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I’ll sort it out.”
    Ernest muttered a thank you, picked up the one empty glass, and wandered over to the bar. It wasn’t normal for his friend to be so loose with his cash; it meant the guy must be up to something. A heavy weight settled on his guts. There could be only one reason— Jeff wanted a favour, a favour that entailed Ernest having to use his old skills.
    He placed the glass on the bar. “A pint for Jeff, sweetheart, and can you get me a bottle of Budweiser?” Yeah, it had to be that. Christ, as if his life wasn’t complicated enough.
    The barmaid smiled and nodded before grabbing the glass and turning around. He couldn’t help his eyes following the contours of the woman’s legs. Maybe he should try and get his Brenda a job here. She needed something else over than bingo to occupy her mind.
    Ernest and the barmaid both looked at the short man slumped against the bar. He silently groaned when he saw who it was. Steve Reynolds had been his personal pain in the arse ever since nursery. He lived a couple of streets away from Ernest, just behind the old graveyard. As a kid, Ernest often had fantasies of burying him in there, preferably tied up and still alive. Come to think of it, he’d still like to put the miserable bastard in the ground.
    Steve gripped the edges of the bar and turned to face Ernest. It took a moment for the man’s eyes to focus, but when they did, Steve scowled. “I should have fucking known it would be you. Buy me a fucking beer, you twat.”
    Oh this was just brilliant. The man was as drunk as a lord. Reynolds was a bastard at the best of times, but when he had a few beers inside him, he just got plain mean.
    Earnest nodded over to the woman, “One for him as well.” He had just enough money as long as he broke into his last note.
    Ernest was going to end up with bugger all at this rate, but it was best to keep on Steve’s good side; when his mouth stopped talking, the fists came out to play. His Brenda had told him loads of times how Steve knocked the crap out of his wife and kids when he’d had a skinful. Ernest never understood why Brenda hung around with her in the first place. She knew full well the history he and Steve had.
    He wondered what the pissed up knob-end would do if he ever found out that it was Ernest who broke into his home fifteen years ago and stole the family’s savings he’d found in the cornflake box in the kitchen and then trashed the place. Ernest would have loved to have seen Steve’s face when he arrived home that day, especially when he climbed the stairs and looked into his bedroom to see that huge turd in the middle of his bed.
    “Him? Who the fuck is ‘him’ supposed to be, the cat’s father?”
    “Sorry, I meant Steve,” he hastily replied.
    Ernest backed off and headed over to the toilets before Steve could have another pop at him.
    “Wait up you, I ain’t finished with you.”
    Ernest’s heart began to speed up. Oh great; so the line had already been crossed. He watched Steve slide off the barstool.
    “Come on Steve, aren’t we a little too old for this type of nonsense?” he said, desperately trying to defuse the situation.
    “What, so I’m too old, am I now?”
    He desperately looked across at his mate, hoping to attract his attention. Fat chance of getting back up from him, the pisshead had his head on the table. He looked like he’d dropped off to sleep. Oh bloody hell; the last thing he needed right now was to get into a fight with this idiot.
    He found it laughable that the one thing that Darren hadn’t inherited from Ernest was his desire for an easy life and to avoid confrontations. His son would have just punched Steve Reynolds into next week without even breaking a sweat.
    The door behind the bar creaked open, saving Ernest from a beating. The landlord’s wife walked out, closely followed by Desmond Naylor. Seeing that huge bloke with his ham-sized paws wrapped around the woman’s waist came as a bit of a shock to