Cam remained in an induced coma for two days while his body recovered and repaired itself. During that time, plans had to be made for Tamara’s funeral. Her dad was a drunken mess and kept referring everything back to Cam. There was no one else to take charge, so I did what I thought Cam would want me to do and arranged a funeral for her. I didn’t do it because I wanted praise or recognition. I did it because it’s what Cam would’ve done and because she was Harry’s mum, and one day, he might want to know about his mum’s funeral.

With the help of Mum, Jim and Ash, we picked a coffin and headstone and arranged a church service. The only people to attend were Tamara’s Dad and my family, who were there to support me, and on Harry’s behalf.

Cam started to be brought out of his coma around the third day after his surgery. By day five, I was threatening to put him back in a coma, permanently. He was the worst patient I had ever known, and I’m sure the staff of the Royal Free Hospital felt exactly the same way. He was miserable, short tempered and did nothing but complain. He refused to take his meds as he didn’t like the fact they made him sleepy and refused point blank to allow the nurses to give him a bed bath.

How nurse Jen and her team didn’t strangle or inject him with something that would stop his mouth from working, I will never know.

We were told in the beginning that Cam would require a two to three week hospital stay. He discharged himself on day eight and I brought him home in the hope that being at home would improve his temperament. It didn’t. Nothing was right. He wanted to drink bourbon, but I knew that would be dangerous with all the meds he was taking. He wanted sex, but the doctor had recommended abstaining for a couple of weeks. He didn’t like any of the dinners I cooked him, and he complained constantly of being bored. In the end, I shagged his brains out and he slept for a solid nine hours afterwards.

We employed a nurse to come in and change his dressing and check all of his vitals twice a day. So, two weeks after the shooting when I came home from a trip to the supermarket with Harry, after leaving Cam in the care of the nurse, and found the house empty with only a note telling me he had popped to the club to sort out some business, I finally lost it. Really lost it. I threw a chair across the room, swiped the kettle and all of my storage jars containing tea, sugar and biscuits off the bench top, and went for the fruit bowl next. I only stopped then because H, who was still strapped into his car seat, which I had sat on the kitchen table, began to cry after the big ceramic fruit bowl my mum had bought us in Portugal crashed to the tiled floor and made him jump.

I calmed myself down and marched back out to my car, strapped Harry in and headed to the club, dodging the photographers who’d been camped at my gates for the past two weeks.

* * *

The place was in total darkness apart from the emergency lighting when I arrived and my heart rate increased as I put Harry’s car seat down and pulled my phone out of my back pocket to call Cam. Without warning, all of the stage lights came on and I stood and stared as music started to play. My dad and all of my brothers stood in a line on the stage behind Cam. As I looked around the room, I spotted my mum and the rest of my family and a few members of the clean-up crew and daytime staff from the club.

If my mouth wasn’t hanging open previous to that moment, it certainly was when Cam started singing “Ain’t too proud to beg” by The Temptations, with my dad and brothers all joining in perfectly with their backup harmonies.

Cam has a terrible voice. I was married to one of the best singer/songwriters England had ever produced, neither of which had deterred him from getting up on that stage and letting everyone know his feelings. All of which made me love him to the point where I felt like my heart was about to burst. Instead of my heart bursting though, it was me, who burst, into tears. I stood in the middle of the club and felt totally overwhelmed and exhausted by the events of the last few weeks, and not knowing what else to do, I just stood and cried.

I felt Cam’s big strong arm wrap around me as he kissed my hair and my head, then my neck and my cheek. I tried not to squeeze him to me too tightly, in case I hurt his arm.

“I love the fuck out of you, Kitten. I’m so sorry for being such hard work these last few weeks.” He cupped the side of my face in his big hand and wiped away my tears with his thumb. “I’ll never be able to thank you enough for what you’ve done for me and Harry.” His lips trembled as he talked. “I don’t know how you feel about this, but I’ve spoken to Eli, and if you’re up for it, I’d like you to adopt Harry as your own.” I break out into an ugly snot-bubble cry and all I can do is nod my head. A tear runs down Cam’s cheek. “As soon as I get this thing off my arm, I want us to get married, then when the babies come, I’m locking the gates and the front door and shutting the rest of the world out. I’m gonna stay home each and every day and do nothing but love the fuck out of you and our kids.”

He then had me, my mum and my sisters-in-law all whisked away for a pamper day, later having me delivered to the Mandarin Hotel, where he was waiting to spoil me some more for the night while my mum went home and looked after H.

We didn’t actually end up getting married until June of 2003. Ash and Jimmie had insisted they be able to drink at my hens do and our wedding, which of course meant waiting until after the babies were born.

* * *

Determined not to be the youngest member of our family, George Francis King arrived two weeks early, on Valentine’s Day, weighing in at a healthy and eye watering eight pounds and nine ounces.

I was stunned when he was put into my arms as the doctors attended to my beautiful and selfless best friend, Jimmie. When Beau was born with his dark hair, I was absolutely positive he was the image of Sean, but looking down at George for that first time, was like looking at the image of Beau, so there must’ve been at least a little bit of me in both of my sons. I can’t begin to put into words the range of emotions that rushed through me in that moment. How conflicted I felt. How much love I felt for this new life I was holding in my arms, who was a part of me and Cam, and at the same time aching so badly for my husband and the children we had lost.

“He looks just like his big brother,” Cam said as he stroked George’s cheek with the back of his finger. I smiled through my tears.

“I think Harry’s more like you than George.”

He shook his head and took George from my arms. He kissed his forehead and looked at me. “I’m talking about Beau. The photos you have of Beau, George looks like the same baby.” All I could do was nod. He left me speechless. Cameron King, the man described in the papers as an East End bad boy, and his capacity for love left me completely speechless.

Just four days later, on the eighteenth of February, our daughters were born by caesarean section. As soon as Ash was done being thoroughly pissed off at the news she was carrying twin girls, because in her words, ‘There was now no chance of her ever having any King dick inside her vagina.’, she had promptly booked herself into the Portland hospital for a C-section.

At four thirty seven in the afternoon, Kiki Camryn King was born weighing in at a small but healthy four pounds two ounces, her younger sister by four minutes exactly, Tallulah Rae arrived weighing four pounds exactly. The girls looked so tiny when we laid them next to their big brothers.

* * *

Our lives since that day had been filled with love, light and complete and utter chaos, and I wouldn’t swap it for the world. Our boys and Kiks were the absolute image of their Daddy, right down to their mannerisms; although, George would sometimes look at me a certain way and it was like looking at myself, despite the difference in our eye colour. Lulah was the only one of my children who resembled me, and when I say resembled, she was a clone, not only in looks, but in her mannerisms and nature, too. Our eldest three were pretty easy going, but our Lu was strong willed, defiant, bad tempered and was scared of no one. She was the smallest and yet the bravest, and I am sure her father had already shaken his head at her more times in her short life than he had at me in all the years we had known each other.