmy, who he could see had already sussed out the situation.

Jimmy stepped carefully across the room and popped his head out of the open sash window. Ruby was lying across the dustbins and the angle of her neck told him she was dead.

He turned to Freddie and said quietly, 'She is down there. He must have slung her out the window, the cunt.'

Freddie did the unexpected. He threw the man across the bed and, without looking at him again, he walked from the room and Jimmy heard him taking the stairs three at time. Ten seconds later he heard the first of the screams from the girls and all hell breaking loose.