23 July 1919
"I must confess I'm surprised to see you so soon Miss Scott," the Inspector jeered, smiling at her from his desk, "I had thought it would take you longer than this."
Eliza had left Arthur in the very early hours of the morning to make her way home again with a mind full of conflicting emotions. A significant part of her knew that what she was about to do was wrong, but she also finally had the information she needed and to not go through with what she wanted to do, just because of the way she'd finally found out that information- that also felt wrong.
Arthur was a good friend, a good brother, and to have used him at his most vulnerable felt like an insult to him. When the guns were found, and when the Shelbys realised they were gone, it wouldn't take long for the pieces to be put together by him. But should that time come, Eliza had to tell herself she'd deal with it properly then- that Arthur would understand that the means were to justify the ends. He had to understand.
She'd come to the police station first thing in the morning, before she could back out, and the moment Eliza stepped foot inside the building, she had been ushered quickly and discreetly to Campbell's office. To see his face again as he looked up for his desk, dark eyes and understanding smile, it made her stomach twist, but- she just had to hope- if all went to plan, this would be the last time she had to see him at all.
"So, where is it that I will find the guns?" He asked, standing up with a sickening smile spreading across his face.
Eliza paused, wondered suddenly if this was all about to go horribly wrong, and then continued anyway.
24 July 1919
"Family meeting. Now."
The door had crashed open with a bang as Tommy strode into the betting shop, smacking the wall hard enough to make half the tables in the shop shake. He barked his order as he walked straight into the kitchen, throwing his cap onto the table before smacking the wood violently with the palms of his hands. Early morning workers in the shop, on seeing his anger, exchanged wide-eyed glances before taking off as quick as they could, leaving only the Shelbys- and Eliza- to make their way apprehensively into the kitchen.
His brothers gathered around him at the table, Polly rested in the doorway, but Eliza chose to lean against the back wall, as far away from the others as possible. Watching him cautiously, she crossed her arms over her chest and bit at her lip. Tommy was furious.
"Finn and I went up to the hill this morning," he began, clearing his throat but not raising his gaze from the table. "Danny Whizzbang's grave was dug up and the guns are gone. Men in Digbeth tell me it's the Coppers, but that's pretty fucking obvious on its own."
Arthur and John's voices rose in uproar, 'for fucks sake' and 'fucking coppers' being thrown around with ease. Arthur kicked the table leg and John let out a long, blasphemous string of curse words, the outburst quick and violent. Finn, eager to join in with his brothers, echoed John's words, kicking his own chair leg. All he got in return for that, though, was his aunt taking a step forward and smacking the back of his head, which he clung to with an enraged cry.
But even whilst dealing with Finn, even whilst her nephews clamoured on in the background, Polly's piercing gaze never left Eliza. She was studying her in the way only Polly was capable of doing, looking deep into her mind and wringing it dry for information. She was angry, disappointed, but also somewhat impressed- raised eyebrows hinting at her knowledge that though what Eliza had done was against all she'd been advised and ordered to do, at least someone was capable of standing up against Tommy to the end.
Tommy, who was standing silent as well, leaning against the table and slowly raising his head to look at her. He matched Polly's stare as Eliza's eyes found his- piercing, angry, but in no way impressed- the two of them looking at each other as if they held the power to kill within their eyes.
I know it was you, he seemed to say.
What else did you expect? She replied.
"How the fuck did they find them?" John spat, looking expectantly at his brother, "we need to find out who fucking ratted. Now."
"I already know." Tommy's voice was ice, his gaze burning fire.
Eliza looked back at him with confidence, challenging him with the hint of a smirk. What she had done had been for them all, and damn Tommy if he thought he could make her regret it. She would not be his to control.
However, from the corner of her eye, she noticed Arthur's movements stilling suddenly, and when she flicked her gaze towards him, her sureness faltered. Eliza's face fell quick as she found herself being looked at quite differently than by the other two. Arthur's expression was one of hurt and betrayal, blending into astonishment. She had known this would be the consequence of her actions, but for it to happen so soon, for him to realise so quickly and harshly- that she hadn't prepared for.
"Arthur I-"
"Don't fucking say it." He warned her, putting a hand up, "just tell me it's not fucking true."
She could do nothing but send a tear-filled, pleading gaze in his direction, opening her mouth to try and talk, but not finding any words to say. Arthur cursed savagely, turning his back to her and storming into the betting shop, flipping a table with his hand before collapsing onto a chair. She felt very sick all of a sudden.
"What's going on?" John questioned, confused, looking between the other four adults in the room and settling on Eliza, "what have you done?"
"Turned us over to a fucking copper that's what," Tommy sneered, shaking his head. "Betrayed her own family to save her neck."
"That's not fucking true, Tommy, and you kn-" She started forward, rising angrily to his bait.
But then, in one quick motion, Tommy had straightened his back and pulled a gun on her, the barrel aimed straight at her chest, the safety clicking.
"Thomas!" Polly cried out with a gasp, moving forwards to stop her nephew.
In unison with his aunt, John swore, his hand coming up quickly to push the gun back down. His brother, though, just moved his arm out the way, the gun still trained on her. Eliza froze in her step and for the first time in her life Tommy was actually successful in making her take a serious and anxious pause. The fury on his face, the hostile and malicious look in his eyes, all told her there was every chance he'd pull that trigger.
"Another step and I shot."
"Tommy what the fuck are you doing?" John tried to reason, managing to push his brother's hand down at last. "Will someone tell me what the hell is going on?"
"The Inspector threatened to hang me and Tommy," Eliza spoke quickly, getting in first with the hope it might in someway aid her defence. "I had to find out where the guns were and tell him or we'd be arrested again. He has warrants ready, whole cases compiled with witnesses, evidence, fucking everything he needs to see us on a rope. I just didn't know where the guns were, and Tommy refused to tell, but Arthur told me about Danny- that the guns were buried in his grave. Yesterday, I told the Inspector."
"Alright," John nodded slowly, listening to her reason, "she says he was going to hang you Tom, if she had no other choice-"
"She had a fucking choice." Tommy interrupted, stepping away from his brother and moving around the table. "I told you not to- don't you understand that this fucks everything up! You betrayed us to a copper, a fucking copper!"
"He was going to hang you Tommy!" She argued.
"And he still will! You think this changes anything?"
"He promised me-"
"He promised you?" Tommy laughed harshly, "and you trust the word of a man who blackmailed you and kept you locked in a cell, do you?"
"He was not the reason I was in that fucking cell-" she countered resentfully, only to be cut off.
"No, I'm the reason, right? I'm the reason you were in that cell- that's what you were going to say, ey? Well now we're even Eliza, because you are the reason we've lost those guns, lost our only hold over the Inspector, the only way any of us wouldn't be killed by him. When he comes now to arrest us all," Tommy lifted the gun again and gestured at her with it, "you'll be the reason we're all dead. Now leave this fucking house before I kill you."
"Kill me?"
She tried to laugh at his words, but the way they were spoken- so calm and so chilling- meant they felt like anything but a joke. Eliza looked around the room at the others.
Polly had been shocked into silence at his words, and looked at least a bit concerned, but she made no move to help Eliza, only shaking her head with distaste when she caught her looking. John and Finn both seemed utterly unsure on whether to defend their brother or her, and Arthur still hadn't moved from inside the betting shop, his back turned, cold and shut-off.
Eliza's gaze moved back to Tommy. She looked at him in disbelief, his piercing eyes and outstretched arm, finger on the trigger and silver barrel trained between her eyes. The memory of her conversation with Polly a few days ago came suddenly to mind, when they'd sat hardly a few steps from here and Eliza had commented on how much things had changed.
She wondered about that now- how people could go so quickly from friends, to falling in love and then finally end with guns aimed at heads, the last remnants of a relationship torn and scattered before them. Wondered how that could all happen so quickly, change in the blink of an eye. Yesterday they'd been cold to each other, just angry over a fight and not yet cooled off- now he wanted her dead.
Tommy had changed- as any one would given four years and devastating war- but what he'd turned into was just now dawning on her. This was not someone she could save, not someone she could understand and not someone who wanted her to either. She would always love Tommy, but love no longer felt like enough.
"Go on then," she spoke at last, quiet with cruel malice in her words, "shoot me, Tommy. Just pull the trigger and get it done. Quick, painless and you won't have to worry about me fucking up any more of your plans."
She turned her head to face the others, looking at them all.
"One day- I swear- you will all have your turn standing here, his gun at your head because you didn't follow his every fucking word. You want to kill me, Tommy?"
She turned back to him, shaking her head and looking at him with vicious scrutiny.
"I'm not afraid. I've seen death and I can tell you it's more peaceful than living- but I swear on my mother's grave that if you are the reason I die Tommy, I will haunt you until your last fucking breath. You know what, if you wont listen to sense then so fucking be it, I'm done trying to show you any. I'm don't with this all, I'm just done."
Her voice broke at the end, and she flung her hands into the air to make up for what she couldn't say, turning on her heel and walking out the back door. It slammed shut behind her, the noise echoing in her mind alongside every word spoken in those last few minutes, an endless loop of cruel exchanges.
Eliza strode quickly down the back alleys, not bothering to think about where her feet took her, too caught up inside her head to even look up from the floor. She left it to other people to move out her way, to her subconscious to take her somewhere safely and to her thoughts to continue their torture.
Full light dawned during her walk as the day arrived, and it was unclear how long she'd been marching for when an arm shot out, just she was about to enter into main road, catching her by the stomach and yanking her back. She turned to the side, alarmed, but stilled once she noticed it was only Curly who was gripping her, a strange look on his face.
"Curly are you alright?"
"Coppers out there!" He whispered, eyes wide and panicked. "Coppers that say they're looking for you and Tommy!"
Eliza's eyes grew wide to match Curly's, and she peered quickly around the corner to confirm his words, taking notice of a large group of policemen running down the road. She backed away quickly, moving to flatten herself against the alley wall next to Curly, thankful for his presence. Had he not been there to stop her blind marching, Eliza likely would have run straight out into them.
"I was c-coming to find you and Tommy," he continued, a hand holding onto her wrist, "lucky I stopped you!"
"Lucky indeed." She murmured, closing her eyes to try and think. "Curly do you know the time?"
If she could figure out how long she'd been gone, and where she was, she might be able to get back and warn Tommy before the police reached him.
"Midday." He answered briefly, poking his head out the alley again.
"Where are we?"
"S-south of Charlie's yard."
"Good, we're not far then," she breathed a sigh of relief, knowing she could only have been walking in a circle, even if it had been hours worth of circles. "I need to go and warn Tommy, Curly."
"I can warn him- you need to hide."
"We both do." She turned her head to look at the man beside her, "Curly can you get a boat ready to go in ten minutes?"
He nodded, and she smiled at him.
"Ten minutes and we'll be at the yard. If not-"
"Get Charlie and go to the police station," he stated grimly.
"Yes." She agreed, as bleak as him.
He squeezed her wrist, and then released it, the pair taking off in opposite directions, both running. Eliza was glad of her sturdier choice of footwear today, boots keeping her from slipping in the mud as she ran, her lungs burning. She moved as fast as she could, knocking into adults, children and animals alike as she made her way down alleys and to Watery Lane. The back of the Shelby house came quickly into view and before she knew it, she had crashed through the back door, chest heaving as she came to an abrupt stop in front of the kitchen inhabitants.
They all stood around the table, heads snapping sharply to the side as she entered, like wolves to their prey, hands darting inside suit jackets to arm themselves. Tommy was only one to actually draw his gun.
"I told you to-"
"Leave this fucking house or you'll kill me- yeah I know." She echoed his words quickly, taking sharp breaths. "But we really don't have time for this. I was wrong, alright- I believed that the Inspector would keep his word but he hasn't, and now they're coming to arrest us. If we want to stand a chance of getting out of here we need to go now, Tommy."
There was silence, and a pause much longer than she could bear, her chest still heaving and her eyes wide.
"I'm serious- we need to fucking go!"
"Why should I go with you? Why should I even believe you?" He questioned aggressively, though his gun dropping to the table was enough to consider her plight basically won.
"Why would I bother lying about this?"
"Well you've had no problem betr-"
"Oh shut up Thomas." Polly interjected, rolling her eyes. "The longer you fight, the more time you waste. Go with her." He still didn't move, but he shifted slightly under his aunt's gaze. "Now!"
Her final words were enough to make him nod, tucking his gun back into the holster and swiping his cap from the table as he crossed the room to Eliza.
"Keep everything going as normal," he turned to address his brothers, "I'll be back as soon as this has blown over."
John nodded at him, Arthur more reluctantly a few seconds later, and once satisfied Tommy twisted on his heel, stepping around Eliza and wrenching the door open. She followed, shutting it behind her and looking up at Tommy as he stared down at her.
"Follow me." She said, grabbing his hand and dragging him after her.
She wasn't sure why she'd done it, but he didn't pull back and so they ran together swiftly, her lungs burning once again. Eliza could appreciate the benefits that the fighting and beatings must have on Tommy and his brothers as he was soon the one pulling her along, following the directions she gave to arrive quick to the yard, ushered down to the Cut by Charlie- who took further instructions from Tommy over the upkeep of business and being the one to contact him once things were calm- and then helped onto the boat with Curly, Tommy subconsciously supporting her waist as she climbed in, distracted with talking to his uncle.
"Where to?" Curly asked once they were both in and away.
"London? Or up North, maybe-"
"No." Tommy cut in, shaking his head. "They'll have blocked off all the routes out the city by now, we can't leave Birmingham. Take us as far as Olton, Curly. I know someone there who can house us."
The someone in Olton that he knew turned out to be the owner of a pub they sold stolen whisky to, called The Hangman, which was an unnerving name given the circumstances, but it had good food and even better rooms and so after a hot bath and glass of stolen whiskey, its title felt a lot less foreboding.
The water was close to being cold by the time she got out, hair dripping water onto the wooden floor as she traipsed to the edge of her bed. Tommy had been downstairs for most of the afternoon and evening, being kept up to date by a steady flow of trusted visitors, despite her protests that people knowing they were here made the whole thing pointless. But he hadn't been interested in anything she had to say, forcing her instead to remain shut alone in her room. It was boring and tiring, but gave her plenty of time to think- time she hadn't thought she'd need anymore of after her weeks alone in prison.
Eliza sighed, closed her eyes and kept them shut with the palms of her hands, shaking her head at herself. She wasn't sure what it was that made her the most stressed: the panic of running, this morning's conversation, Tommy, Arthur or the fact that she had been so foolishly wrong about the Inspector.
He'd sworn her betrayal would put an end to the whole fuss of arrests and imprisonment and yet clearly that was not the case. She had been wrong and Tommy had been right. It made her very tempted to scream. A harsh knock on the door prevented that.
Pulling a blanket over her shoulders and doing her best to hide the fact she was wearing nothing but underwear, Eliza walked over to the knock and pulled the door open slightly. Tommy stood before her, leaning against the doorway with a glare.
"Can I help you?" She asked impatiently, opening the door further.
She didn't miss his eyes darting down to glance at her bare legs as he considered the question.
"I came up to say that we're fine for now. They don't know we're here."
"Good. Is that all?"
"And that what you did was fucking stupid."
"Ok."
"And I was right- that giving him the guns wouldn't stop him."
"You were."
Tommy seemed taken aback by her admittance for a split second, giving her a furrowed and inquisitive look as if he expected there to be a catch.
"I mean, one way or another he was going to do this," she added, as the catch. "But still- about the guns- you were right, and I'm sorry."
"Right." He nodded dismissively, but his glare softened.
"You can't completely blame me though. If you weren't such an arse it might be less tempting to not listen to you." Eliza teased- though it wasn't much of a joke.
"If you weren't so fucking obstinate I might not have to be such an arse."
"Fair point."
"Or so fucking selfish, or self-righteous, or if you didn't fuck with my mind as much as you do, or if-"
His sentence faded into nothing and he clenched his jaw, eyes looking exasperatingly at the ceiling.
"If what? I'm sure there's more Tommy," she prompted.
But he didn't continue, pushing himself off from the wall instead and standing up straight in the doorway, looking down at her as his glare returned. There was something different about this glare, though, and it wasn't so much hateful this time as it was consuming, overwhelming in the way he seemed to take her all in, angry not at her but at himself.
Before she could consider what that meant, though, he gave her the answer, kissing her suddenly.
Tommy was at once pushing her back through the doorway, blanket falling from her shoulders as he kicked the door closed behind them, his mouth on hers- hungry and forceful, though her response exactly the same.
It felt close to a fight, as his fingers tangled in her hair and pushed her head back, and as she pulled his face towards him, hands moving from his jaw, to his neck, to his shirt that she began unbuttoning. There was a fire within her as she felt his touch, the way it ignited her skin and made her gasp things unfit for holy ears. Tommy's arms snaked down onto her thighs, lifting her up so that she could wrap her legs around his waist, her turn to tangle fingers through his hair and push his head back for easier access.
Her lips parted, his tongue soft, the both of them dropping back onto her bed as they reached it, Eliza pulling his undershirt over his head and arms, forcing him to pull back, knelt between her legs. They stared at each other once the shirt was gone, deep breaths filling the silence of the room, her fingers trailing gently down his bare chest and his gaze drifting tenderly over her bare body- the few items of clothing she'd had on, lost at some point during their battle.
Now- slow, silent and naked- would have been the time for the regret to sink in, for the understanding that what they were about to do went against everything they'd already said. But sometimes actions speak louder than words.
Tommy lay a hand on her waist, fingers stretching over her rib cage to brush against the bottom of her breast. He leant down, warm breath against her neck as he pressed an open mouth kiss to her collarbone, making his way up with enough pressure that she could already picture the dark marks that would be there come morning. He reached her lips, kissing her softly. His other hand rested close to her head, so that he could support himself above her.
"I can stop." He murmured, kissing her again.
"No." She felt the muscles on his back as she pulled him down closer. "Never stop."
I said this was the last chapter, but I wrote more than i meant to so enjoy this, and the final chapter of part 1 will be out soon :)
e x
(07/04/21)