Returning to Doc, I took it as a positive sign that he was drinking the tea. He said, ‘According to Freud, a man doesn’t become a man till his father dies, so I wonder what he reverts to when his partner goes.’

‘From the evidence, a babbling idiot.’

He turned to look right into my face, added, ‘She really didn’t like you.’

Jeez, thanks a bunch Doc, I needed to hear this now. I didn’t say anything. Gave one of them wise head-nodding gestures, reeking of understanding. But, he thought I wasn’t getting it, grabbed my arm tightly, ‘No, I’m serious Davey. She didn’t care for most people, but she fuckin’ loathed you.’

I tried to interpret this as grief but, if he kept it up, he’d really be in bloody shock. ‘She said you were a cold fish, that beneath your frosty exterior was more ice.’

I thought she’d had a rough deal. Doc’s years in prison, his uncertain future, her horrendous death… and then I thought… fuck her.

The funeral was huge, villains like the full show. Cops came too though not in a mourning capacity. What a display of cars! I once read Maurice Gibb describe success. Remember him, the Bee Gees. He said he was standing at his front door looking at a street packed with motors and knew, ‘They’re all mine.’ I looked at the line of vehicles and knew, they’re all repos.

Noble came, same lousy raincoat, said, ‘She was a good ’un.’

‘You knew her?’

‘Never laid an eye on her – or a finger – but what the hell else is there to say.’

Doc looked downright elegant. Black suit, tie, and the manic-shined black Martens. His daughter, Emma, was out from the boarding school. A flash little piece of jail-bait, she asked me, ‘Did you know my Mum?’

‘She was a good ’un.’

‘I don’t think she liked you.’

Great.

The reception was Irish, booze and food. Doc was in the middle of the crowd, stories chasin’ the whisky, or is that vice-versa. Anyway, like that. He was saying, ‘So this wanker takes a look at me, sees I’m a big ’un, says I used to be scared of a couple of blokes… I says yeah… and I’m the both of ’em.’