Johnny stepped out of the communal shower. ‘Nah, I’ve got plans for tonight. Let us know if you’re going out again next week.’

‘I’m sure he’s got some little bird on the go,’ one of the lads shouted.

‘I bet she’s a right fat minger. Go on, admit it, Johnny, you’re dating a dog,’ shouted another.

Johnny smiled as he dried himself off. He was used to his team-mates ribbing him. Banter was a part of their match-day ritual, and he always gave as good as he got.

‘See yer later, tossers!’ he shouted as he left the changing rooms.

‘Wanker!’ the lads yelled back.

Johnny got into his van and drove out of the car park. The lads were right in one sense: he was seeing a bird, but what they didn’t know was that bird was his mum. None of his current pals knew much about his upbringing. They knew he lived with his nan, but little else. In his eyes, his past was his past, and it was no one else’s business.

‘All right, Nan? I’m just shooting round me mate’s and then I’m going straight round Mum’s. I’ll probably stay there the night. We’re gonna have a couple of beers and a takeaway.’

‘OK, Johnny, I’ll see yer when I see yer. How did the game go, by the way?’

‘We won and I scored two goals. I’ll tell yer about it properly tomorrow. I wanna hurry up and get round Mum’s before The X Factor starts.’

Maureen smiled as she replaced the receiver. She was so pleased for Johnny’s sake that his mum had finally got her act together.

Susan had been clean for just over a year now, and was doing really well. She’d come to Maureen for help after a prison stint for shoplifting. Maureen had been dubious about trusting her at first – another false dawn was the last thing that Johnny needed. Maureen had gone to the doctor with her, not holding out very much hope, but her GP had been fantastic and had got her into rehab. On completion of her treatment he had demanded that the council move her away from her old area and temptation. The authorities were told that she had a son who wanted to stay with her, and after deliberation with Barking and Dagenham council, she was offered a two-bedroom house in Becontree Heath.

Maureen offered to view the property with Susan and they had both fallen in love with it on sight. The corner house of a cul-de-sac, it was in immaculate condition and had a pretty little garden.

‘Oh, Suze, it’s beautiful. You’ve gotta take it,’ Maureen insisted.

‘I love it, Mum. I’m gonna be so happy here; it’ll be a new start for me,’ Susan crowed.

Maureen was delighted that Susan had managed to kick the heroin habit that had blighted so much of her life. She looked an entirely different person without the sallow eyes and haunted expression. Her sparkle returned, along with rosy cheeks and a hint of laughter.

Obviously, life without hard drugs wasn’t all plain sailing, and within weeks of leaving rehab, Susan was indulging in the odd drink and joint. Maureen was furious with her. ‘Yer silly little cow. What did yer drugs counsellor tell yer, eh? He said once yer start takin’ soft drugs, you’ll be back on the hard stuff before yer know it.’

Susan stood her ground. ‘I can’t live like a fuckin’ nun, Mum. I swear on my life, I’ll never touch the brown again. I’m clean as a whistle and you’re just gonna have to trust me.’

On accepting the council’s offer, James and Freddie had decorated the house as a surprise for Susan. Maureen brought curtains, cushions, ornaments and new bedding. The fewer reminders of her past and the flat in Stepney the better, her counsellor advised.

Once her daughter had moved in, Maureen made sure that she visited her a couple of times a week. She often found Susan half-pissed or stoned, but overall there seemed nothing major to worry about. She seemed happy and content and had even made friends with her next-door neighbours.

Maureen was thrilled that finally she’d managed to get away from Dave Taylor. An arsehole, waster and junkie, he’d done nothing but drag Susan down with him. For ten years she’d been with him on and off, and in that time he’d lived with five other birds, fathered three kids and repeatedly broken her heart.

‘Good riddance to bad rubbish,’ Maureen kept reminding her.

The most pleasing aspect of Susan’s new life, for Maureen, was that she’d managed to rebuild her relationship with her son. Once her brain was no longer bamboozled by smack, she saw Johnny for what he really was – a polite, intelligent, loving young man.

Having finally seen the light, Susan often had attacks of guilt and only recently had broken down and poured her heart out to Maureen.

‘I don’t deserve him, Mum, and I can’t believe, after the way I’ve treated him, he still wants to know me – let alone loves me. What about the time I sold his wedding outfit?’ she sobbed.

Maureen cuddled her. ‘The past is the past, Susan, don’t dwell on it. You’ve got years of catching up to do with Johnny. Just enjoy it, love.’

Susan had taken her advice on board, and Johnny often visited and stayed with her on a Saturday night. It was a special kind of bonding for both of them. They’d get a takeaway, sink a few cans, and laugh and cry as they watched The X Factor together.

‘Maur, I’m fuckin’ wastin’ away in ’ere. Make us some grub, girl.’

Ethel waking up spelled the end to Maureen’s daydream. Sighing, she switched off the iron and switched on the cooker.

‘Excuse me, my friends and I are about to participate in a well-earned glass of wine at the bar, if you care to join us.’

Maria looked around to make sure the woman was definitely talking to her. Seeing no one standing behind her, she held out her hand. ‘I’d love to, and I’m Maria, by the way.’

The woman accepted her handshake. ‘I’m Lavinia. Now, shall we get that drink, Maria? Follow me and I’ll introduce you to the other girls.’

Maria was as pleased as punch as she was led into the bar area. She’d noticed Lavinia and her friends when she had first joined the gym. Out of all the girls there, they looked the in-crowd. She was in no rush to get home. James was away for a couple of days, doing a run with Freddie, and her mum was indoors looking after the girls.

Maria couldn’t stop smiling as she sipped her wine and listened to the chit-chat. She was finally part of the Essex girls’ gang.

Tommy’s world had crashed the day Mustapha got himself arrested. Over the years, they had ended up being partners in crime. They got on like a house on fire, and had trusted one another with their lives. Tommy was away on holiday with Alfie when Mustapha got spun. Any other time, he’d have been with him. But instead, he was caught with Emre, his pal who owned a kebab shop in Tottenham High Road. They were caught with a fair old lump. The filth would have a field day once they totted it up. Then again, the police always made it sound worse than it was. Instead of adding it up in ounces or kilos, they got a kick out of adding it up in £10 deals.

Mustapha and Emre were both currently in Belmarsh awaiting their court case. Twenty years plus, the poor bastards were looking at. Tommy had tried to carry on with the business, but hadn’t had much success. He’d never actually met the Mr Big who supplied Mustapha. The boss had always refused to meet Tommy. Apparently, he didn’t trust the English, and would only deal with his own. With very few other contacts, Tommy tried his luck with some south London Turks he’d met through Mustapha. They were having none of it – in fact, they had tried to kill him.

‘One week you go away and Mustapha get arrested. You fucking English grass,’ they shouted, as they chased him down the road with a machete.

Tommy had had to run like a greyhound to get away from the bastards. He could understand their loyalty, though. Even he had to admit, it looked fishy that he’d been on holiday when Mustapha had got caught.

With no major supplier, Tommy had no choice other than to buy small and deal on the streets again. After a lot of debating, he decided against it. He’d been a big fish for years and wasn’t ready to mug himself off by selling £20 wraps. He also had Alfie to think about now, and didn’t want to drag him into anything untoward. With little else on offer, he’d decided to take a break and see what cropped up. Trouble was, nothing had, and his money was disappearing fast and furious. His own drug problem hadn’t helped. He’d recently sold a property he owned in Ilford to help get him by, and had snorted and smoked the proceeds in under six months.

All he had in the world now was the house he lived in and the £18,000 from the motor he’d just sold. Tommy thought of his Merc and sighed. He’d loved that car, it had been a beauty to drive. Depressed, he went in search of his crack pipe.

‘You OK? What’s happening?’ he asked.

Susan looked sheepish. ‘Can yer pop back tomorrow, love,’ she whispered.

‘Who’s that? It ain’t me old mate Johnny, is it?’

Johnny looked at his mother in horror. Dave Taylor’s voice had haunted him for years, and he recognised it immediately. ‘Why is he here, Mum? You know he’s bad news.’

Dave Taylor staggered towards the door. ‘Oi, shoeshine boy, who you calling bad news?’

Johnny grabbed him by the neck of his scruffy T-shirt. ‘You leave my mum alone, and if you ever call me shoeshine boy again, I’ll fuckin’ kill yer.’

Susan pushed Johnny up the path. ‘Don’t start, son. Just go, for my sake. I’ll ring yer tomorrow, OK?’

In a temper, Johnny slung the Chinese and beers up the path. He ran to his van, leaped in and drove off like a loony. Unable to see straight because of his tears, he angrily bumped the van up a kerb. His nan would know what to do for the best.

As Maureen stood at the bedroom window waiting for his van to pull up, she had plenty of time to reflect. Since Johnny had moved in with her at the age of ten, she had had a special closeness with him.

She’d been struck down with breast cancer within a couple of years of him moving in. The chemo had made her tired and Johnny had been her little helper. He hadn’t understood the seriousness of her illness, but he’d been her bloody reason for fighting the dreaded disease. Thanks to her grandson, Maureen had been extremely positive about her illness from the word go.

‘Nanny will be fine,’ she assured him.

Even when she lost her hair, they made a joke of it. He helped her choose a wig and they’d roared with laughter as she’d tried on numerous funny ones.

‘You look like Scary Spice, Nan,’ he’d giggled, as she put on an afro.

Thankfully, the chemo had worked and she had since been given the all-clear.

With her three having long ago left home, she’d brought Johnny up as though he was her only child. After his shit start in life, he’d done so well for himself. He’d worked hard at school, gone to college and was only months away from finishing his apprenticeship and becoming a fully qualified electrician. Unlike with Tommy and Susan, she’d done a good job of bringing up her grandson. He was a normal, down-to-earth lad who played football on a Sunday, and liked a couple of pints and a flutter on the horses. He even had the occasional girlfriend, but nothing too serious. Johnny reminded Maureen of James. He was good natured and kind hearted, just like her youngest.

Out of all of her children, James was, and had always been the apple of her eye. He was still married to Maria and, thankfully, they were now happier than ever. The Tommy episode was now long forgotten. In fact, James had never mentioned it since the day he’d turned up in bits around her house.

Apart from that one hiccup, Maria was the perfect daughter-in-law and Maureen couldn’t thank her enough for making her son so happy and producing the two most beautiful granddaughters in the world.

Tara, nine, and Lily, six, were Maureen’s other pride and joy. Maria’s mum, Janet, still lived next door and the girls spent many weekends being spoilt and fussed over by the pair of them. They had their own bedrooms in both houses; on Fridays they stayed at Janet’s, and on Saturdays they slept at hers.

James and Maria had now moved out to Ingatestone in Essex and the girls went to an excellent local school. They spoke ever so posh and Maureen loved the fact that her family had gone up in the world. They never discussed how James made his money. The tailor’s shop had been shut down five years ago, shortly after Harold’s death. Apart from knowing that her son was in partnership with Freddie, Maureen had very little idea about what he actually did.

Tommy was no longer part of their family circle. Both James and Freddie had nothing to do with him whatsoever and Maureen could count the times she’d seen him over the last couple of years on one hand.

Splitting up with Lucy was the worst thing that could have happened to Tommy. She’d given him a stable home life and, to a certain extent, had kept him on the straight and narrow. His son, Alfie, was nineteen now and Maureen rarely saw him either. A chip off the old block, he’d left home at eighteen and moved in with his father.

Lucy had been, and still was, distraught. She’d been a bloody good mother and couldn’t understand why Alfie had chosen to leave her. She had heard that Tommy was bang on the gear and was desperately worried about her son. She was still in regular contact with Maureen, but the pair of them were at a loss as to what to do about the situation. If a nineteen-year-old boy wanted to live with his father, in reality, there was sod all you could do about it.

Lucy had rung Maureen recently, telling her that she’d bumped into Tommy. ‘He looked awful. He’s lost so much weight and was out of his nut,’ she told her. Maureen hadn’t slept a wink that night.

‘We’ve got to help him, James, someone’s got to look out for Alfie,’ Maureen told her youngest the following day.

James shook his head. ‘Me and Freddie have both tried, Mum. He’s a crackhead, he’s too far gone.’

Unable to rest, Maureen had spent a week visiting all his old haunts to find out his home address. Not wanting to involve James, she’d asked Kenny if he would drive her there.

Kenny’s one-time undying love for Wendy had turned into a form of hate over the years and he was only too glad of an excuse to get out of the house.

Pulling up outside the house in Leytonstone, Maureen was surprised to see a well-kept, nice-looking property. She was even more surprised when Tommy opened the door, looking a damn sight better than Lucy had described.

‘I’ve been worried about you, Tommy. Lucy said you’d lost a lot of weight and looked really ill.’

Tommy laughed. ‘I ain’t surprised, Mum. I’d been out partying for three days solid when she saw me.’

On accepting the offer of a quick cup of tea, Maureen was relieved to see Alfie sitting on the sofa happily munching beans on toast.

‘How are you, love? Are you enjoying living with your dad?’

Alfie nodded. ‘Me and Dad have a right laugh. He’s not on my case all the time like Mum was.’

Maureen gulped her tea, made Alfie promise to ring his mum more often, said goodbye to Tommy and left. The inside of the house was untidy and in need of a good clean but, other than that, there was nothing much to worry about. At least the visit had put her mind at rest, if nothing else.

Ethel was eighty-six now and, apart from suffering from severe arthritis in her legs and hips, was still as strong as an ox. She no longer lived in her flat over the road. Three years ago, Maureen had insisted that Ethel give it up and move in with her. Ethel kept falling over, so, to stop herself worrying, Maureen had offered to care for her. Stubborn and independent, Ethel had flatly refused at first.

‘There’s fuck-all wrong with me, I don’t need bleedin’ looking after.’

An especially bad fall, which had resulted in a month in hospital, had forced her to change her mind. James had brought her a top-of-the-range sofabed to sleep on, and a commode. By day the lounge looked normal and at night it reverted to Ethel’s toilet and bedroom. Apart from needing help getting in and out of bed, Ethel managed to get about indoors with the aid of a frame. If Maureen took her out, they used a wheelchair. Her legs might have packed up, but her mind was still as sharp as a knife. Mentally, she hadn’t changed one iota over the years and, as Maureen pushed her around Tesco, she would still be on the thieve, hiding her haul under her blanket.

‘Maureen. Quick, I’ve crapped meself.’

Johnny arrived home just as Maureen was shovelling up shit. ‘Don’t come in the living room, love. Nanny’s had a little accident, and I’m just sortin’ her out.’

‘I’m not stoppin’, Nan. I’ve only come back to change me shoes. I’m going clubbing with the lads from football.’

‘Are you OK, love?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ Johnny shouted, as he slammed the door.

Maureen sat Ethel back down and went to make a cuppa. Susan never failed to disappoint her. If Dave Taylor was round there, she was bound to be tempted to take whatever he was on.

‘If she goes back to her old ways, I’m never having anything to do with her again,’ Maureen told Ethel, as she explained the story.

Ethel said nothing as she sipped her tea. She’d had this same conversation with Maureen so many times over the years that she couldn’t be bothered to answer her any more. Maureen had had the wool pulled over her eyes so many times, it was a miracle that she could still fucking see!

‘What’s up, Johnny?’

‘Nothing. I’m all right.’

Gazza put an arm around his shoulder. ‘You’re not all right. I might not be a psychiatrist, but I know when me mates have got problems.’

Johnny was fairly drunk, and the alcohol, mixed with Gazza’s concern, made his eyes brim with tears. Feeling a right prick for showing his emotions, he dragged his mate towards the exit.

‘We’ll talk outside, but promise me, Gazza, you won’t tell the rest of the lads?’

Gazza held his hands up. ‘Scout’s honour.’

Gazza shook his head in disbelief as Johnny spilled the beans. His pal was so nice and normal, he couldn’t believe his mum was a smackhead.

‘Look, I’m driving tonight, ’cause I’ve gotta work tomorrow. I’ll tell the other lads that we’re shooting off early and I’ll take yer round your mum’s. At least if yer knock and make sure she’s OK, it’ll put your mind at rest.’

Johnny hesitated. ‘What if that cunt Dave Taylor’s still there?’

‘Fuck him. Even if he is there, at least you can see if your mother’s out of her nut or not.’

Johnny nodded. ‘You tell the others we’re going, and I’ll wait here. Tell ’em I don’t feel well or something.’

‘Do yer want me to come with yer?’ Gazza asked.

‘Nah, I’ll be all right. Just sit in the car and watch me back in case Taylor starts.’

Johnny walked up the path and rang the bell. The house was eerily silent. Getting no answer, he pushed the letterbox open.

‘Mum, it’s me, Johnny. Open the door.’

Wondering if she’d gone out, he peered through the window. The curtains were closed and he could see very little other than that the lights were on. He walked back to Gazza’s car.

‘I can’t get no answer. I know she sometimes leaves the kitchen door open, so I’m gonna climb over the fence and try round the back.’

Gazza stepped out of his vehicle. ‘I’ll come with yer. You might need a leg-up.’

Johnny could feel his heart pounding as they scaled the fence. ‘It’s open,’ he said, as he tried the handle.

‘Mum!’ Johnny shouted as he walked into the kitchen.

As he stepped into the living room, he saw her legs first. They were poking out by the side of the sofa. She was lying face down. There was no sign of Taylor.

‘Mum!’ he shouted, as he turned her body over.

An empty syringe lay beside her, and her hair was covered in vomit. She was cold and as white as a sheet.

Johnny frantically shook her, ‘Mum, please wake up. Mum, Mum!’ he cried.

Gazza bent down and checked for her pulse. There wasn’t one.

He looked at his pal. ‘I’ll ring for an ambulance. I’m so sorry, Johnny, but I think she’s dead, mate.’

Johnny sobbed as he knelt down beside her. He took her lifeless hand in his.

‘I loved you so much, Mum. We had our whole lives ahead of us. Why did you have to take that shit? Why, Mum, why?’