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in there once, but that had been enough. It was a meeting place for the local villains, and strangers weren’t made welcome.
    At the end of the drive, Chris opened the gates with the remote control. Ava slid the Mercedes smoothly out on to the road. As she drove back towards the centre of Kellston she was overly aware of her passenger’s scrutiny and of the way he visibly flinched every time she changed gear or put on the brakes. She could feel how tense he was, but wasn’t sure how much of that was down to her driving and how much to the exchange that had just taken place with his brother.
    Ava was still thinking about Danny as they hit the high street and came to a halt at the queue waiting at the traffic lights by the station. The guy had a reputation and it wasn’t a nice one. Hopefully, she’d be able to keep out of his way. Chris, on the other hand, didn’t bother her. He might be a villain, but he wasn’t a psycho. Despite his silence – he hadn’t said a word since they’d left Walpole Close – she still felt comfortable sitting beside him.
    It was only as the lights changed and they shifted forward that he finally spoke again. ‘Do you have any brothers or sisters?’
    ‘Just the one. A brother. Well, a half-brother.’
    ‘And do you get on?’
    ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘pretty much. But he’s a lot younger than me. He’s called Jason. He’s only thirteen.’ She paused before adding, ‘And I don’t have to live with him.’
    Chris’s mouth slid into a smile. ‘Yeah, well that makes a difference.’
    ‘He’d probably drive me crazy if I did.’ She turned right at the lights, went past the Fox and travelled on up Station Road until she came to the Hope and Anchor. She pulled in to the kerb and switched off the engine. ‘You ever thought about moving out?’
    Chris made a noise in the back of his throat. ‘Only a couple of hundred times a day. But someone has to keep the peace. Danny and my dad don’t exactly… Well, let’s just say that they know how to wind each other up.’ He opened the car door, got out and leaned down. ‘I’ll be fifteen minutes. Will you be okay?’
    Ava lifted her eyebrows. ‘Would you ask that if I was a man?’
    He grinned, shut the door and walked over to the pub. It was closed but his knock was quickly answered by a middle-aged man with thinning salt-and-pepper hair and a heavy paunch. She watched as Chris went inside and then she settled back to wait. Driving jobs often involved a lot of hanging about but she was used to it.
    Ava took her iPod out of her bag, stuck in the earphones and started listening to Florence and the Machine. She gazed through the windscreen, the glass splattered by rain, and looked at the people going by. She knew why Chris had asked if she would be okay: they were parked only twenty yards from Albert Road, the traditional haunt of the local toms. The dealers always gathered there too, along with the pimps and the junkies. It was, however, way too early for the girls to be out and there wasn’t much other activity either.
    Five minutes after Chris had gone inside, a smart black Bentley drew up behind the Mercedes. The driver, wearing a traditional chauffeur’s uniform, got out of the car and walked round to the rear door. He opened an umbrella and held it over the man as he climbed out. The man, in his early fifties, was tall and impeccably groomed with short grey cropped hair. Ava studied him in her rear-view mirror. She reckoned, from his features, that he might be Russian or East European.
    The chauffeur delivered the guy to the pub and even knocked on the door for him. Once the man had disappeared inside, the driver strolled back to the Bentley. As he passed the Mercedes, he threw Ava a disdainful glance, but didn’t acknowledge her further. They might both be drivers but he clearly considered himself a class above – Mr Chauffeur, she figured, thought of himself as more Knightsbridge than Kellston.
    Ava looked across towards the