“I don’t know––do you?”

The man was large and dressed neatly in an Edwardian suit with many buttons and velvet facings. “You’re Joseph Costello.”

“That’s right. Don’t recognise you, though.”

“No. But you know who we work for.”

“I can guess.”

“Sure you can, Joseph. Mind if I call you Joseph?”

“Where is he?”

“He ain’t here. But he sends his best regards.”

“Good of him.”

The man’s eye fell to the table and settled on the empty box. “Been buying some tomfoolery, Joseph?” He picked up the box and turned it over. He saw the logo and whistled appreciatively. “Tiffany? My word. Expensive tomfoolery. Let’s have a butcher’s at it then.”

The colour leeched out of Joseph’s face. “I don’t think so.”

Eve self-consciously covered her left hand with her right. Slowly, she moved them both towards the lip of the table and was about to drop them beneath the tablecloth before the man noticed her doing it and tutted, shaking his head. “Not so fast, darling,” he grinned at her. He pulled back his jacket to reveal the butt of a revolver stuffed into the front of his trousers. “Let’s stay best friends when this is all said and done, alright? Best to avoid unpleasantness, I always say. You’d agree with that, wouldn’t you, Joseph? We don’t want a nasty argument.”

“Just show him,” he said to her through gritted teeth.

She reluctantly raised her right hand, uncovering the left. The diamonds glittered on her finger, refracting the candlelight.

“Stone the bleeding crows. Will you look at that? The size of it! How much that set you back, then?

“Enough.”

“You two lovebirds getting engaged?”

Joseph glared up at him. “If you’re going to do it, do it. Get on with it.”

“Easy there, pal. Mind your place. You ain’t the one with the shooter, remember. Let’s have it, then, darling. Take it off. Chop chop. And your watch and wallet, Joseph. Quick as you like.”

Eve fought back the tears. Joseph did as he was told, his eyes half-closed, the line of his jaw set straight and firm as he clenched his teeth. She knew about his temper but she had never seen him as dead in the eyes as this before and it frightened her. He was a prideful man and this––to be emasculated before his fiancée on the night of their engagement––it must have been the purest, most dreadful humiliation for him. The man didn’t seem concerned with that, nor with the murderous look on Joseph’s face; he took the watch and wallet and dropped them into the bag, draping his fingers over the stippled butt as a reminder that he should be civil as he turned his attention to her. She choked a sob as she worked the ring off her finger and gave it to him. “There you go,” he said, the diamonds glittering in his palm. He dropped the ring into the paper bag with everything else. “That wasn’t so hard. I’ll leave you the box.”

“Just go,” Joseph muttered.

“Patience, sport. We will––just as soon as we’ve done everything we came here to do. This place is one of your family’s, isn’t it? Under Costello protection. The fellow over there needs to pay attention to that. Your lot are finished in Soho, china. If he wants to avoid unnecessary accidents in the future he really needs to speak to Jack. Know what I mean? The alternatives just ain’t so reliable no more.”

The man looked up at his colleagues and gave a curt nod. They took their jemmies and swung them into the windows, slammed them down on the stacked piles of crockery, stabbed them into the paintings that had been hung on the wall. It was a concentrated orgy of violence that lasted no more than thirty seconds but when they had finished the place had been completely wrecked. No-one spoke. It was silent save for the gasped sobs of the diners and the crunch of shattered crockery and glass as it was trodden underfoot.

“Alright then. That’ll do. As I say, Jack sends his warmest regards. Goodnight.”

Joseph did not look at them. He stared at Eve instead. His eyes were black orbs, without warmth or life, more frightening than the men and their threats and their violence and anything else that she had ever seen. She reached out across the table and took his hand in hers. He did not flinch. His flesh was cold to the touch.

49

EDWARD DISTRACTED himself with an hour or two of shopping. He visited a haberdashery where he bought a pair of yellow silk pyjamas, as close as possible to the pair that he had borrowed from Joseph when he had visited Halewell Close. He bought a pair of narrow satin-like trousers and, for Chiara, flared hipsters of black wool, waist twenty-six. He added a gold tie-pin and settled the twenty pound bill from his money roll, making a show of taking it out of his pocket and counting off the notes. It made him feel much better, as did emerging from the shop with his purchases in crisp paper bags. After that he descended into Bond Street station for the short trip to Soho. He could have taken a taxi but he preferred the anonymity of the Underground, a chance to lose himself amidst all the other Londoners going about their business. He went to a pavement telephone box and asked the operator to place a call to Jimmy Stern’s number. They spoke briefly and Edward said that he would be around to discuss business in a half an hour. There was a homeless man begging on the pavement next to the telephone box. Edward stopped and gave him a pound note.

He had given Jimmy the money to rent a small flat on Bateman Street, just around the corner from the Shangri-La. He knocked on the door. The sound of barking came at once, close at hand, then Jimmy’s voice, ordering the dog to be quiet. The barking did not stop. The door opened.

Jimmy was exasperated. “This bloody dog––”

“You’re doing a fine job, uncle.”

“How much longer?”

Edward stepped inside and shut the door before Roger could get out. “I don’t know. Not yet. A few more weeks.”

“You must be joking. I’ll have strangled him by then.”

The flat was small: one bedroom, a tiny kitchen and a sitting room. It had come with its own furniture, none of which was in particularly good condition. The carpets were threadbare, the underlay visible in patches, and the paint was peeling from the damp that crawled up the walls. The dog’s bowl was pushed into a corner of the kitchen, scraps of food from the restaurant spilling out of it and all over the floor.

Roger reached up, his paws on his chest. Edward sat down on the flea-bitten sofa and scrubbed the dog’s ears. “Just don’t get too attached, alright?” He stretched out his legs. “Well?”

“They were there. Intimate, the lads said. He’d just given her this.”

Jimmy dropped a diamond ring onto Edward’s open palm.

Edward nodded. “Nice.”

“Expensive.”

“He doesn’t do things by halves.”

Edward had had Joseph followed for the better part of two days. Jimmy found the lads through a friend of a friend––Mancunian hard-men who wouldn’t be recognised in the smoke, who could be in and out of town in the space of a week.

“How did he take it?”

“How’d you think he took it? Johnny said he thought he was going to blow his top.”

“And they made it obvious they were with Spot?”

“Told him than once. He got the message.”

Edward held the ring up so that the light from the bare electric bulb sparkled through all the different facets. It was a shame to have to spoil Joseph’s big night but hadn’t he brought it upon himself? What choice had he left Edward? He had none. The Costellos given him no other options at all. They were blundering into a dreadful mistake and they just needed to be able to see it: he was the only one who could help them. There was no way he could just sit by and watch them destroy themselves.

He slipped the ring into his pocket. “How much did it cost us?”

“Fifty notes.”