can you go round O’Hara’s house and shake his hand when he’s responsible for our whole family falling to pieces? Not only is Jessica dead because of them cunts, Frankie’s in Holloway and her kids have been kidnapped by the pikey bastards. You’ll mug us right off if you call a truce – O’Hara’ll think we’re a proper bunch of pricks.’
‘I agree with Gal. What about you?’ Ricky asked Raymond.
‘I want to get revenge for Jessica, but we have to get them kids back before we do anything else. She would have loved them grandchildren of hers and getting them home safe and sound would have been her priority.’
Eddie held his palms face up. ‘Hold your horses for a minute, the lot of ya. I run this firm and I make the decisions.’
Gary shook his head. ‘How can you offer your own brothers up on a plate, Dad? I know they’re a pair of fucking idiots, but they’re still our flesh and blood.’
Eddie’s eyes clouded over. He immediately stood up, picked up his glass and threw it at the wall, purposely missing Gary’s head by only inches. ‘Do you think I really want my brothers dead? No, they might be a pair of bell ends, but they’re still family. Remember, they’re in Belmarsh at the moment, and I know every face in there who’ll keep an eye on ’em for me. Use your loaves, lads, O’Hara is a fucking pikey and all he probably knows is two bob mugs in there. He ain’t gonna have many pals in a cat-A nick like Belmarsh, is he? If, by hook or by crook, O’Hara does somehow get to Paulie and Ronny, then that’s life, but I’m confident he ain’t got the brawn. But if he has and he wanted to do that, he could do it without my permission anyway. It’s our safety I’m more concerned about now. I want Gina back home with me and yous boys alive. Raymondo has got a nipper on the way – he don’t need the grief – and let’s not forget about Joey. Who’s to say that O’Hara wouldn’t try to top him? He’s an easy target, ain’t he? The way I see it, lads, is by pretending to hand Ronny and Paulie to O’Hara on a plate, we won’t have to look over our shoulders.’
Raymond immediately nodded his head in agreement. Gary and Ricky just stared at one another.
‘Do you think O’Hara will swallow it?’ Ray asked Eddie.
Eddie shrugged. ‘I don’t see why not. It weren’t us that killed his son or his grandkid, it was Ronny and Paulie. He knows I ain’t had fuck-all to do with my brothers for years, so why shouldn’t he swallow it? You gotta remember, Jimmy might be fuming, but he’s also grieving. He’s already lost two of his family and if he won’t accept my handshake, he knows the rest of ’em, including that rotten, fat, ugly wife of his, are in danger.’
Gary shook his head. ‘I think we’re all forgetting something ’ere. What are we meant to say to Frankie, Dad? She’s tried to kill Jed, he’s got her kids, so what do we do? Tell her that you’ve shook hands with his father and everything is fucking hunky dory now?’
Ordering Raymond to top all their drinks up, Eddie gave a false chuckle and, for the second time that day, his eyes clouded over. ‘Son, you’ve got a lot to learn about me. For now, what I propose we do is just a temporary answer to our current problems. Then we start planning, and I mean properly planning. We’ll take our time, we have no choice.’
Pausing momentarily, Eddie stood up and stared at his dead father’s photograph. He then placed his hand against his heart and turned to Gary and Ricky. ‘I swear on your grandfather’s grave, that one day I will get revenge for what the O’Haras have done to this family.’
He then turned towards Raymond. ‘And I promise you, Raymondo, that I will also get revenge for Jessica’s death. Believe me, I will personally fucking kill them pikey cunts one by one, and may God be my judge if I fail.’
Frankie sat bolt upright as the piercing screams of the new girl disturbed her wonderful illusion. She’d been dreaming of Georgie and Harry. They’d all been at the funfair together, and the reality of waking up and finding out that it wasn’t real filled her with sadness. Frankie had been banged up for stabbing her then-boyfriend, Jed O Hara. On finding out that Jed was responsible for murdering her grandfather, Harry Mitchell, Frankie had tried to kill her evil ex and apart from now being parted from her children, the only regret Frankie had was that Jed had managed to cling to life.
‘The fucking snakes, there’s a load of ’em! Get the bastards off me!’
Closing her eyes, Frankie lay back down and pulled the covers over her head. There were no snakes of course, the new girl was just having withdrawal symptoms, which seemed to be a common occurrence on the hospital wing.
It was three weeks to the day since Frankie had had her second bail application rejected. In her first week in Holloway she’d been bullied something chronic, so she’d taken her father’s advice, acted doolally and got herself put in the hospital wing.
As the girl in the next bed started screaming again, Frankie put her hands over her ears. The days she could handle, but she hated the nights. Most of the other inmates were heroin addicts. They were given methadone to suppress their withdrawal symptoms, but Frankie soon realised that the alcoholics were the worst. It was usually them that kept her awake all night with their hallucinations.
Aware that somebody had arrived to deal with the distressed inmate, Frankie pretended to be asleep. It was daylight now, but all Frankie wanted to do was shut her eyes and picture her beautiful children again.
‘Wakey wakey, Mitchell. Get up and pack your stuff. I’ve just been informed there’s a space waiting for you on the maternity wing. Sort yourself out and I’ll come back to collect you as soon as I get the OK from the powers above.’
Frankie immediately leaped out of bed and, for the first time in days, smiled. She was just over twenty weeks pregnant now and the baby inside her was the only thing that had kept her going over the last few weeks. She had been doing buttons to move to the maternity wing. Surely in there she would meet some other nice inmates and they could discuss their kids and stuff.
With a spring in her step, Frankie packed her belongings up. She was done and dusted in ten minutes flat. She sat back down on her bed, rubbed her swollen tummy and whispered to her bump. ‘Your father might have taken your brother and sister away from me, but he’ll never get his evil hands on you. I still don’t know if you’re a little boy or a girl, but whatever you are, your mummy will love you dearly and you will belong to her.’
Unaware that his sister was about to be moved, Joey Mitchell opened the front door and gave his father a hug. He had barely seen his old man since Frankie’s last court case and, seeing as they’d only recently been on good terms again, Joey had missed their new-found closeness.
Eddie kissed his son on the forehead and then shook Dominic’s hand. Dom was Joey’s boyfriend and when Ed had originally found out about his son’s sexuality, he’d gone apeshit. Being a notorious East End gangster, Ed just couldn’t deal with the fact that his sperm had produced a homosexual son, and it had taken a lot of pride for him to step down off his anti-gay soapbox.
Now things were different and even though Ed still couldn’t quite understand his son’s preferences, he’d learned to live with them. It also helped that Dominic was a lovely fella – so much so that Eddie often felt guilty for turning up at his flat that time and threatening to cut his cock off.
When Joey’s Chihuahua ran into the hallway to greet him, Ed picked the dog up and kissed her on the nose.
