“We ain’t in London yet,” she protested. “I’ll never get a ride here.”

“Not my problem. Go on. Get.”

She muttered darkly but opened the door and stepped down. Billy cranked the lorry into gear again and pulled away. He glanced in the mirror, the woman stamping her feet against the cold, and then turned his gaze to the road ahead and, beyond that, the lights of London. His thoughts turned back to Joseph, and then to Edward. Talking about it hadn’t helped at all.

He needed to do something.

43

TOMMY FALCO ROLLED THE AUSTIN A40 to the kerb and killed the engine. Two in the morning and it was still busy out. Drunks, poofs and perverts: par for the course. Tommy gave it a swift East to West. Nothing out of the ordinary. He sat back in the seat and relaxed. The car was only a month old and still smelled new. It was the Sports model, a four seater coupé with the 1200cc engine. Joseph had promised him a new motor and he had been true to his word. His parents wouldn’t have believed it. Wouldn’t have approved of his line of work, but that didn’t matter now, both of them long since dead and gone. The wheels, the fancy clobber, the gelt. The old man would have choked: thirty years in the rag trade hadn’t got him the kind of dough Tommy was making now. The last thing he’d said to him before he died was that he needed to get a job, to get ink on his fingers, but the old bastard had been boracic when he went so what kind of example was that? Tommy looked in the mirror and stroked his pomaded hair. Wasn’t going to happen to him, no fear. Twenty-seven years old and he felt like a prince, driving a car worth more than his parents’ house. No doubt about it. He was on the up.

They had made another run with the trucks yesterday. They had stopped at Honeybourne and loaded up with silk parachutes, delivered them to Barry and returned with the refrigerators. Ruby Ward had nearly fallen off his chair when he had seen them. He had said they would be worth more than he had originally thought, the condition and quality of them, quite a bit more than he had thought. Joseph had promised him a tidy sum from the job in any event and now it looked like there was going to be more. Tommy wouldn’t complain at that, not at all.

He clicked off the headlights and opened the door. It was chilly out. He draped his coat over the Remington .12 bore, reached down for the bag, got out of the car and walked across the pavement to the club. REGAL BRIDGE AND BILLIARDS said the long vertical sign stretching between the second and third floors. That always made him chuckle. One battered old table, the baize ripped to buggery and the balls rolled up against one cushion because of the sloping floor. It hadn’t seen a game for donkey’s years. It was all just for show. The Regal was a spieler, the jewel in what was left of the Costello crown. George Costello ran it like a military operation together with the rest of the betting clubs, drinking dens and whorehouses they’d managed to keep since Jack Spot had been coming around.

Tommy knocked on the door.

No answer. He knocked again.

The peephole opened.

“What are you––deaf? It’s me, cloth ears. Open the bloody door.”

The bolts slid back.

“Alright, Tommy?” Alfredo DeNina said, opening the door.

“Everyone back?”

“Upstairs.”

“Any trouble?”

“They never said so.”

Tommy was relieved. The last few weeks had been difficult. The trouble with Spot was common knowledge on the street now, and so was the fact that George and Violet had sat on their hands and done nothing. He had been knocking off their businesses and they hadn’t lifted a finger. People were starting to think that they were soft touches. Reckoned that gave them licence to have a bit of a go. There’d been an example of that tonight: a bolshie barrow boy was into them for thirty quid, debts piled up at their faro tables. The bloke had asked for an extension, demanded it almost, and then got lippy when Tommy told him where to get off. There was nothing else for it: he pistol-whipped the mouthy bugger, knocked out a couple of teeth and put him to the floor, gave him a shoeing while he was at it. An example to the others. You couldn’t afford to show weakness. Give them an inch and they’d take a bloody mile. You had to be strong. One of the rules of the game. George Costello had taught him that himself. Tommy didn’t understand why he had stopped following his own advice.

He went inside, DeNina double-locking the door behind him. He took the stairs to the first floor. Four members of the Costello gang were drinking and smoking. They were the collectors. Their job was to fan out around the family’s interests and bring the takings back to be counted. George had put him on the strength at Chiara’s birthday party. Tommy had been well chuffed to be asked. It meant they were taking him seriously, that the reputation he’d been working on was starting to have the right effect. He wanted them to see him as trustworthy, reliable and hard, able to cut up rough when that was required. George had told him that he knew he was good for the job and that meant a lot.

The others were older. Bert Thomas was nursing a whisky sour. Eddie Bennett and Paulie Spano were at the table working on the cut-up, sorting a pile of money into neat stacks. George Taylor was peering between old black-out curtains into the street.

“Alright, Tommy,” he said, letting the curtains fall back into place.

He nodded. They were all tense and tired. The only things he could think about were a couple of whiskys and his bed. He dropped the bag of money at Bennett’s feet.

Eddie hefted it. “Full?”

He nodded. “Punters everywhere. Turning them away.”

Eddie gestured to the money on the table. “Same for everyone.”

Spano riffled a stack of notes. “Been a good week. Can’t remember a better one.”

Tommy undid his jacket and fixed himself a drink. He was all done in. He’d driven the Austin across north London all night, visiting the spielers and liquor dens. He’d had the Jimmies all the way, the old nerves on edge: keeping an eye out for Jack Spot’s lads, the bagful of cash under the seat and the shotgun across his lap. George Costello had warned them about the rumours that Spot was plotting something, and you couldn’t be too careful, not with that devious Jew.

He checked the time: half past two. He picked up the tumbler, the ice jangling against the glass, and drained it. He poured another double measure, shook a cigarette from a pack and lit up. No need to worry, he reminded himself. The club was locked tighter than a nun’s knickers. The street door was two-inches thick and Alfredo DeNina was behind it with a sawn-off and a machete like the stevedores at the docks used. The windows were two storeys up, impossible to reach without ladders. The fire escape was chained and bolted shut. The place was nigh-on impregnable. Tommy got up, twitched the curtain aside and looked down into Wardour Street. Nothing. He stood and watched. Nothing out of the ordinary. He a glass of whisky that he didn’t really want and went back to the window. He folded his hands across his chest. Ten minutes passed. He shook a cigarette from a pack and lit up. Georgie the Bull would be along soon enough to collect the takings.

Two men in overcoats walked to the outside door. He squinted down at them. Trilbys covered their faces.

One of the men knocked on the door.

Tommy cradled the shotgun.

“Who is it?” he called down.

The sound of a muffled conversation came from downstairs.

“It’s alright,” Alfredo shouted up. “Punters. Sent them away.”

A shotgun blast, loud, close range. Tommy spun around. Bert Thomas staggered towards him, half of his head gone. Tommy turned his head at the blow-back as he went down, spun the shotgun around and ducked. A puff of blue smoke from the stairs. DeNina pushed the curtain aside, ejected shells and reloaded. Damned turncoat! The sound of feet taking the stairs two at a time. DeNina aimed, fired again. George Taylor took one in the face, an arc of white bone and grey-green brain splattering the black-outs. Bastards! Tommy swung the shotgun around, triggered a spread. DeNina caught buckshot, staggered back against the wall, slid behind a table. Tommy dived for cover as two other men came up the stairs. He pressed himself behind a stack of chairs, recognised the thin one: Archie Eyebrows, Jack Spot’s first lieutenant.