A/N: Thanks for the feedback!
twenty-five
Swivelling their coal eyeballs, the crows cocked their bills toward me in consideration, rushing off in a flock of blackened feathers as I approached the headstones swallowed in sludge from a night of rainfall. The branches drooped, laden with the weight of those birds who settled there and watched from afar, turning those wet stares toward the flowers in my hand. I breathed the wilted scent of the older flowers that had long since withered against the headstones. I tossed them aside and placed a fresh flower on each plot, smoothed out petals and pressed my fingertips against my lips before I touched that cold stone to kiss each of them.
Before I left, I looked at the headstone that marked Esther, a few feet from the others.
Esther never made me think of warm things, not like I felt if I touched the engraved letters of DAISY or NELLIE. Alfie had given me the greatest gift that he could have in those early mornings spent sat together over papers and books in the factory all those years ago; it meant more than most people could understand, that gift, because I could brush each loop and curve and comprehend the letters without anybody to tell me.
I hardly ever even went near Esther's headstone. I hardly ever even looked at it.
"I read the newspaper this morning, Esther," I told her. "I read about the death of a Russian leader and I read about a murder in New York, too. I read it for myself. And I thought about how strange it was that the world had always been so big and so full of other people with lives just as meaningful as mine, but you never wanted me to know it. I used to think that the world was just Bell Road and those few streets around it, from which I stole watches and bracelets."
I heard the soft cawing between the rustling branches somewhere behind. The last of those gentle calls ruffled my scarf and threw its stitched hem across my cheeks. I was startled to feel a dampness there.
"I never missed you," I continued. "And isn't that the worst thing imaginable, to not be missed, not even in death? Especially not in death. I suppose that is all I could ask for, in the end – to be remembered and missed, because despite all those other things happening out there in that world so big and so full, you still meant something."
Crackling along the old dirt-road that led toward this field came a car which crawled to a halt in front of the one that I had arrived in, where Caleb stood, shivering in the cold. The doors popped open in creaking whines and three men stepped out. Their eyes watched me just like the crows watched me; darkly, knowingly. It had been two days, and there was still a storm to be had.
I turned away from the men who waited there, shadowy figures from a nightmarish tale. I saw the outline of guns in the arms just before I looked at the flowers.
"I will ask them to bury two more plots here," I said. "Over on the other side of the field. And by the end of this day, we shall know who will be buried there. And maybe one will be missed, maybe both. Or none will be missed. But I have been told that the world will always move on with or without you. And I was told that you either move, or it moves you."
I turned my eyes toward the clouds which rolled overhead, bulbous and grey.
"And I very much intend to move."
Squelching mud warned me of an approach. I sensed that it was not Johnny behind me, but a man much taller and much weightier in his gait. I inhaled the heady scent of an old cigarette, one that felt as if it had been stuffed deep into a tweed-pocket and pulled out for the occasion. The fumes furled around my clothes and licked at my cheeks in wispy tendrils. His shoulder bumped mine, brief and intentional.
"Thank you," I said.
His stare was fixated on the headstones. I wondered if he could read the letters there. "I regret the things that I said in that bakery," he told me. "Though I will not say that I did not mean all of them nor will I tell you that I do not wish that it had worked out differently between us, chey. But you called and I came. And I brought you all of forty men for whatever it is that you have planned."
I finally met his eyes at the mention of all those men, eyebrows raised. I had not expected that many.
He smiled coyly. "Most are men of Lee blood or closely associated. Some are Blinders. Johnny is very fond of Tommy. But it seems that fondness is well shared between them. Tommy has another surprise up his sleeve, so Johnny tells me. Not that Thomas Shelby would ever lower himself to tell us, though."
"Your words were cruel, Kelly Lee," I said. "And if you came here because you thought that I wanted to run from this world and run from Alfie, then you were wrong. But I want to thank you all the same."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Perhaps it will never happen, but I have always been a hopeful man, Willa. Patient, too. I will take that gratitude and keep it in my pocket like I do these cigarettes."
I smiled at him, though my lips were somewhat obscured by my scarf.
"You're still as pretty as you always were, chey," he said quietly. "Beautiful and loyal and made of fire. And I only hope your Alfie knows it."
For a moment, I had been more distracted by the full-blown honesty in his eyes and the sorrowful way that he held his cigarette between his lips and breathed those fumes like they had manifested his yearning for days that had long since faded into those hazy times of childhood. I wondered if he really did think those things. But most of all, I marvelled at the fact that he had said Alfie and not Jew.
"You're a good man."
"So I've been telling you all this time," he replied.
I glanced at him and caught his smirk. I rolled my eyes and bumped his shoulder before I turned to walk for the car.
"Willa," he called out.
I paused, looking back at him.
"I brought you all the men that I could – weapons along with them," he said. "And I will do all that I can to make sure that you come out of this. You. Because I do not want you buried here. I do not want you buried at all and if it had to happen, then I only ask that you let it be somewhere better than this."
I swallowed thickly. "I was born in mud, Kelly. Made of fire, you said, but there is mud in me, too. I can be buried anywhere. I would just rather be placed alongside Alfie, if I could be."
"Jack Murphy will not be the man to put you there," Kelly said. "Not now your kin are all around you."
I drank in those pale, bodiless faces which hovered beyond the thickets, always watching. I had not met all of them just yet, but I knew that most were cousins either through the Lees or even more distantly through a connection with the Shelbys somewhere along the line. It touched me more than anything to think that they had moved families and lives to be in this place with me, whether summoned by Johnny or Kelly or even Tommy in all his blueness.
"I want you, your brother, and Johnny in a car with me and Caleb. He'll drive us."
"And the plan, then?"
"I'll tell you as we walk to the car. We need one other man to join us. Choose anyone else you trust with your life."
"All of them," he answered immediately. "I trust every one of those men there on your side."
I smiled. "Then choose the one holding the biggest rifle and that will settle it. I'm freezing."
He reached to pull off his coat.
"Kelly," I said. "You're pushing it."
He blinked, then lowered his arms, his own lips ticking upward into a smirk. "Thought it would be what a gentleman might do."
"When have I ever given the impression that I like gentlemen?" I asked as we took off for the cars. "Look at who I bloody married."
ii
The ridged roof of the car seemed like the rungs of a rib-cage curled protectively around us as we bumped over dirt-roads and gravel toward the inner-most parts of London. Sprawled awkwardly out on my lap was a big map of the city that Kelly Lee had marked with circles and crosses, dotted lines and large scratches for each tiny alleyway that marked the territory of the Titanic gang.
Before Sabini had dropped from the race, he had owned the majority of the streets that the Titanic boys had then taken in the aftermath – and all the shops and houses and pubs and restaurants within those streets had been passed from Italian to Irish hands, a transition that normally would have been made with little rebellion because the people feared both sides.
But there was not an Irish surname among those families in that territory. All those families were Italian and any 'loyalty' to the Irish came only if a gun was pointed at them first.
"Are you sure about this, chey?" Johnny asked.
Caleb glanced at me through the mirror, his teeth drawn against his lip in concern.
I hummed distractedly, skimming the tip of my pencil over some pockmarked spots on the map. "Enough that I would take the risk."
Mitchell Lee whistled as he looked out the window, shaking his head with a smile. "And did your man agree to all of this, did he?"
"I never looked for approval, Mitchell. Only assistance," I replied. "And I got it."
The man licked his lips in agitation. "And where is he, then? Would he truly let his wife walk into a fight that he started?"
"If he wanted to end it, he would."
Scoffing, Mitchell leaned back in his seat and shook his head.
I crinkled the map and lifted my head to look at him. "If you want no part in this, Mitchell, then only say the word and you can take your leave."
"Your surname is now Solomons and it hangs around your throat like a noose," he retorted. "And I do not want to see you drop just yet, Willa. But make no mistake – I am here for you and my brother and Johnny. Not because I want to see your man spared."
"Then I can only do what I did for your brother and thank you. But I will not take the little snipes or jabs against Alfie and certainly not against myself."
"Willa, love," Johnny tried, forever quick to settle conflict, "Mitchell only worries for you."
"You can worry," I said to the Lee brother. "But just take off the safety and aim for their skulls while you're doing it."
I glimpsed the spark of pure surprise that shot through him, saw it fizzle and burn in the black pools of his pupils before I looked back down at the dense lines of the map. I had never been one for bloodlust and perhaps if Jack had approached differently, then I might have tried to reason with Alfie. Instead, Jack had sent in flipped coppers who had ripped Elijah from my arms and frightened him. He had battered my husband and he had burnt the only house that I had ever loved.
I was more than weary of resting along the side-lines, hoping that Alfie might sort out his own messes and that there might not be much collateral while he did it.
But there was Margate right ahead, which funnelled my vision into a tunnel, its blackness stretching long and wide in front of me, pinpricked by a beady dot of frothing foam curling against a rocky shoreline.
iii
Rapping my knuckles against her door, I hoped that she might find me through the small peephole and still answer, for the men idled in a car outside and there was still so much more to be done before daylight dwindled. I heard a shuffling behind the door and sagged in relief once the padlock lifted and the door parted. I saw Elijah first, his cherubic face peeking out at me, a fist placed against his mouth again. Softly, he babbled to himself and I felt that first rush of blueness that flooded my chest and slopped around as I moved into the hall, scrunching my eyes tight against that colour.
Once opened, I saw that Franny watched me, her lips tight and her shoulders drawn together. "What do you want, Willa? I have to put Elijah down for a nap soon, so please – just say what you want to say and make it short."
"I want to apologise."
"I thought as much."
"I am sorry, Fran."
"You do realise that you're apologising on his behalf, don't you? You must find yourself doing that a lot with a man like Alfie."
I was awfully tired of all these accusations and constant battles about Alfie. "He has tried, Fran. But it doesn't help when you don't open the door to him. And he pushed a letter through the letter-box. One that you pushed right back out in pieces."
"You wouldn't understand it, would you?" she snapped. "When your child is in danger and you –…"
Her throat dried out from sudden guilt. She brushed a strand of hair from her son's face and shifted her weight, taking in the frayed tufts that marred the rug beneath my boots. I felt this horrid prickling along my spine trailing upward from my tailbone, like it had cracked apart and colonies of ants had rushed from its shell. The ants scuttled from underneath my jawline; beneath flesh, shifting tendons and muscle.
"No," I agreed hoarsely. "I wouldn't understand. But I have apologised."
"I – I never meant it like that. I know what you and Alfie have been through, with children and –…"
The ants bubbled beneath my gums and popped out like sores, scraped at my teeth with their pincers and slipped beneath my tongue made of lead. The taste of them soured my words.
"I have things to do, Fran," I told her calmly, although my stomach churned and broiled. "I'm sure you're just as busy putting Elijah down for that nap, so I'll keep it short. You can accept this apology that has been offered to you more than once, or you can cling onto that pedestal you're on despite living in this house that was bought using money – blood money – earned by your husband through the same fucking business that my husband works in. And I know what you meant. I understand more than you think, even without a child in my arms. Miracles do occur, eh?"
Before she could right herself, I had opened the door and slammed it behind me, storming down the stairs that led onto the street. I breathed through a dense heat that clogged my chest and burned my eyes. I felt punched from all sides and I had not even seen Jack Murphy yet. I had always known that to be with Alfie was an uphill battle against my kin – against friends now, too – but still it was hard not to feel soft from bruises and damp with blood after each word spoken between us.
"Willa," Mitchell called from outside the car. He leaned against its bonnet, Caleb stood alongside him. The boy looked comically nervous beside the Lee brother, apparently attempting to push out his chest and appear a little tougher despite his lanky stature. "It's been arranged. He's waiting for you, now."
I nodded. "Right. Come on, let's go."
"You seem upset, chey," he noted, opening the door of the car for me. Caleb had reached for it at the same time and shrank away from the look that Mitchell threw him, clambering into the front seat instead.
"Just drive, please, Mitchell."
He hesitated for just a moment, his eyes latched onto me, but I prayed with all the strength that I had left in me that he would drop this matter, because I could only take so many punches before I shattered entirely. I heard the rumble of the engine and my head fell backward, bumping lightly against my seat, my eyelids fluttering shut in relief.
iv
His shoulders were furled inward like an injured bird. Perhaps that was the reason for which he seemed much smaller, his bark having become a rasping whisper more than its usual yipping of a small dog. I slid into the chair across from him and filled a teacup before I even greeted him. It had been such a long journey and an even longer day that I felt I had already emerged from battle, for weariness had laced itself into the marrow of my bones and dragged me lower and lower against the earth. I plopped three sugar-cubes into my tea and watched those white globs fade into brown.
"Do you consider yourself British?" he asked suddenly. He seemed to be in a reflective mood, his eyes distant and fogged from thought. "In a sense of your…identity?"
"No," I answered. "Only Irish."
"Ah, yes. Of the new Free State," he mused. "How funny it is, all the same, to live so long in a country, surrounded by those you consider to be familiar and connected to you – even if not of the same origin and blood – and yet still to be ousted so easily."
"You played a good game," I told him. "And you're still playing it now, otherwise you would not be sat at this table."
"Frankly, I had expected your husband. Not you."
"Are you disappointed?"
"Not at all. I have known your husband for many years, and I am loathe to know him any longer."
"But you would be willing to tolerate him if it meant you regained your former glory."
He stirred his own tea, taking a delicate sip, droplets coating his thin moustache. "Glory," he repeated, "does not exist in places like Chester Street."
"So, you truly have dropped out of the game."
"I never said that," he snapped suddenly, his familiar temper fleshing out his throat in a spurt of thunderous red and veins. "And anybody who thinks that is a fucking idiot! Before I ran this place, it was savages killing savages – I brought order and structure and old-fashioned fucking honour to this fucking pit!"
He burst from his seat, throwing his arms around in his maddened fury, spittle flying from his mouth. "And now you have that fucking Irish bastard thinking that he can make the rules and he can force my people to live beneath his fucking boot! They have come to me and begged for help, because he charges them far more rent and threatens them and beats them! He threw out some families and placed his men in their homes – I may have been rough myself, but I had rules, lines I would never cross!"
"Are you willing to cross them now?" I asked coolly. "To help those people – your people? Because if you want it all back, then there is only one thing that you would need to do."
"And what is that, Willa? Hm?" He dropped back onto his seat, fixing his tie and seeming much calmer, as if nothing had even happened. "Surely you must understand my suspicion. How do I know that you and your husband will not simply move into Chester Street and take it for yourselves?"
"Because I have heard this is no glory there. Besides – I can't stand Italians."
He sipped at his tea, shrugging his shoulders. "And I can't stand the fucking Irish. Especially those Irish Gypsies."
"Then let's call it a momentary truce," I decided, treading carefully now. "Until Jack Murphy is dead, any differences between the Italians, the Irish-Gypsies, and the Jews are put aside. Have we a deal?"
"Until Jack Murphy is dead," he repeated.
I spat on my hand and held it out for him to shake.
Sabini lifted his eyes to meet mine and did the same.
v
Caleb pulled the car in front of the hotel, where he cut off the engine and stepped out to open my door, but I sat there in the backseat for a few moments longer, looking out at the beige walls of the building. Finally, I hauled myself out and thanked him, tucking a wad of cash into his hand. I glanced around at those flats on the other side of us, thinking of those eyes that might be watching through thickened frames.
"Take the rest of the evening off, will you, Caleb?"
He seemed uncertain. "Mrs Solomons, are you sure?"
"I'll be staying here for the night. I have some things that I want to talk about with Alfie. But I will need you tomorrow," I told him. "Around noon, I want to visit Jack Murphy. I want you to drive me so that I can speak with him."
Caleb paled. "A-Alone? Isn't Mr Solomons coming?"
"He doesn't know about it," I said. "Not yet. But don't worry about me, Caleb. I'll be fine."
His hand still gripped the handle of the door, although I was sure he was unaware of it, because he looked so anxious. He nodded, though it seemed automatic, as if an unseen finger had tapped at the back of his hand and forced it to bobble forward.
"Go on home. Here." I reached into my pocket and pulled out another few pound to give him. "Take out a girl or whatever it is you do when you're not driving me and Alfie around, eh?"
"Thank you, Mrs Solomons."
I looked into his eyes, smiling. "Enjoy it. I'll see you tomorrow."
I had said enough goodbyes, thrown out throughout the day just in case, like Alfie had done before the war had come around and stolen him from me. I never said the word itself, but I had said it in my own way. So, I patted his shoulder and walked into the lobby of the hotel, my coat bundled around me. I continued up those winding stairs without looking behind me, turning the corner onto our hall, which stretched and stretched away from me.
I looked at the door. Room 203.
Then, I turned around. I walked toward a different staircase and followed its spiral, over and over, down and down, until I found a looming grey hall at its bottom. A faint wind whistled beneath the doorframe at the end. I thought of Mitchell Lee. I thought of Tommy, looking out over the black fields just before his wife died. I thought of his son, held in his mother's arms that night of the wedding before a maid had taken him away for his bedtime. I thought of our Elijah and all that Franny had said.
Perhaps that was what pushed me toward the doors so aggressively, my boots cracking against the ground of the alleyway where another car waited for me.
I climbed into the front, closing the door behind me. Kelly Lee dangled his arm out of his window, a cigarette fizzling between his fingertips, his eyes slowly dragging toward me with eyebrows held high.
"Do you think it worked, then?"
"Time will tell."
He nodded and dropped his cigarette, placing his hands on the wheel and pushing the car forward out of the alleyway. "Aye, chey, so it will."
vi
Sitting together in the car a little while later, I awaited another speech from him, but Kelly was silent. He looked out at the streets around us, tapping his fingertips against the wheel. Rain had begun to fall in languid droplets, sputtering from the laundry-lines which dangled overhead from the flats around us. I heard the splash of puddles behind us and glanced at Kelly, whose hand slowly lowered toward his waistband, where I glimpsed a flash of silver from a pistol hidden there. But his shoulders smoothed out at the sight of his brother, who tapped at the window quickly rolled down for him.
"You were right, Willa. There is an alleyway. We should get in from there. How did you know? Have you been in there before?"
"No. A long time ago, it was owned by a man named Butcher. Esther worked with him. He owned most of this side of town for a while, until the Italians took over."
"And what happened to him, then?" Kelly drawled.
"What will soon happen to Jack Murphy."
vii
Chester Street bustled with crowds moving around the old shops and pubs. Overhead, there swung a sign for a newly-opened seamstress. I wished, suddenly, that I had taken up smoking if only to have something to do with my hands while I walked toward a particular pub in the heart of all those other flats and shops all around, my palms hot and beading. I took a quick, sharp glance upward at the rows of windows just across from the flat and looked then toward the alleyways nearby.
I had always had a talent for slipping into crowds, melting into coats and scarves and market stalls. I had been doing it ever since I was a little girl.
The pub was small and homely; a fireplace crackled in its corner and reminded me of those pubs nestled in the more isolated regions of Ireland, where only the locals sat with pints in front of them, chatting softly, and I remembered how Johnny had always found somebody that he knew in these places, even if I had not recalled the town so well, only its fields and trees. Its walls were lined in photographs of people I had never seen before, posters with the map of Ireland plastered between them.
And there were only a handful of men sat at the bar. Some were his men, armed and casting wary glances at the whoosh of the door and its tinkling bell. The others seemed uninvolved, grasping their pints and pulling them closer, shuffling in their seats. Heavy curtains stifled the room, trapping it in its own heavy dust and misery.
Closest to the fireplace sat Jack Murphy with three children sprawled around his feet, playing with toys and giggling at their uncle whose eyes slowly found mine. His body stilled, stooped on a stool that seemed awkward for a man of his height. I knew, then, that he wondered how I had gotten this far without a copper there to prevent me; how I had invaded his space like he had invaded mine. And then his gaze fell onto the children around him as if it hit him suddenly – how exposed he was.
I pulled off my gloves as I crossed the pub, unfolded my scarf from my throat and set it alongside me as I purposefully took the padded seat against the wall where he already waited. The children glanced at me curiously but played with their toys anyway. Jack watched them first, then straightened out his spine as he turned to me, his lips peeling into a furious smile.
I had settled beneath his skin like those ants I had imagined, scratching and scratching at him until I left him raw and wounded. His jaw rocked sideways, thrown out of place and hastily torn back once more. He wanted to strangle me, and I knew because I saw it in the twitch of his hands, gnarled inward from his rage at my boldness.
"Hello, Jack."
"Willa," he nodded stiffly. "How are you, this evening?"
"Reflective," I replied. "Perhaps I could call it that. What I really mean, Jack, is that I have considered a lot of things since you visited the bakery."
"Then perhaps we could discuss it tomorrow."
"Tomorrow at noon?" I asked lightly.
He drew in a deep breath, rolling out his shoulders. "So, you found your leaking pipe."
"Like you said – it's an old bakery."
"Fine. You want to discuss it now. What are you giving me?"
When his eyes looked down at the little girl closest to him, I quickly glanced at the clock behind him and made sure to return my stare to him quick enough that he did not notice. Only five more minutes. I shifted, feeling the creases which filled my skirt and rubbed against my skin. I kept my expression cool and blank and even a little bored, slightly slumped in my seat, stare ghosting around the room with disinterest.
I wondered how Tommy had ever managed to make it seem so effortless.
"I am not giving, Jack," I told him. "I am taking. I am taking Chester Street. I am taking it all the way to Farringdon Road and all the way down to Preston. And I'm handing it over to a dear friend."
Jack laughed so loudly that the men at the bar flinched from the sound of it and the children glanced from their toys, looking between us. I had never wanted to have those children here, but I found myself peering through that tunnel, focused only on that faint pinprick ahead.
"So, this is it, eh? You come in here, you tell me that you're taking – taking everything – and you, what? You threaten my little nieces and nephews for it, eh? I never thought you would be so – savage."
His teeth glistened in the yellow light of this pub. He looked very much like the dogs did in the old days on Bell Road, when Alfie dangled a slice of meat above them, and each one waited his turn to tear it apart. I had thought that before about him. I thought it again and it made my stomach roll.
"Savage, Jack? But I only listened to what you told me."
His throat rippled. He took a sip of the pint on the table. Dangerously low, he asked, "And what did I tell you?"
"You told me about children on a playground and all those rules they play by – until they don't," I replied, smiling serenely. "And London is an awfully big playground. You have to know all its alleyways, its hidden treasures."
"Like you do, eh?"
"Like I do," I nodded. "Because I have been here most of my life. I have run from coppers in those same alleyways, run from men who wanted to hurt me. But there comes a point when you turn right back around and realise that there is little reason to run, anymore."
"Oh, I should think there is. How is your Elijah doing, after –…"
"After the coppers came? After you sent them?"
His gaze dropped to the children, quickly drawn back up to me. The corners of his mouth twitched from a snarl quickly smothered.
"Now, as you said during our last meeting, my husband does not like to play very much at all. But I do."
I uncrossed my legs and let my boots thump against the floorboards. I hit them again, just once.
"London is not for you, Jack. You should realise that."
"And if I don't?"
"Then you will know savagery," I whispered. "And you will know it very soon. And these men who sit behind you will know it, and the children at your feet will know it."
"You're bluffing," he replied. "Prove it."
"Send one of your men out into the street right now."
I delighted in how his chest rose in quicker breaths, if only because one child tugged at his trousers and showed him a little block in her small palm. He took it and smiled at her, but his muscles spasmed and it fell too soon. He shushed her, returned her to her games and then whistled at the row of men.
"Peter, would you mind stepping out there and seeing if the car for Mrs Solomons has arrived?"
Peter, a gruff and burly man, slid from his stool and made for the door with a curt nod. With every ounce of willpower in my body, I forced my features to remain as blank as ever, even when his hand reached for the handle and he opened it – and a sharp, needling sound hissed from somewhere beyond the market stalls and he fell violently against the door, his hand still held around the handle, blood splattered against the wood. It dripped slowly downward with chunks of flesh pooling at the bottom. Outside, the crowd of strangers scattered in fright.
Kelly Lee had known a talented sniper who fought in our country. He had called in a favour. Sabini had asked an Italian family to leave their bedroom window open, and it just happened to face this pub.
"You can let the children leave," I said. "You can ask one of those men to take them outside."
"And trust that you would not do the same to them?"
I wished that the children had not been there, and I wished that I had not heard their confused mumbles, their hands grasping at Jack. He pulled the youngest onto his lap and turned the others away. His skin had become flushed in a sheen of sweat, but I knew that he was not afraid for himself. He cared for the children. And it was just about the only thing that I was bluffing about in all this, was hurting them.
And maybe he knew that. But maybe he cared so much that he was not willing to risk it.
"You did not hurt Elijah," I said. "So, I will not hurt them. But this is the only chance that I am giving you to let them leave."
He swallowed, brushing his hand through the little girl's hair. She turned to look at me, her fists tucked into his collar; not one child had cried, and I was thankful for it. Instead, it seemed that they were confused and unsettled by the tension that consumed the room and seeped from all its corners like cobwebs torn out in a breeze, fluttering toward them.
"It is the only time that I will ever plead with you," he murmured. "The only time that I will ever ask anything of you."
"Pick one man to go with them."
He looked conflicted, but finally called out, "Mikey. Come here. Take them to Maria's, keep them there."
"Jack –…" the man mumbled, his eyes flashing between us. "Are you –…."
"Fucking take them!" Jack shouted, startling the youngest girl on his lap, who burst into tears from fright. "Nora, sweetheart, it's all right. I'll come 'round later tonight and tuck you and your sister into bed. You get your favourite story ready, eh? We'll finally finish it, won't we?"
Weakly, the girl nodded and dropped off his lap, her small shoes making a small thump against the floor-boards. I held my breath, remaining motionless with my heart thumping in my chest while I waited – she crossed the room, her siblings trailing along with her. Mikey covered their eyes the best that he could while they stepped over Peter, whose cold, glassy eyes looked at another poster. I sagged in relief but tried not to show too much in front of Jack.
"Let the local fellas go too, Willa."
"They must not be very local," I replied. "Don't look very Italian, do they? Don't sound it, either. Is it true, then, that you have thrown some of those families from their homes? Forced some of your men in there to watch over the street?"
He licked his lips. "They only work the small jobs."
"They still work for you. Besides, they will have no homes to return to, tonight. The Italians are tired of you taking over their street. They want it back."
"Willa, you are making a terrible mistake," he hissed. "One phone call from me and I can –…"
"You should have stayed in your own territory."
He paused, his mouth moving around words that never left him.
"You should have stayed in it, that little slice of the Irish side in this town, because then the people around you would not have been so willing to betray you," I stated. "The Italians – well, those people, they like to talk, you know, a little like the Irish. And they were more than willing to talk once we sent the right person in – Sabini. They told us all about your army – but it isn't really an army. You don't have that many men. But you made it seem like you did, with the coppers on your side."
His ears were stained in a reddish colour that matched the patches on his throat; we had that in common, a tell-tale sign of our fear.
"And you were right – the coppers are only loyal to the person who can pay them the most. And that was always going to be Alfie. And the Italians told us a lot of other things – they told us about your little hideouts, the laneways in which your men stand around with guns to protect you should anything arise. Why do you think they haven't come yet, Jack? Didn't you wonder?"
I reached into my pocket, pulling out that folded map of London, smoothing it out onto the table in front of him, nearly knocking over his pint.
"Those men along Preston Street," I said, tapping my finger against one circle, "were the first to be shot. Those men on Brick Lane, next. Abbey Wood – seven men there, all dead. I could continue, if you'd like."
"You could be lying."
"Have I not proven that I'm telling you the truth? Perhaps you should send out another man. And another. Until you can understand that you never had enough men on your side to start this war. That was why you always came to us, wasn't it? You came to the bakery alone the first time. I'm sure you had men then, more than willing to shoot and fight with you. And you came around the second time with coppers. So, I wondered, why was it always on our turf that you came to visit? Why could I not make a house-call to you?"
His hands gripped the table between us, a small and circular table marked in cuts and scratches and dried spots from sloppy drinkers. He was half-crouched from his stool, his eyes blown wide.
"London is modernising, you were right about that," I continued. "Some of these gangs are learning that they need to make sacrifices and band together more than they want to, if they want to rid themselves of little parasites like you that try to feed off their work. Didn't you say that you either move with this world or it moves you, Jack?"
He frothed from his anger. "If you were so sure of yourself, so sure that you could best me, why did you come alone, eh? Don't you think I could take a pistol, right now, and shoot you through your pikey fucking skull, hm? Because that would sure kill your fucking Jew husband, wouldn't it?"
"Who ever said that I was alone?"
Dramatically, he drew his eyes around the room and then barked out a harsh laugh. He looked crazed, so thrown by this change in circumstance that it had affected him more than I had anticipated. With aching slowness, he pushed away from the table and threw his arms out wide. His men had eased off their stools, their nervous hands inching toward the triggers of guns swiftly drawn out.
"Well, I don't see a fucking Jew or pikey here to protect you! Do you?"
I dropped my boot against the floorboards again – once, twice – three times in total. I threw my legs from them then, onto the long row of bare-bench seats that lined where I sat, clamping my hands over my ears and scooting far from the edge of the bench.
There was a moment of complete silence, right before the floorboards burst upward in coughing spurts of dust and splintered wood thrown around; gunfire reigned from beneath, from the cellar where the Lee men had waited all this time, their barrels aimed overhead, waiting for my signal to shoot.
Jack had been standing with his arms held out, but the bullets shot upward from beneath him soon riddled him and it seemed as if he was frozen there, spasming wildly against those hits that blistered through him. Around him, his men fell against the bar or collapsed forward, their chests splattered in stains that soon seeped through in garishly-bright red.
Jack stood a moment longer than all the rest. Then, he dropped and dropped hard.
I dared pull my hands away and I heard his death-rattle; it was a horrid, wheezing moan from somewhere deep within his lungs, blown outward from lips that trembled from the effort, and his eyes rolled wetly around the room, a thin trickle dripping from the corners once he found me.
Somehow, I had not fully understood that he was dying. I was not sure what I thought, when I stood over him. I only knew that that little pinprick in my vision had widened just a little bit more. I thought that I could hear the distant caw of seagulls and sunlight on my skin.
The door of the pub cracked open. I heard creaking floorboards, coated in a fine powder.
Jack was already dead by the time that little bell tinkled above them.
"I knew you'd drink in a fuckin' shit'ole, mate, but this is fuckin' melancholic, innit? Christ, Tom, this must be what you see every day down in Birming'am, eh?"
I followed the narrow gaps between the floorboards and trailed my eyes along his legs first, glossing over his chest, finally meeting his eyes. Alfie stood in the doorway with his best suit and cane, pursing his lips in disdain as he glanced around the place. Strolling around him, Tommy appeared with a cigarette already burning between his lips, his icy-blue stare gliding over the bodies strewn around the pub.
"Now, for Sabini, them blood stains are gonna give 'im a lot o' grief when 'e takes back this pub and this street," he said. "If I were 'im, eh, I'd go on and take 'em all out. Replace 'em, I mean. Do one o' them grand openin' kind o' things, afterward, what fuckin' common folk tend to do – oh, right, Tom, you did that with your pub down in Small 'eath, didn't ya? I were only jokin', mate. Proper nice job you did on that. Very nice, them golden statues of women with the –…
Alfie motioned to his own chest, squeezing at imagined breasts and shaking his head.
Tommy inhaled deeply, looking toward the shattered mirror behind the bar and muttering, "I should hope your ability to speak Russian is as strong as your ability to offer unwanted advice on interior design, Alfie."
"Oh, you are sensitive, you are," Alfie huffed. "Right, well – Willa, you did it, darlin'."
Blood poured from Jack in all places; there was not a spot of him left untouched by it, filtering from his hairline onto his forehead and cheeks, spreading around his mouth held wide in permanent shock, soaking into his collar and down along his arms until it swelled around his wrists in a puddle. He was slumped there by my boots and I felt bizarrely detached from it. I felt even more disconnected from Tommy and Alfie, because it was so totally normal for them to see bodies and blood that they chatted onward as if Jack was not there.
And I thought of those children sat in their beds waiting for their uncle to come and read a story that he would never finish with them. I felt bad for them – but I did not feel bad for the man who lay at my feet, gazing ahead of himself into a tunnel of his own.
"Willa," Alfie called. "There is still that leak to be dealt with. Come on, love."
viii
Slinking through the silvery dirt-roads that led toward the old field, our car chewed gravel and stray stones. I heard the thumps from the boot of the car and wondered what it was like for him to scream and cry there with a corpse pressed alongside him. On my left, Alfie sat and brushed his thumb over my knuckles. His mood had brightened with the death of Jack Murphy and the retreat of whatever was left of the Titanic gang – he had gained more than enough from it, though he had reluctantly agreed to a temporary truce with Sabini.
It had taken a lot to convince him that we needed the Italians on our side and that it was better to have the devil that we knew in town rather than continue with Jack any longer. Besides, Sabini was still so much weaker than he had been before, even with this reclaimed territory.
On my right, Kelly Lee smoked a cigarette and watched the trees sing around us. Branches rippled and waved, briefly touching the windows on those particularly narrow paths that took us uphill on a slope, until the car slowed, and I heard thumping doors and low, murmuring words passed between the men.
Kelly looked over at me. I felt his stare linger on my throat. I was not sure what Alfie did or did not do, but Kelly soon left us in the car, alone.
"You did it," Alfie echoed from earlier. "It worked out, Willa. It was a risky fuckin' plan, eh. If Sabini 'ad gone against us –…"
"But he didn't," I said, "because he wanted the Irish out as much as we did. Needed them out, if he was going to cling onto any power he had left. The Italians would have turned against him if he hadn't gotten Jack out. He was charging them too much rent, kicking out families as he pleased. Sabini needed some kind of back-up before he could take him on."
Reluctantly, Alfie mumbled, "Kelly did well, eh?"
I snorted. "I'll tell him you said that."
"You do and I'll deny every word," he replied, squeezing my hand. "I ain't givin' that prick any praise. Got an ego on 'im that could rival Tom's."
"Yeah, well, you owe Tommy now, too. He let Johnny take some Blinders to help kill off Jack's men."
"Suppose 'e is all right, Tom. When you get beyond all that broodin'. Fine, I'll 'elp 'im with 'is little Russian situation."
There was another fit of kicking and screaming from the boot.
"Did you suspect him?" I asked.
"Not at first," Alfie muttered. "I thought o' Ollie. Makes sense, don' it? With us all the time, knows what we do in the bakery, knows us more personal-like. But I trust Ollie too much for it. Soft in the 'eart and soft in the 'ead, our Ollie. Couldn't 'ave been 'im. I would 'ave went to me own grave denyin' it. So, I thought 'bout who stays with us the most, other than Ollie. Who knows where we go, when we go there – where we'll be, most o' the time."
I nodded. "I thought the same. And I tested it – he told Jack within a couple of hours."
"Then we do what we have to do, and we learn from it."
Alfie squeezed my hand again, and then again when I was unresponsive. Eventually, I nodded.
"We learn from it," I repeated. "But I don't want to do anything like that ever again, Alfie. It could have gone wrong. The girl – Jack's niece – when she stood, she stepped on the floorboards and made a noise. I was so afraid that the men in the cellar would think it was my signal if she did it again. That she could have been shot and it would have been my fault."
"But it didn't 'appen."
"But it could have –…"
"And I could 'ave died in France," he said. "And you could 'ave died when Sabini shot ya. And Tom could 'ave died instead o' Grace. But it weren't that way. So, you keep movin'."
Or it moves you.
ix
The two plots had been dug on the other side of the field, just like I had asked, far from the girls. I stood in the brisk, chilly wind that rolled over the hills. The clouds were purple in colour, flecked in blue and streaked in strips of light red. I looked into those deep pits and saw worms along the sides, pink and flopping and curling blindly against the soil.
Dragged across the fields, the first body was motionless and thrown from a bloodied blanket into grave; Jack looked up at those clouds just like I had, his skin now bleached in that horrid white pallor, his eyes coated in glass and surrounded in dried blood. His chest was peppered in blackened holes, pooled outward.
I remembered how Esther had looked in the hall of the old flat on Bell Road, how she had looked in the dim light that poured onto her. I remembered the bluish stain that had mottled Josephine's skin after her death.
But Jack was pale like snow and it bothered me more than I would have thought to know it.
Soon after, we watched another body torn from the boot, but this body kicked and wailed and screamed into the fields. Two men from the Lee family held him on either end, his lanky form stretched out and wobbled in their arms. It was Rory and Dara Lee who hauled him toward us and stood him before the plot of dirt that loomed behind him, but it was Alfie who tore the bag from his head and let him see his own death yawning there beneath his feet.
"Alfie," Caleb breathed. "Think of my sister –…"
"Did you think o' your sister when you went against me, eh?"
"Yes," he hissed. "I did."
"I paid you well," Alfie roared. "I paid you more than most lads what work for me get, and you went to Jack –…"
"H-He promised more," Caleb stuttered. "Enough that I could take my sister out of London – somewhere better, so she could be away from all this –…"
I felt a shudder along my spine that did not come from the wind and the fresh mist that fell around us in light sheets. I saw how desperately he looked at Alfie, his nostrils damp and his eyebrows pulled together in total fear. Alfie pulled a pistol from his pocket and the boy looked as if he might faint, stumbling an inch away, but swaying dangerously close to that grave behind him. He looked down at it and wept even more before he turned to Alfie.
"Alfie, please –…"
"You couldn't 'ave come to me and asked? Couldn't 'ave told me you wanted out, eh? Did I put a fuckin' ball and chain 'round your ankle, lad?"
"No – No –…"
"Let him be, Alfie. Let him take his sister out of London and away from us."
Alfie swung toward me. "You what?"
"It's finished, now," I said calmly, softly. "You know what the boy is asking for. We both know what he wants. We want it ourselves."
It carried over the wind and touched him. I knew it had, because he recoiled from it. He lowered the pistol, his jaw locked. Reassured, I stuffed my hands into my pockets and took a few steps away from them both, intending to turn back to the car. Kelly and Mitchell stood by the fence just ahead, watching from the blackness, and I hoped that one of them might take Caleb and drop him someplace where he could run from London with his sister.
The gunshot shrieked like a storm sweeping over the mountains.
The earth became silent and watching, just like the Lee brothers and the crows whose coal eyeballs turned toward us, darkly, knowingly; for the storm had been had.
