‘Did you tell the lady everything I told you to?’ he whispered.
Georgie and Harry both nodded. ‘Can we see Mummy now?’ Harry asked, his voice filled with hopeful innocence.
Joyce and Joey both had tears in their eyes as Eddie explained that the police were coming round and the children would have to be taken back to live with their father.
Georgie and Harry started to cry. It had been a long day and they were both physically and mentally drained. ‘But we don’t want to live there, we want to live with you, Grandad,’ Georgie pleaded.
Eddie leaned forward and held both sobbing children close to his chest. He had rarely cried after he’d reached the age of ten, but for once he couldn’t control the tears rolling down his cheeks.
‘Everything is gonna work out just fine. Your grandad will make sure of that, I promise.’
Harry O’Hara was first to wake up the following morning. His Nanny Alice had ordered his Grandad Jimmy to sleep elsewhere, so that he and Georgie could share the bed with her. Harry was careful as he prodded Georgie. His nan was snoring like a disgruntled pig and he didn’t want to wake her. He actually preferred her when she was sleeping.
Georgie sat up, rubbed her eyes and smiled at Harry. Neither of them had wanted to come home last night, but the police had made them. Both children had cried themselves to sleep, but this morning, they felt brighter. The nice social worker lady had promised she would arrange visits so they could see their mum. She even said she would try to sort it so they could see their Nanny Joyce again as well. They had asked her if they could see Grandad Eddie also, but she hadn’t answered that question.
‘My legs hurt,’ Harry mumbled, remembering his ordeal from the day before. He wasn’t used to long walks and his knee was grazed and scabby from where he had fallen over.
‘I’m hungry. Shall we get some breakfast?’ Georgie whispered.
As the children quietly got out of bed, Alice sat bolt upright. ‘What you doing? Where you going?’ she asked fearfully. She immediately presumed they were about to do a runner again.
‘We’re hungry, Nanny, we want some food,’ Georgie replied.
Alice leaped out of bed and put on her slippers and dressing gown. She was so relieved to have the children home safe that after the police had left last night, Alice had vowed to Jimmy to move heaven and earth to make them happy again.
‘Nanny’ll cook breakfast for you. What do you want? How ’bout a nice fry-up?’
Georgie glanced at Harry and both children shook their heads. Since Marky and Lukey boy had died, nobody had been very nice to them. Everybody had virtually ignored them, even their dad, and Georgie instinctively knew that running away would change all that. Their escape could only make life better for them.
‘Me and Harry don’t like your fry-up. We like toast with Marmite and cheese on top, that’s what Mummy used to cook us,’ Georgie said brazenly.
Alice ignored the mention of Frankie, crouched down and hugged both children close to her chest. She had been so wrapped up in her own grief, she had sort of neglected these two and they needed her, needed her badly.
‘From now on, yous two cheeky little chavvies can have whatever you bleedin’ well want. Your Nanny Alice loves you both very much.’
Eddie had woken up early, made love to Gina, then ordered her to have a lie-in while he cooked the breakfast, for a change. Watching his grandkids being carted off back to the O’Haras’ last night had upset Ed immensely. He had spoken to the police and demanded answers as to why the O’Haras hadn’t reported them missing in the first place.
‘They should be with us, a normal family who would love and care for them, instead of living with a load of two-bob pikeys,’ he’d insisted.
The two coppers had very nearly burst out laughing. Neither had ever had any personal dealings with the Mitchells before, but every police force in England were well aware who they were, what had befallen them in the past, and they were anything but bloody normal.
When Ed had got back home last night, he’d poured himself a large Scotch and had a proper heart-to-heart with Gina about the upbringing of their baby. Eddie had insisted that she must give up her job for good and be a full-time mum and, as luck would have it, she had seen sense and agreed.
‘I always told myself that the day I fell pregnant I would walk away from it all. I loved being a private detective but it’s a job for a childless woman, not a mother,’ Gina admitted, not wanting Eddie to think she was jacking it in just because he wanted her to.
As he was about to scramble some eggs, Eddie’s mobile rang, so he took the saucepan off the hob. It was Gary. He had had a problem with a geezer who had done a bunk. ‘What does he owe?’ Eddie asked, when Gary finally stopped talking.
‘Well, he borrowed twelve grand and promised he would pay it back in six weeks, so me and Ricky did a deal with him. He was desperate for it that day, so we said yes, but only if he paid us back sixteen. We said we’d take ten in a month, then give him the extra two weeks to pay the odd six. It was a month yesterday since we lent it to him, so we went round to his gaff to pick the ten up. When we got there, we found out he’d done a runner. It didn’t take us long to find out where he was. We gave his mate a proper good dig and then he gave us the address. I tried to ring you all last night, but I couldn’t get hold of you. Where was you?’
‘What’s the cunt’s name?’ Eddie spat, ignoring the question. He’d been in the money-lending game for years now and because of his reputation, people rarely dared take the piss out of him.
‘Colin Griffiths, but he sometimes uses Simmons as his surname as well. He used to be a publican, ran a couple of dives in Barking and a couple more in East Ham. I think he might have even ran the Central at one point.’
Eddie was fuming. He and Raymond had a meeting with a geezer over in Whitechapel who owned boozers in the East End and wanted to pay protection to get rid of an Asian gang who had been making a nuisance of themselves. Ed made his decision and smashed his fist against the wall in annoyance. Twelve grand was peanuts to him, but it was the fucking principle, not the money. ‘I’ll tell Raymond to go to our meeting alone and I’ll pick you and Rick up in an hour, Gal.’
Over in Holloway, Frankie was in a far happier mood than her father was. The prison had organised an antenatal class for anyone on the maternity wing who wanted to attend, and she and Babs had put their names down for something to do.
In the maternity ward there were a lot of young girls who were first-time mothers, and their faces were a picture as the woman was describing ‘how to give birth in the correct manner’ out of some textbook she was reading from. The woman’s posh voice wasn’t doing her any favours, either. Most of the girls in Holloway were as common as muck, and they had never heard anybody who spoke the way she did; she sounded as if she had a plum in her mouth, and even Frankie was shocked by her upper-class accent.
When the woman picked up a doll, put it in a plastic bath and said the word ‘vagina’ as she was washing it, nearly all the lags burst out laughing. In their world it was called a noony, a snatch, a cunt or a fanny.
As she and Babs were giggling, Frankie noticed a girl with dark hair staring at her. She had seen the same girl looking at her earlier. ‘Don’t look now, but there’s a girl that keeps looking at me. She’s got a black cardigan on, curly shoulder-length hair and she’s on your left. Look in a minute and see if you know who she is.’
Babs did as Frankie asked, then nudged her pal. ‘Never seen her before. Perhaps she’s a lezzie and fancies you.’
‘Don’t