The Stretch

by Martina Cole

Genres: Crime Fiction

Synopsis

'THE STUFF OF LEGEND' MIRROR
'THE QUEEN OF CRIME' WOMAN & HOME
'SHE'S A TOTAL ONE-OFF' GUARDIAN
'THERE REALLY IS ONLY ONE MARTINA COLE' CLOSER

THE ICONIC QUEEN OF CRIME RETURNS.

Don't miss the brand-new novel from the one and only Martina Cole, back writing solo and at the top of her game. Available to pre-order now.

When Johnny Raglan is sentenced to life imprisonment, his past catches up with him. Doing time runs in the family, and everyone knows the score. But prison life isn't easy and Johnny's wife Janey and their two young sons are about to learn the hard way what it takes to survive . . .

Release date: October 6, 2026

Publisher: Headline

Print pages: 416

Sample

Johnny Raglan was not a happy man – that much was obvious.

His wife Janey couldn’t believe it when the judge said life.

She glanced at Mr Brooks, their barrister, who was clearly mortified at the verdict. From the little she knew, her husband had weighed out a considerable amount of money to avoid this outcome, and Johnny could barely conceal his rage.

He was a man who lived in a perpetual state of anger. Anything could set him off these days, no matter how mundane.

Now, as she looked at her big, handsome husband, the enormity of what had just happened hit her with full force.

Twenty-five years before he was even eligible for parole!

It was a lifetime, especially for their two sons. They would now only be able to see their father in a dingy visiting room, in whatever nick they decided to put him in.

They had all known Johnny wasn’t going to get away with just a slap on the wrist, but no one had expected such a harsh sentence. The murder victim was Danny Carver, after all. Hardly a fucking innocent.

Mr Brooks had fucked off quick smart, which was probably just as well, given the mood her husband was in. No one wanted another murder to contend with.

‘You silly old cunt, twenty-five fucking years for killing Carver. I deserve a reward for taking out that piece of shit!’

This was her husband all over. He had never been able to control his phenomenal temper.

She certainly wouldn’t miss it.

She assumed that His Honour Judge Stephen Myers had never been called a cunt before because he seemed to be taking it very badly.

As several court bailiffs and police officers rushed forward to prevent the defendant scrambling from the dock, Janey ran to her husband.

‘Calm down, Johnny. Will you just calm down!’

She watched sadly as prisoner custody officers bundled him back down to the cells, quickly but not quietly. Things were never quiet where her husband was concerned.

He had always been under the impression that his opinion was the only one that mattered. And he was in full-on swearing mode now.

As the court emptied around her, Janey was amazed at how quickly she was calming down. The shock was wearing off and she found she could breathe again.

She was almost looking forward to being alone, and she immediately felt a twinge of guilt.

Johnny was right about one thing. He’d done the world a favour by getting rid of Danny Carver.

Danny had been a major player in the drug trade for years and anyone who got in his way was liable to end up dead. Trouble was, where Carver was concerned, the police had never managed to make a murder charge stick. Witnesses either changed their mind about testifying or disappeared without trace.

They’d got him on a drug charge eventually and he’d served sixteen years before getting out on parole. But instead of coming out a reformed character, he’d been hell-bent on clawing back everything he’d lost during his time inside.

Her Johnny was a saint in comparison.

Janey looked up to see a young policeman standing nearby.

‘Can I go down to see my husband, please?’

He looked almost sorry for her as he motioned for her to wait a few minutes.

Janey stood in the large entrance hall, gazing up at the impressive ceiling. It really was a beautiful building, but this place had doled out a life sentence not just to the offender; the whole family was affected one way or another.

As a plain-clothes policeman walked towards her, Janey settled her face into its usual mask of indifference.

‘If you would like to follow me, Mrs Raglan, I will escort you to the holding cells.’

She followed obediently as they walked down flights of stairs and along gloomy corridors. The whole place stank of sweat and despair.

She heard an occasional raised voice from within a locked cell, but, like the policeman, she just ignored it.

It was like descending into the bowels of hell.

After what seemed an age, they stopped outside a cell. The officer tapped on the door and, to her surprise, it was opened immediately by her husband, who pulled her inside and then slammed the door behind her.

Crushed in Johnny’s strong arms, she could smell his familiar scent: cigarette smoke, fresh sweat and expensive aftershave.

‘Oh, Janey, darling, what a monumental fuck up!’

‘Well, that’s one way of putting it, Johnny.’

She pulled herself away from him and looked into his handsome face.

There was a quiver in her voice as she asked, ‘So where do we go from here?’

‘We survive, Janey. You look after my boys, and you and my mother look out for each other. This is going to be harder on Mum than it is on you, because it’s exactly what happened to my old man all those years ago. But at least she knows the ropes. She will see you all right.

‘And if the filth come knocking, don’t let them in, even if they’ve got a warrant. Just phone Brooks and let him earn his fucking keep for once, the two-faced ponce.’

Janey nodded her agreement and Johnny pulled her into his arms again; this time she could feel him shaking with emotion.

The sentence had obviously hit him harder than he had expected; and, for the first time in her life, Janey found herself pitying this man of hers.

He had always been so strong, so sure of himself, so convinced he was right about everything. In fact, she had to admit that while he’d been on remand she and the boys had benefitted from not being around him. It felt disloyal to even think it, but the truth was her husband’s behaviour made them all nervous.

She wondered how Dolly and the boys were doing at home. Johnny’s sentence would have made the news by now, so his mum would have heard all about it. It would have knocked her for six, especially as she’d been through all this – and worse – with her own husband.

‘I’m hoping to get put on the island.’ Johnny interrupted her thoughts. ‘I’ve got a few mates there, so it’ll be good to catch up. I’ve put a few bob about to guarantee it happens. It’ll be a bastard of a journey for you to make in the winter but it’ll be a lovely day out when the weather’s warmer. The boys will enjoy the ferry ride; me and Jimmy always did when we were kids.’

She had heard the stories of her husband’s childhood so many times. He’d made their trips to Parkhurst sound like they’d been on a day’s holiday instead of visiting their father in a top security prison.

‘You heard anything from Jimmy?’

Johnny shook his head. Janey knew he had hoped to see his brother in the courtroom.

‘He’ll be all right. He’ll look after the businesses while I’m inside, and I’ve given him power of attorney so he can access all the accounts. So don’t worry, you and the boys will be OK, darling. I’ve told Jimmy to sort you out with whatever you need.’

She stared at her husband in disbelief, wondering why his brother, of all people, was given access to their finances when she, his wife, had never been allowed near them. She’d even worked as a trainee clerk when she left school at sixteen, so she knew more about bookkeeping than any of the Raglans. But she had learned early on that the best way to handle her husband was to nod and smile and agree with everything he said.

‘So I have to go to Jimmy if I need anything?’

Johnny looked at her sternly. He didn’t like her tone of voice.

‘Jimmy knows what he is doing, and I trust him.’

Janey nodded her head sadly. Her husband was about the only one who did.

Three loud bangs sounded on the cell door.

‘All right, for fuck’s sake!’ Johnny shouted angrily, releasing his grip on her.

Twenty minutes later, she was in the Magpie public house drinking a double brandy as she waited for the meat wagon to go by, taking her husband back to Scrubs.

When it finally passed by the window, she let out a long sigh of relief and held her glass out for a refill.

The barman, accustomed to serving women like her, poured her an extra-large one. She looked like she needed it.

Dolly Raglan looked in on her two grandsons and smiled sadly.

Handsome bastards, the pair of them.

They were sitting on the sofa in front of the TV, completely engrossed in the new video game she’d bought them. She couldn’t understand the attraction herself, but it kept them entertained for hours on end. The house could fall down around their ears and they wouldn’t notice.

The good thing was they would be glued to the game till she turned the TV off when it was time for bed, so there was little chance of them seeing their father’s face on the evening news.

They knew he was on trial, but not that the verdict was expected today, or that the judge would pronounce sentence.

She would help Janey break the news to them tomorrow.

Jimmy Raglan smiled as another drink was placed in front of him.

This time it was from Terry Keeper, the treacherous bastard, who assumed his debt was forgotten now that Johnny Junior was banged up. Well, Jimmy would soon disabuse him of that notion.

He finished his pint and yet another appeared instantly before him.

Real ale was his drink. How these muppets drank lager he would never know – it tasted like rat’s piss as far as Jimmy was concerned.

Sign of the times, he guessed, but unlike these cunts he had a different take on life in general. A take that he was sure would give him what he’d always wanted in life.

Everything his brother Johnny had ever had and more.

Johnny finally arrived at his prison of choice five days after the verdict.

Fucker of a journey, though, especially in the back of a meat wagon. But he was here now, and in a single cell, as requested.

He hoped his mother was all right. She was a good woman and he knew this stretch was going to knock her sideways.

But time would pass, he was quite sure of that, and there was no reason why he couldn’t still earn a decent crust while he was inside.

This was just another adventure, and there was nothing Johnny Junior liked better than a good adventure.

‘Fuck me, you look rough, darling.’

Dolly Raglan gazed at her husband lying in his hospital bed, fighting for his life. Much as she hated the journey to visit him in Parkhurst on the Isle of Wight, she’d sooner endure that than see him in a high-dependency unit, with tubes sticking out of his arms and bleeping monitors by his bed.

‘How are you feeling?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.

‘I feel rough, love. What do you expect? I was stabbed five times with a fucking shank!’

Big Johnny Raglan liked to state the bleedin’ obvious, but Dolly was used to that, and she knew it was all said for the sole benefit of the prison officer standing guard in the doorway.

She knew how to play the game; she had been playing it long enough.

‘Well, I hear you put up a good fight. And you’re still alive – that’s the main thing.’

Johnny smiled gently at his wife.

‘It’s not the first time Danny Carver has tried to have me carved up, and I dare say it won’t be the last,’ he said before he closed his eyes.

Dolly wasn’t about to discuss the matter in any detail with the Old Bill hanging on her every word. But she hoped the screw behind her had been taking note. If the filth were doing their job, they would already know this attack on her husband was down to Carver.

It was common knowledge that Big Johnny Raglan and Danny Carver had been at each other’s throats for decades.

The rivalry between them went way back, and the one thing it had taught Dolly was that grown men were no better than children when it came to nursing a grudge. Johnny and Danny had kept theirs alive just for the sheer hell of it. They enjoyed it, embraced it and allowed it to eat at them like a stage-four cancer.

They’d started out as petty criminals at school, and it had grown from there.

In the early days, they’d followed orders, run errands and provided muscle, all while learning their trade from the Faces of the day. Then everything changed when the Krays were sent down for life.

Carver wanted to be kingpin of the drug trade, while Big Johnny Raglan was more interested in payroll snatches, armed robberies and the protection racket.

It wasn’t until Carver and Big Johnny both started dealing in guns that their rivalry turned deadly.

Johnny had been fascinated with guns since he’d stumbled across a German Luger while playing on a bombsite at the end of the war. He’d become a gun dealer by the time he was twenty and soon he was the only dealer worth knowing. There wasn’t a Face in the city who didn’t owe him a favour, including the filth. And Carver wasn’t happy about that.

Which was why her husband had ended up in prison in the first place. Carver had sent three of his men to deliver a beating. Two of them had ended up in hospital with multiple injuries. Big Johnny pleaded self-defence, but it turned out the third man – who’d escaped unscathed – was a bent copper. He testified that Johnny was the one who’d started the fight, and he’d come armed with an iron bar. That made it GBH with intent, a fourteen-year stretch.

He’d been convicted and sent to Parkhurst four years ago. And in that time he’d fought off at least three attacks that she knew of. He was a giant of a man and could handle himself in a fight. It wasn’t in his nature to cower from the likes of Danny Carver. To Big Johnny Raglan, each failed attack was another notch in his belt, something to be proud of.

Dolly didn’t want to worry her husband in his present state – and certainly not with a screw listening in – but he wasn’t the only Raglan to have had a visit from Carver’s thugs recently.

Just before her husband had been stabbed, one of Carver’s gang had put the frighteners on her as she’d collected the rents at the amusement arcades in Southend.

Most of her husband’s business was being looked after by Brian McDowell, his right-hand man, but she’d taken on the rent collecting herself when he’d first been sent to Parkhurst. Johnny Junior was only ten at the time, and Jimmy had just turned eight, and they were devastated that their dad could no longer take them with him to Southend to collect the rents. From their point of view it was a great day out: they got spoiled rotten by everyone they came in contact with, and then they’d be slipped a few bob as ‘wages’ for helping out. So Dolly had persuaded her husband to let her continue in his place.

At first, the kids had moaned when she wouldn’t join them on the rides, the way their dad used to – there was no way she was going to mess up her hair on the rollercoaster – but they were old enough now to go on the rides by themselves. She would still keep an eye on them, though, while having a chat with some of the locals.

That’s when she’d spotted a heavyset man watching her and recognised him as one of Carver’s lot. Fortunately, Patsy Trask – an old Southend Face – was on hand to see him off. Then Patsy had driven her and the boys home, along with the fifteen hundred quid takings in her handbag.

But if Carver ever succeeded in killing Big Johnny, she dreaded to think what might happen to her and the boys.

Hopefully, by tomorrow her husband would be a little less groggy and she could have a word with him about getting Carver off their backs once and for all. But first she’d need to deal with the screw. Maybe if she brought the boys with her, they could create a distraction to give her a few minutes alone with her husband.

If there was one thing those lads of hers were good at, it was causing chaos.

Dolly placed the boys’ dinner on the table and poured herself a much-needed glass of wine. She hated visiting the prison, but a hospital visit was even worse.

She had made the boys their favourite meal: a nice oxtail stew with plenty of dumplings and crusty bread. They could eat for England, this pair, and, thankfully, while they were eating they weren’t arguing.

Her husband thought it was natural that the two boys were always fighting about something, but she wasn’t so sure – they were brothers after all, and that had to count for something.

Johnny Junior shovelled his food into his mouth as if it was going to be snatched away at any moment.

Unsurprisingly, given their father’s genes and their vast appetites, they were bigger than most boys their age. They were also handy with their fists and swore like troopers.

Other than that, they were lovely lads.

Their father was proud of his boys, and rightly so. They were handsome lads with plenty of nous. A bit too like him at times, but Dolly could cope with that.

She loved them with every ounce of her being.

Both were very protective of her, even though she wasn’t averse to giving them a smack round the head on a regular basis.

Johnny Junior was her favourite: what you saw was what you got. He was his father’s son all right, with his piercing blue eyes and thick curly black hair. And he could turn on the charm when it suited him. He was bright too, especially when it came to numbers. When he was little, Big Johnny would show off in front of his friends by getting Johnny Junior to work out complicated bets in his head. It was their party piece. Her husband would look on with pride as Johnny Junior amazed his friends with the speed in which he could work out the odds.

Jimmy, on the other hand, had brown hair and green eyes, so it wasn’t immediately obvious the boys were brothers. He was cunning and took after his father in being good at sports, especially sports where he got to use his fists.

She blamed that on her husband. His idea of entertainment had been to push back all the furniture in the front room and make them fight each other. He had found it hilarious, yelling them on and cheering whenever a punch landed. When it was over, he’d haul the winner’s arm in the air and declare him champion. It turned the boys into rivals when they should have been allies.

Understandably, losing to his younger brother on a regular basis had put Johnny off fighting. If Brian McDowell hadn’t offered to take the boys along to the local boxing club for the last four years, Johnny might have turned soft.

No danger of that where Jimmy was concerned. He was almost feral, the way he carried on. Like an animal waiting to be butchered. In fact, the school had suggested he see a psychiatrist and she sometimes wondered if they were right.

Still, she could cope with him for now. It would be a different ballgame, though, once he was tall enough to look her in the eye, but her old man would be home and dry by then – with the help of God and a few policemen, as h. . .