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She was crying again now. The sympathy that was in Lil's eyes made her break down.

'Where was my Pat while all this was going on?' She was suddenly afraid that her eldest son was a part of it all.

Janie shrugged and wiped at her eyes with a grubby tissue, the cigarette stains on her fingers showing just how bad her nerves had become. Looking at her with the cigarette dangling from her lips and the tear-stained face that was blotchy and swollen, Lil saw her own life if she wasn't careful. Lance was capable of making her into the wretch she saw before her and she was determined not to let that happen.

'He puts a stop to him if he catches him. He's a good boy, Lil.'

The words were like a balm to Lil and she sighed again, heavier this time, before bellowing once more at the top of her voice, 'Don't you dare go up to him, Mother…'

She got out of the chair again and, as she walked from the room, Janie could hear Annie Diamond arguing with her in hushed tones.

Janie looked around her at the lovely home that Lance lived in and she wondered at a boy who had everything laid on a plate and who still was going to the bad. The carpet was new and reached all the walls, the furniture was expensive and comfortable, and even the ashtrays were coloured glass, shaped like big blue fishes. A colour TV stood in the corner and velvet curtains adorned the windows. It was like something from a magazine or a shop window. Yet she wouldn't trade places with poor Lil for all the money in the world.

'I mean it, Mum, you leave him to stew in his own juices.'

Annie was agitated and upset. Lil was amazed at the way her mother felt for this child of hers, considering the woman had never once shown her so much as a scrap of affection while she had been growing up. No Christmases, no birthdays, nothing; it was as if she had not existed. Now she was willing to argue for a boy who had thrown a six-year-old child off a moving bus. As she pushed her mother none too gently down the stairs, she said in a deep whisper, 'Fuck off home, Mother, and leave me to sort this out.' Annie was beside herself as she said quickly, 'You ain't going to tell Patrick are you?'

Her voice was high with fear and Lil was aware that she was shaking with emotion; her mother, on whom she would have bet her last penny that no real emotion had ever existed inside her body.

'Fucking right, I am telling Patrick. That child needs sorting out once and for all and I am going to make it my business to see that happens.'

Annie was shaking her head like a wet dog, and then she shrieked: 'He was only being a boy. All kids do silly things, Lil. Please don't tell Pat about this. Pat will kill him; you're bad enough but Pat don't know his own strength…'

^'
Go home,
Mother. Leave me and my family alone. And while we are talking about Pat, he will blame you for all this anyway, so make yourself scarce before he aims you out the door once and for all.'

Lil went up the stairs then and looked in on Lance, he was lying on his bed sobbing and alone and she was reminded of how little he was really. But his plight still didn't move her in any way. He was looking at her now with his big blue eyes and she saw the cunning behind them and shivered. He was a vindictive little bugger and she wondered where he had got that from. It had to be from her mother. Annie could be cold, she knew, and she was going to make a point of curtailing the time she spent with him.

When this baby arrived, she was going to take control of the reins once more, and she was going to watch him like a hawk. She never wanted to hear another story about him and his hate-fuelled antics ever again. This all stopped today. She was determined to make Lance finally appreciate that all his actions had consequences.

Closing the door on the sobbing boy, she went into Pat's room where the wide-eyed girls were sitting on his bed holding hands tightly as Pat Junior read them a story.

'Is he all right, Mum?'

Lil nodded. She was unable to trust herself to speak to a boy who was worried about his brother even though all his troubles were self-inflicted and even though it would ultimately make his own life easier if he didn't have to look out for him constantly. Pat Junior's loyalty was astounding really, considering who he was wasting it on.

That her children had been frightened by her actions was evident in the quiet around her and the fact that the girls didn't run to her as usual for a hug; they just stared at her as if she was a stranger in their midst.

Going back downstairs, she made a cup of tea for her and Janie; and a friendship was born that day that would last the two women a lifetime.

If Lance had done nothing else in his short life, he had brought these two women together as friends.

Cain was watching warily as Patrick circled him holding a chair leg in his hands he had retrieved from the debris of the office. Cain had been beaten to within an inch of his life and he had put up a good fight; in fact, Patrick and his cohorts were secretly impressed. The place was a shambles but Cain was taking it like a man and that stood him in good stead with his protagonists. His defence had surprised them somewhat with its ferocity, after all the drugs he'd taken.

As Cain sat watching them through swollen eyes he waited for the next assault that he knew would be forthcoming sooner rather than later. The weight of the weapon in Patrick's hands was evident in the way he was handling it; it was cumbersome, and the straight edges could do a lot of damage to skull and bone. And even though Cain was out of the game in comparison to the three men around him, he was with it enough to know that he was still in for a rough night. He was running on pure adrenaline now, unsure of exactly what was going on; he had no idea why Brodie was even there. Cain was unable to function properly, he couldn't even remember what this was all about.

The ketamine was kicking in once more and he felt the sweat envelop his body. He could smell it, a dank staleness that, until his foray into the world of the drug user, as opposed to the drug dealer, would have made him feel physically ill. The tannic taste of blood was in his mouth and the cocktail of drugs in his system was making him feel invincible. He was once more of the opinion that he could fight his way out of the room. The ketamine, a powerful horse-tranquilliser, was once more rushing through his system and mixed with the amphetamines he had been snorting with it for the past eight hours, it was confusing him. His mind was raving once more and the paranoia was creeping up on him. The sweat was running down his face and blurring his already limited vision. He could see the men looking at him, could make out their features as if he was looking through water; they were talking to each other and he knew it was about him. But he couldn't understand what they were saying. They were cunting him though, he was convinced of that, taking him for a mug and they expected him to sit and take it?

Cain shook his head and laughed at their foolishness, that they thought he wouldn't punish them for their outrageous insults to him? That he would swallow this kind of treatment? He screamed and, using his considerable strength, he jumped up from the seat and launched himself at Patrick Brodie. He was almost feral and his teeth were bared as he attempted to bite his face, tear off an ear or rip off his nose. The attack was as fast as it was unexpected and Patrick brought the chair leg down on his head and body over and over again until he finally stopped trying to rise up from the floor. He lay there, a bloody mess, his mouth open as he gasped for breath while still attempting to mutter obscenities and threats at his attackers.

Patrick stared down at him in amazement and, pushing him on to his back, he placed the chair leg on a nearby desk. Then he lit himself a cigarette with a calmness that belied his real feelings.

Looking at the two men with him, he said quietly, 'Out of his nut or what?'

The bigger of the two men shrugged. 'That ketamine will do it every time, mate; sends them off their shopping trolleys.'

Patrick nodded sagely and went out into the empty bar.

He took the drink offered him by Leonard who had slipped back into the club a few minutes before and he gulped at the whisky, enjoying the burn as it went down into his belly. The fire of it was giving him the jolt he needed.

Leonard replenished his glass immediately and then he poured out two lemonades for the others. He knew that, unless Patrick said otherwise, soft drinks were all that would be allowed to them.

They sipped their drinks and chatted amongst themselves in the carnage of the trashed club as if nothing was amiss.

'Is the juke box still working?'

Pat knew that Leonard would have taken stock of everything that would need replacing in nanoseconds; he had done it enough times before and when he nodded, he said happily, 'Stick on "Hotel California" will you? I fucking love that record.'

Leonard did as he was asked and then he set about cleaning up the place as best he could, joining in with the ribald conversation at the bar and explaining to any punters who came knocking that the place would be closed for a few days on account of it being redecorated.

No one questioned that this place was redecorated four or five times a year on average. Thanks to long opening hours, excessive alcohol consumption, betting, women, football and occasionally religion, all these were things that seemed to make men capable of murder.

It was still early evening and so Leonard was hopeful of getting an early night for a change. As he always said, one man's loss was another man's gain. He hoped his old woman had partaken of her weekly bath and hair wash, he was in the mood for a quick flash and a bacon sandwich.

Cain was conveniently forgotten. He had been ironed out, straightened and sorted.

Chapter Fifteen

Jasper Jessup was a tall, angular man who hailed from the Caribbean, though where exactly no one seemed to know, least of all him.

He was a user. He used everyone he came into contact with but he did it with such aplomb and such good humour that it was hard to take too much offence. People just dropped away from him and he was very good-natured about it, so people forgot his bad points and hailed him if they saw him around.

However, he was in the know with what was left of the Williams family and this was mainly because he could always be relied on to ferret out half-decent grass or a banger girl, aka someone who was up for it with anybody, anywhere, anytime; for a price of course. More importantly, he could also find out what was happening on the pavements of south London.

He had his phoney Jamaican accent off to a tee and his tall, thin body had a certain elegance that, combined with his dreads, gave him the air of a proud man, of a trustworthy man. This had stood him in good stead for many years, plus, as an added bonus, he had a certain panache about him; a scruffiness that suited his rangy body and put people off their guard. On certain days, he took it upon himself to wear the Rasta colours and, like a walking flag of Ethiopia, he would wander around Brixton market like a king. He would hail everyone he saw while toking on a large twist, his gold teeth glinting in the sunlight. He was well known there; he was part of the local colour. The younger men, especially, were drawn to him with his tales of urban strife and the battle of the black man. Of course, once they realised that he talked bollocks, borrowed money off them too often and smoked their weed faster than they could procure it, he was dropped as they gravitated towards the other males in their community, the proper role models. It was a natural progression, a rite of passage for the teens he attracted, who imagined that being seen with an older man like Jasper would be seen as a measure of their own burgeoning manhood. Until, of course, they saw him for the predator he really was.

They actually learned valuable lessons from him though: that ponces came in all shapes and sizes and, also, that their mothers were usually right in their opinions of the people they suddenly wanted to spend their time with. He had ruffled more than a few maternal feathers over the years and he retreated when the time was right because he was too shrewd to ever push his luck too far. The lads just faded away and when he saw them around, he grinned and laughed with them, always the picture of friendly affability.

And such was Jasper's
easiness
that they didn't hold him using them against him. He was just Jasper and he was all right; good for a story and a laugh in the Beehive on a Friday night. He was a local character and people tolerated him even though he was like a cancer in the community; he wised up the police when he had to and again his easiness, his smoothness, was why no one had ever questioned the fact that he had never once had a tug. He'd never even been held on a Sus, which was remarkable because the Sus law was designed so the police could pull you in just because they thought you
looked suspicious.
It was a bonus for the filth as they had a perfect excuse to run in anyone they liked, just for the hell of it. A young man could be standing at a bus stop waiting for a bus, and he could legally be arrested, searched, and charged with basically anything that happened to pop into the overactive imaginations of the arresting officers.

A good hiding was often on the cards as well; it was the police equivalent of in for a penny, in for a pound. From the West Midlands Crime Squad to the Met, the police had almost complete autonomy over anyone they took a shine to. As every person in the know was aware, for every person fitted up for a crime, even if they were a known criminal who had broken the law on numerous occasions and could not be held to account because the police had no evidence, once they were fitted up it meant the real perpetrator of the crime was still at large.

Sus was a law that had been passed with full knowledge of how it
could,
and most certainly
would
be abused by a large majority of the police force. People like Jasper actually needed the Sus law to survive. All he had to do was
hint
at someone's involvement in a crime and the law guaranteed they were pulled in without any kind of evidence whatsoever. Jasper actually had a razor-sharp brain, which he tried to hide with his foolishness and his stupid talk. But he had been responsible for a lot of arrests and he was a predator of the worst kind, whether it was impressionable young girls or the grown men he used to fill his wallet. People were relaxed around him because he acted far more stoned than he actually was a lot of the time. People were
easy
around him and talked about things that were best kept private. Jasper listened and he learned a lot about everything; he found this useful in his everyday dealings with the world.