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chin.   Raucous moved slightly to his left and avoided the shot.  He reached his arm up and swung it down, catching Jean’s elbow in his armpit. He added his weight and pushed at Jean’s shoulder and forced Jean to the ground. 
    “Leave it be,” Jim said.
    Raucous smiled but didn’t release his hold.  “We’re here for you. No one else.Fancy taking a seat in the back of our very well-kept van?”
    Jim didn’t move.  Raucous applied pressure to Jean’s arm, and the force made Jean squeal as her shoulder twisted to breaking point. 
    “No need to be the hero, Kid,” Raucous told Jean.  “As I said, we’re here for him.”
    Jim looked down at Jean.  “I would have liked to have said more, explained things more clearly, but it looks like I won’t have the chance.”
    Jim stepped around Raucous and entered the van.
    Timothy slid the side door shut and entered the cab.  
    Raucous looked down at Jean, he released the pressure but not the hold.  “You’re looking good,” he said.  “We’ll be seeing each other soon.  A few things to clear up.  Try and relax first, get a bit of you time in there.”
    Raucous patted Jean on the cheek, released his hold, stepped into the cab, started the engine and put the van in gear.
    “You know the other one?”  Timothy asked as they pulled into traffic.
    Raucous turned to face him. 
    “Kind of," He said.  "You know I served seventeen years, right?”
    “As only the moronic can,” Jim said.
    “Well, five of them were for killing him.”
    “And the others?”
    “For killing my daughter,” Jim said.
    Timothy looked back at Jim and then at Raucous.  He laughed.  “The good old gangster days, honour among thieves.  You guys were just so much more fun back then.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    He had to accept now.  He couldn’t make excuses.  If he truly wanted resolution, she thought, yes would be his only answer.  Watching Jim leave had been the start.  It was beginning.
    She was walking suburbia, one associated with the post-war era of council houses.  A long terraced row, the end unseen as the curve of the street bowed the houses away to the east as if separated by the trail of a snowboarder.  Cars lined both sides and the space of open asphalt was not enough for two cars to pass.  Every third car was a white van, some with markings indicating trade and name, the majority without and worn and dirtied.  The fronts of the houses were identical by design, individualized only where families had added windows to double glaze, or changed the color of the door.  The majority of traditional front gardens had gone.  There were no more small strips of grass and flowers, but thick slabs of concrete for weekend projects and a parking space.
    Charlotte counted the numbers, the odd side of the street.  Thirteen, Fifteen, Seventeen (A and B) and nineteen.  The light of the day changed as she paced, cloud cover taking the brilliant sun and its winter heat before slipping away and letting the rays hit the earth.  She stopped at twenty-one and looked down the three metre path.  The two large steps had been painted red years before and were now faded and chipped.  The green door with five semi-circular frosted glass panes was a post-war relic that had been kept going by a lazy hand.  A brass knocker had once hung, but its place was empty and the color faded.  Stolen or rotted away.  She pressed the rectangular bell button next to the door.  A white sticker sat under the bell, a name was scrawled in black marker. Roach, a name written a long time ago.  The ink had run and faded.  Charlotte knew his first name, but everyone called him Roach.  Charlotte listened to the last regular chime hum to silence before the door opened.
    Roach opened the door slowly, he was dressed in blue rayon pajamas and a toweling nightgown, but he didn’t seem to have slept.  He was middle-aged but looked worn.  He had the flab and gait of a man who liked a traditional English