Edward started the van and reversed it into the yard so that the rear was lined up with the shuttered doors that were used for loading and unloading goods.

“Quickly,” Joseph called.

Jack ran to the doors and took a key from his pocket. They had been given the original by the member of staff at the depot who had proposed the job––in return for a cut of the profits––and had copied it overnight. Jack unlocked the shutters and heaved them up. The depot was storing fur coats and mink stoles. The place was practically full of them. They were brand new, still wrapped in their plastic dust sheaths.

“Oi!” The shout came from behind them. “What’s your game?”

A security guard was shining a torch at Jack. He hadn’t seen the others, and so he didn’t notice as Billy stalked behind him and swung his crowbar across the back of his knees. His legs buckled beneath him and he fell backwards.

“Alright, alright,” he said, raising his hands in surrender.

Joseph knelt next to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “We’re helping ourselves to the gear here. Play nice and we’ll be on our way. Don’t be silly and you’ll be fine. There’s no need for you to get hurt.”

“I won’t do nothing,” the man said.

“That’s good. We’ll be as quick as we can.”

They hurried into action, taking the coats from their rails and tossing them into the back of the van. Twenty, then twenty-five, then thirty. Eventually, there was no more space. Billy shut the doors.

“Well done,” Joseph said to the guard. “That’s that––we’re finished.”

The man looked unhappy.

“What is it?”

“You can’t leave me like this.”

“What? You ain’t hardly even been touched.”

“That’s what I mean––you have to give me a black eye.”

“You want a black eye?”

“It can’t look like I co-operated with you, can I? The boss needs to think I put up a scrap. He’ll think I was in on it and he’ll give me my cards. I’ve got a wife and a nipper to feed. I need this job.”

“You want me to hit you?”

“Just––you know, just a black eye.”

“If you say so.” Joseph struck him, quite hard, a left hook that dropped him to his knees. Billy whooped, laughing, and before any of them could stop him he swung a kick into the man’s gut. He fell onto his side, gasping, and Billy kicked him twice more. “How’s that?” he said, “good enough for you?”

“Whoah!” Jack laughed, surprised.

Billy kicked him again.

“Billy!”

“No names!” Edward shouted.

“He said he wanted it to be convincing––it’s what he wanted. I’m doing him a favour.” Billy swung a kick into the man’s head and a plume of blood spewed out and splattered across the ground.

“Enough!” Edward said, grabbing him and pulling him back out of range. “Jesus, man––you’ll bloody well kill him.”

He squared up to Edward. “Get your filthy hands off me.”

“Back off,” Joseph called sternly.

Billy shrugged Edward aside and laughed.

Edward knelt down by the guard’s side. He was bleeding from the mouth but the blood was from a badly cut lip, and not internal. He was conscious, but woozy.

“Is he alright?” Joseph asked.

“He’ll live.” Edward propped him against the side of the building and followed the others back to the road. “You’re a bloody fool!” he called after Billy.

“Ah, piss off.” He got into the car and Jack slipped in next to him.

“That was a bit over the top,” Jack said.

“Don’t you start.”

“I’m not having a go––I’m just saying.”

“See what I mean, though? About Fabian? The bloke ain’t got no balls.”

Jack started the engine. He didn’t reply.

“Let’s get off,” Billy said. “I feel like a drink.”

24

EDWARD WATCHED AS JACK MCVITIE adjusted his trilby. He was trying not to show his excitement as the dealer dealt another queen on the river. McVitie had played his hand slowly, carefully making sure Billy and Edward followed him to the last round of betting. They had, and he pushed half of his chips into the middle of the table.

Edward paused, making an assessment of the cards and his chances.

“So––what are you doing, Doc?” Jack said. “In or out?”

“I’m in.” He pushed the rest of his chips over the line.

McVitie turned to Billy. “You in or out?”

Billy made a show of deliberation. “You’re bluffing.”

“You best call me then, hadn’t you?”

“Fine. I’m all in.”

Jack laughed. He pushed the rest of his stack over the line, too.

They were flush, and they were enjoying themselves. This was a Costello place, several large rooms above a shoe-shop. Part-spieler, part-brothel. It was one of the more established joints in Soho. The dividing wall between two rooms had been knocked down and a baccarat table installed. A roulette wheel was next to that, together with a couple of tables for poker and chemin de feu. A mirrored bar had been fitted at one end of the room, with black market spirits hanging upside-down in optics. The bar was crescent-shaped, lit from beneath, with coloured Venetian glasses stacked on glass shelves. A chandelier hung from the ceiling and the windows were covered with thick, expensive Moroccan drapes. The clientele entered through a side-door on the street where they were met by a suited doorman and ushered up a bare staircase into the room. A door at the other end of the room led to three bedrooms. They were reasonably furnished. That was all that was required; after all, the guests did not stay long.

Smoke hung heavy in the gloom. There were ten around the table: Jack, Billy, Tommy, Joseph and Edward, four local businessmen and Lennie Masters, the perpetually-glowering thug that Edward had met the first time he had visited Halewell Close for Chiara’s birthday.

Edward settled back into his chair and waited for the last player to fold his hand. He was in an excellent mood. Ruby Ward had visited the lock-up and assessed the coats they had stolen that morning. Edward had discovered that he was much more than the face of the Costello’s automobile business: he was their main fence, using the car showroom as a legitimate front to launder their dirty money and to distribute the booty with which they fed the black market. They already knew that the coats cost forty pounds each in Mayfair, and they had thirty of them. Ruby had offered twenty apiece. He would sell them for thirty, but retailing the goods entailed the biggest risk and so no-one begrudged him his mark-up.

The adrenaline of the heist receded and, as it did, the four of them had been filled with exhilaration that they had successfully pulled off the job. It was something different from the burglaries. They were diversifying. Edward, too, felt more optimistic for his own prospects than he had for many years. The afternoon at the Ritz had underlined it for him: he was starting a new life. Goodbye to the deprivations of his return, the ignominy of begging the state for aid, the foul garret and his grasping landlord and the shameful prospect of pawning his things so he could afford to eat. He felt as he imagined emigrants felt when they left their problems behind them in some foreign country, discarded their old friends and relatives and past mistakes, setting sail for Australia, or America, and the promise of something better. He had felt this way before but he had been negligent then and, eventually, he had had no choice but to burn that life and exchange it for another unsatisfactory one. Now he would do it again. It was a chance to clean his slate.

He looked around the table. The five of them looked swell. His ratty old demob suit was a distant memory and now he wore a pale blue silk shirt with a Barrymore roll collar and a burgundy silk tie, the sort worn by Adolphe Menjou, the American actor. His shoes were hand-made from a shop in St. James’ that catered to crowned heads. They were made from wild boar, were bright yellow under the instep and they cost ten guineas. His suit was double-breasted, powder blue and cut in the American style. He looked and felt a million dollars.