Kimberley Chambers 3-Book Collection: The Schemer, The Trap, Payback. Kimberley Chambers

be late meeting her. See you around, Steph.’

      When Potter and Cooksie burst out laughing, Steph’s eyes filled up with tears. Wayne Jackman had made her look a complete and utter idiot and she knew she’d be a laughing stock at school on Monday morning.

      As the lads walked away in high spirits, Tammy tried to hug her best friend. ‘Jacko’s an arsehole, you’re worth a hundred of him, Steph,’ she said, truthfully.

      Feeling both furious and degraded, Steph violently pushed Tammy away. ‘This is all your fault. If you hadn’t opened your big mouth, none of this would have happened. I hate you Tammy Andrews, and I never want to see you again.’

      Bursting into a flood of uncontrollable tears, Stephanie picked up her purse and ran off as fast as she could.

      With little money left every week out of their wages, Pam and Cathy did virtually all their socializing indoors. Neither women were big drinkers, but most Saturday nights they liked to share a bottle of Liebfraumilch between them. Sunday was the only day that neither woman worked, so it was nice to let their hair down a bit.

      ‘How’s the café been this week? Busy?’ Pam asked her friend.

      ‘Yeah, not bad. We keep attracting a crowd of school-kids though. The little sods are bunking off from the Priory, I think. Bleedin’ nuisance they are.’

      Pam chuckled. Cathy worked in a café in Broad Street Market, which was only a spit’s throw from their homes in Manning Road.

      ‘What about you? How’s the eating-in idea working out?’ Cath asked, as she opened the bottle of wine.

      Pam worked in a bakery in Dagenham East that had recently expanded and started an eating-in service.

      ‘It’s really begun to take off now. We’ve even started selling cooked breakfasts and jacket potatoes,’ Pam said, excitedly. She was hoping the extra business would give her a much-needed pay rise.

      ‘Quick, come ’ere. There’s a blue van just pulled up outside the old slapper’s with an old boy and a young fella in it,’ Cath exclaimed.

      ‘Someone’s moving in by the looks of that mattress. I saw the black man leave about half an hour ago. Surely she ain’t got another victim already?’ Pam said, laughing.

      ‘Well, it can’t be the young one, he’s younger than my Michael. She’s gotta be moving the old boy in, surely?’ Cath said, bemused.

      ‘How is your Michael? I ain’t seen him for ages. Still loved-up, is he?’

      Unable to take her eyes away from the window in case she missed anything worth noting, Cath nodded her head. Her eldest son, Pete, had recently got married, and now it looked as though her youngest was about to fly the nest too.

      ‘Only comes home to bring his washing back and stuff his face now. She’s a nice girl, that Jane he’s with, but I wish she didn’t already have a kid. I reckon he’ll move in with her soon, but I do worry about him, Pam. I mean, taking on another man’s child ain’t ideal, is it? And I’ve just found out the father of the kid is in prison. It’s times like this I rue the day I moved to Dagenham, mate. If I had put me foot down with that philandering bastard of a husband of mine and insisted on staying in Poplar, my Michael wouldn’t have even met this bleedin’ bird.’

      Pam nodded understandingly. Both her and Cathy’s husbands had been born and bred in Barking, which was why they had ended up with council houses under Barking and Dagenham council. In Pam’s case, her David had insisted Dagenham was a nicer area to raise children than the East End, but Pam had never been truly happy living there. She missed the old estate she had lived on and her frequent trips to Roman Road market. The pie-and-mash shops in Dagenham were rotten, in Pam’s opinion, and not a patch on Kelly’s up the Roman.

      ‘Your Steph’s home, looks upset she does,’ Cathy warned her friend.

      Pam ran out into the hallway to greet her eldest daughter. It was very unusual for Steph to arrive home before her weekend ten o’clock curfew, so she knew something must be wrong. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’ she asked, clocking her daughter’s tear-stained face.

      ‘Nothing. Leave me alone,’ Steph replied, trying to duck past her mother so she could run up the stairs.

      Petrified that her daughter had been attacked, or even worse, Pam grabbed hold of Stephanie’s shoulders. ‘You ain’t going nowhere, young lady, until you tell me what’s happened. Has someone touched you?’

      Collapsing into Pam’s arms, Steph cried more tears than she’d ever cried before.

      Unaware of the drama that was currently going on downstairs, Angela Crouch had got over her earlier sulk and was now thoroughly looking forward to her big night out. Unlike her sister, Steph, Angie had been into boys from a very young age. At ten, she’d had her very first French kiss and at twelve she had let Gary Ratcliffe tit her up, the Dagenham term for touching someone’s breasts. However, even though she’d had plenty of boyfriends, Angie had never been in love before, not until now, anyway.

      Turning the music up to Kool and the Gang’s ‘Get Down On It’, Angela stood in front of the mirror singing into her hairbrush. Even though both she and her sister had always been called pretty, Angela knew she knocked spots off Steph in that department. Angie was twenty months younger than her sister and shorter in height, but knew she looked older. ‘Get down on it, suck my helmet,’ Angie sang, flicking her hair over her shoulders seductively. Her new boyfriend had taught her the rude lyrics to the song and Angie thought they were hilarious. Glancing at the Swatch watch her mum had recently bought her for her thirteenth birthday, Angie took the needle off the record. She’d arranged to meet her boyfriend at 7.30 outside the Princess Bowling Alley along the A13, and she didn’t want to be late.

      ‘What’s a matter with you?’ she asked, as her sister barged into the room and threw herself onto her bed face downwards.

      ‘Don’t ask! I ain’t going a school Monday. I’ve asked Mum to find me a new school ’cause I ain’t never going back to Priory again,’ Steph wept.

      Whereas she herself could turn on the waterworks on a regular basis just to get her own way, Angie had rarely seen Steph as upset before. She sat on the bed next to her, hoping that something bad had happened. ‘What’s up? I dunno what happened to your photo by the way. I was doing my make-up and it fell on the floor. I reckon the string must have snapped.’

      ‘Sod the photo. I’ve fallen out with Tammy and I’ve made a complete fool of myself over a boy. I am such a fucking idiot, I hate myself.’

      ‘Why have you fallen out with Tam?’ Angie asked, surprised. She knew how close her sister and Tammy Andrews were, and she had never known them to argue in all the years they’d known one another.

      Needing to get the whole episode off her chest, Stephanie began at the beginning of the story and told her sister everything that had happened.

      ‘But if you lied and said that Tammy fancied this boy’s mate, then you can’t blame her, Steph. It’s you that’s out of order. Who is the boy anyway? Why won’t you tell me his name?’

      ‘Because he goes to our school and I know what a big mouth you’ve got. Enough people are gonna find out what happened as it is, without you telling all your mates an’ all,’ Steph replied, truthfully.

      ‘I won’t say nothing, I promise. Tell me his name?’ Angie asked, nosily. She was thoroughly enjoying her sister’s despair and wanted to know more.

      ‘Swear on Mum’s life you won’t tell anyone,’ Steph said, solemnly.

      When Angela crossed her heart with her right hand and repeated the oath, Steph sat up and squeezed her sister’s hand. ‘It was Wayne Jackman. He’s in the fifth year, do you know him?’

      The look on Angela’s face immediately changed from a look of false concern to one of contorted rage. She snatched her hand away from her sister’s and stood up. ‘Wayne’s