Chapter 118

The news from Bullock Street came early on Tuesday morning. It had been done first thing, before most people were out and about. Done when they'd had most chance of taking him by surprise. Done when they'd had least chance of interference.

"Was surprised he was dressed to be honest, reckon if I was on the run and in hiding and not thinking I was putting foot outside my door I'd have been in my bed still," Scud said, grinning as he stood in Tommy's office, filling him in on what he had witnessed.

Tommy didn't return the grin, he simply nodded and dismissed the man.

So, it was done.

Campbell had accepted the address, had acted on it - swiftly - and had gotten the result.

He went out to the shop, stopping at his aunt's desk, "Pol - tonight - I need you to watch the kids."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The red brick semis with neat little front gardens, flowers under the windows and statues by the doors weren't what Tommy was aiming for. No, he wanted Rosie and Lily and Finn out of Watery Lane, but it wouldn't be for this. He'd get something detached. Something with stables and enough land he and Lily could ride around on - presuming he was right, that Rosie would let the bab return to the horse.

He wasn't interested in this - in being only a few rungs above away from Watery Lane on the ladder - he wanted the top.

He put his head down and walked on, leaving Rosie to head up the pathway of a house that had yellow flowers creeping up the wall. There was a bouquet of red roses on the sideboard in the kitchen now, ones he had bought that day to give her alongside the cake he'd bought. And the fish and chips, of course.

But the blood red of those roses, the deepness of them, chosen by him to demonstrate her high place in his esteem and in his heart - there was something intense to them. The yellow flowers that circled the door she was waiting at - which opened, the light from inside casting a hazy glow over her as she stood on the doorstep, illuminating her like one of the saints in a stained glass window - there was something soft and pretty about those yellow flowers. Something more every day about them than the roses he had given her.

No, he didn't want anything quite as pedestrian as these houses, he wanted to give her a palace, something befitting her status as his queen. But he wanted to see her in prettier places, in prettier clothes every god-damned day. Not because he thought there was anything wrong with the way she dressed, but because he wanted to give her the best of everything. He made a decision then to bring her flowers every week - and not always the deep roses he'd got her tonight, a homage to the ones he'd got her in London. No, he'd buy her arrays of flowers, give her a full meadow of them, week after week, small, pretty flowers, large, open and eager flowers, yellow and blue and violet and white. He'd give her them all, just because. Just because he wanted her to be surrounded by as much beauty as he could offer her, as much beauty as he could possibly bring to their grey corner of Small Heath.

Moss was waiting on the street corner, looking less than pleased. Tommy had hung about outside the station, caught him when he was going by. Told him to expect a visit that night. He imagined the copper's annoyance was due to that - he never did like it when Tommy entered his private territory, preferred to keep their business to Small Heath, away from here. But Moss lived near where Rosie's meetings were held so it had made sense for Tom to walk her and wait for her, to occupy the time in the middle with this.

Plus it did Moss good to be reminded that he didn't call the shots, didn't get to dictate where they would or wouldn't meet.

But it seemed it might have less to do with Tommy entering his territory, like a dog who was cocking his leg up and taking a piss just to let the other dogs know he could, and more to do with Moss' official employer.

"You've never seen anything like it Tom - well, you might have," Moss spat, giving him a look of disgust.

Tommy dragged on his cigarette and raised an eyebrow.

"He's got me interrogating him. Now, I'm not saying I've never used force during my time," Moss ranted, "But this Tom, this is something else."

"Interrogating him for what?"

"To admit to the source of the money, get it on the record that it came from Russia. He reckons he'll get a medal."

If he talks, you'll have proof - you might even get that medal. That was what Tommy had told the Inspector. It seemed the idea had taken hold.

"He got you asking him about anything else, Moss?"

Moss glowered, "Like what?"

Tommy raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, your brother in law," Moss smirked, the penny dropping.

Tommy tried to still the clench in his jaw that happened automatically upon hearing that phrase, not comfortable with the title.

"No, he's not mentioned him."

Tommy nodded, exhaled smoke into Moss' face, wiping the smirk off it, "I want an immediate report if that changes Moss. We made a deal. He gave me his word - I gave him Stanley and the money, he leaves Freddie and Ada alone. But I don't trust the war-shy fucker."

"If you ask him, he's been fighting wars in fucking Belfast."

Tommy snorted.

"He's learned his tactics somewhere," Moss insisted stubbornly, pulling them back on to what he wanted to tell him, what he wanted to get off his chest, "He's got me torturing him, Tom. Whipping him. Flaying him, actually. Blood running down his back and he won't speak." There was a desperation in Moss' voice suddenly, almost breaking as he moaned, "He won't fucking speak."

In spite of who he was and what he stood for, Tommy felt sorry for him for a minute. Christ, maybe he was going soft.

In France, he had asked why. Granted, he hadn't always gotten an answer that was satisfactory to him, but he'd always asked. He supposed Moss knew why. So maybe he had asked. But had he spoken up, had he said -

"Have you told Campbell no?"

Moss snorted, shaking his head, his eyes on the ground as he spat out, bitterly, "D'you think he'd listen to me?"

"Tell him you want to stop if you want to stop, Moss," Tommy growled, "Or quit whining."

Moss looked at him like a kicked puppy, his eyes wide and pleading for a second. Tommy half expected the man's bottom lip to tremble.

Tommy didn't trust Campbell. He'd gone after the kids - he'd as good as admitted it. And it took a certain kind of scum to target kids like that.

But he hoped his giving the address - and the fact it had seemed to take a hold of the inspector that a medal could be waiting for him if he made the most of having caught Chapman - would buy him off as far as the kids were concerned. Would mean the end of the business with Finn and George and the end of any worry over the files being noticed missing, or Rosie being dragged into it at work, implicated in it, having the work she had wanted to do jeopardise because of it.

He knew she'd been disillusioned slightly when she'd started, not that she'd explicitly admitted it, when she'd been stuck filing for Kenneth Maitland and not really doing what it was she'd envisioned herself doing. But yesterday had changed that, the kid she'd intervened on, stopped from being sent to the reform - it had reminded her why she'd wanted to do it in the first place, he could tell.

After the kids had been abed and they'd rid themselves of his brothers the night before, he'd pulled her into his arms on the sofa, cupped her face and kissed her softly.

"I'm so proud of you my love, eh? You know that, don't you?" he'd murmured quietly into her ear.

She'd sighed against him, sounding content, "I don't think I'll ever tire of hearing it said."

"I'll try not to tire of saying it then."

"Does it sound incredibly arrogant if I say I'm a little proud of myself?" she asked, her cheeks heating.

"No, why would it?"

"I don't like to seem too pleased with myself, Tommy."

He'd held her eyes for a moment, then sat back and yanked her down and over his lap, patting her arse firmly as he'd told her, "You and I have had words before, my girl, about you putting yourself down."

"I don't know that not wanting to sound arrogant equates to putting myself down, Thomas," she'd grumbled - though her backside had lifted itself, pushing into his hand.

He'd obliged her unspoken request with gusto, squeezing at her, getting quite the pleasing grope as he'd told her gruffly, "You're going to only ever speak well of yourself - you're going to be confident enough in yourself and your abilities to do that. And that includes owning it when you've done something to be rightly proud of, you hear me?"

He'd raised a hand and brought it down sharply, eliciting a little, "Ooh," from her.

"I said, d'you hear me?" he repeated, his hand beating a steady rhythm, his force firm and sharp.

"I hear you Thomas Shelby, you over-reactive baboon!" she'd said, glancing over her shoulder to give him a smirk.

He'd snorted, shook his head and set about putting enough of a heat in her that she'd eventually been squirming over his lap like a butterfly whose wings were beating furiously as it flew against a window, and offering a slightly more sincere sounding assurance that she heard him and she'd be better at giving herself due credit.

"Good, you're a smart woman, you've a sharp mind and you use it well, there's plenty to be proud of my love," he'd told her, rubbing at her arse with a heavy hand, the flesh deliciously malleable, before pulling her back up to sit in his lap.

"I still think I prefer it when you say it," she'd told him, threading her arms around his neck and pressing her mouth to his.

They'd ended up dry humping on the couch, like kids who'd snuck off and found a patch of grass to lie in away from a campsite whilst the adults were occupied. Too scared to take their clothes off in case someone came by and caught them.

Except no one would catch them. It was self imposed. Too scared to undress her in case he lost control. Too scared he'd fuck it up for her, get her pregnant and ruin her chances at her career. The chances that award she'd won at school had gotten her, through her brains and her hard work. No, he wasn't going to risk it. Wasn't going to risk her position. Wasn't going to risk being the reason she had to give up on her hopes and dreams.

And, that aside, if he got her pregnant, it was one more life to worry about whilst Campbell was around.

Campbell had told him that if he got fired, and it was Tommy's fault, then on his last day in power he would see to it that, 'You and your scum brothers have your heads stoved in with mallets and spades. And your sister too, that baby inside of her would be of no consequence to me.'

In Belfast, Catholic men who crossed him used to disappear in the night, that was what Tommy'd told them all back when Campbell had first arrived.

Tommy was sure the man saw himself as a devout protestant - and maybe there was a chance the protestants didn't value unborn life. Didn't make much sense, given even under the law they wouldn't execute a pregnant woman, would wait til she had given birth because they wouldn't condemn the innocent inside. Given under the law abortion was illegal.

Not that Tommy was convinced the law was based much on religion, any or its morality. They might claim it was about the sanctity of life, but he figured the abortion restriction was about keeping women busy with the carrying and birthing of children, keeping them from having the time to contribute to Rosie's beloved suffragettes and their continued fight. Keep them from being able to do what it was Rosie was trying to do. Kept people poor too, having too many children, kept them desperate, living hand to mouth, focussed on getting through each day - like his own mother had been too many times. No room to save or rise up the ladder when you were battling to try and find something to put in your children's mouths.

But Campbell's violent promises proved he was more of an animal than the law system he supposedly upheld. And Tommy was sure Campbell's precious religion was as opposed to abortion or contraception as his own Catholic upbringing had been (and on that note of contraception, Tommy had never tried it - but he wasn't going to. The army doctors had probably treated more men for the clap overall than they had for war wounds, and when the army had tried to do something about the way it - and gonorrhea, which stopped men from being able to fight, which was probably the real reason any action had been taken - ran through full companies by supplying the sheaths, they had been deemed to make sex so unpleasurable that men would still rather take their chances with the diseases. Like going for a paddle with your socks on, was how most of the men who gave them a go reported back. Well, when you were likely to die any given day, having unsatisfactory sex seemed like a terrible idea, you didn't want your last fuck to have been a bad memory, did you? And he was determined that when he did eventually make worship of her body with his, it was not going to be unsatisfactory for either of them. He'd held off this long, knew what he had to do to keep control, he could manage it a little longer.)

But the point was, if Campbell could happily make that threat on Ada, say the baby inside her was of no consequence to him, yet simultaneously see himself as some great defender of the faith in his deeds in Belfast - it proved the level of the man's self delusion. And someone with that capacity for self delusion couldn't be counted upon to stick to any guidelines. They could break them and still be convinced of their righteousness.

Which was why he'd asked about Freddie. He hoped the address would be enough of a gift to get the kids out of the animal's line of sight. Enough to get Rosie out of the danger of anything threatening her position at work. But he didn't really trust that it would be enough to do what Campbell had given his word it would - allow Ada and Freddie to leave the city peacefully.

Either way though, it would make Ada safe - and that was his priority. If Campell kept his word, they got to leave peacefully and whilst that would break Tommy's heart to see her go, he'd rather she went and was safe elsewhere that was kept in that rat hole Freddie had her in here, in the place Rosie had been so upset to see, on the run, hiding, trying to avoid the police. If Campbell didn't keep his word, the chances were Chapman would give them up. He might not be speaking yet - but if Moss was as rocked as he was by the treatment he was being instructed to inflict, the one he was inflicting it on would be rocked soon enough. If Campbell decided to break his word, to pursue Freddie, to question Chapman for that location - Chapman would give it sooner or later. And then Freddie would be forced to leave his rat hole, and either he'd take Ada with him when he had to flee, or he'd leave her and she'd come home. She was big now, Rosie had said so. She wouldn't be able to stay alone. She'd need help - women's help - when the baby came. And she'd need all sorts of help once it arrived.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

Pol nodded up at him from her place on the sofa as she processed what he'd told her, her lips pursed, smoke curling around her face from the cigarette she had resting between two fingers, having stopped smoking it whilst she'd been listening to him, taking it all in.

"If that's your plan - letting them know they've no choice but to go now or be forced when Chapman speaks, you need to get word to them Tommy," Rosie said carefully from her own spot on the single chair, only half glancing at Pol, "If he only finds out he's being forced out when the police arrive at his door…" She sighed and ran a hand through her mane, making it wilder than ever, as they all mentally imagined that scene playing out. "But I don't know how you can go about getting word to them about Chapman being lifted and explain to them that it's their ticket out without telling them about you being the one to hand him over. Without Freddie knowing Ada told you about the money in the first place…" she trailed off again.

There were things she didn't want to say - what would happen if the police caught Freddie and Ada in their hiding place. That Ada might get pulled in for questioning - that Campbell might actually make good on his threat and put her name on the arrest warrant too, get her done for sedition. If he had them both at his disposal, caught in his net, he'd likely make as much use of them both as he could. Probably not helped by the fact Churchill was becoming impatient, like he'd said.

And she didn't want to say either what she feared Freddie might do if he found out that using the money to secure safe passage for them had been Ada's idea in the first place. She didn't know Freddie. He had known him, and he didn't reckon his former friend would be the type to beat his wife. But then, he hadn't known Freddie for a while now, as he'd sunk more to his cause. And what he'd do if his cause was threatened - maybe that was cause for concern.

He eyed Polly far more blatantly than Rosie had done, and raised an expectant eyebrow.

"By divine providence, I know where Freddie'll be tomorrow. Alone," Polly said, rolling her eyes, taking a drag on her thin, black cigarette, tutting to herself as she lent forward and flicked the ash into the tray on the table before she sat back and went on, "And as for Freddie knowing about Ada snitching on him - Ada doesn't mind if he knows, but she doesn't want to be there when he finds out. Suppose she wants him to get it out his system before he sees her. She's daft at times our girl but she's not stupid. Not like that."

"And I don't suppose you'll be sharing that information with the rest of us, Pol? About where he'll be?"

She glowered up at him, "You made a deal to get them out safely, if you deliver that news yourself any notion of it being taken as a truce - any ideas it might give Ada about coming back into the fold one day - will be shattered and you're not stupid either Thomas, so I don't know why you'd need me to tell you that."

Tommy wasn't sure whether it was the chat about Ada not being stupid enough to want to be in the vicinity of Freddie when he found out what she'd done, or something that had happened at her meeting that made Rosie quietly contemplative after Polly had left. She lay with her head on his lap on the sofa, her eyes staring into the fire, not really focussed.

"Hey," he murmured softly, rubbing his thumb across her cheek, "What's going on in that head my love, eh?"

Her mouth curled upwards a little, as it always did whenever he called her any of his pet names for her and his own mouth mimicked it, gladdened by the slight movement.

"I was thinking, Tommy, about Mrs Clayton and Paul," she said, rolling onto her back to meet his eye.

"What about them?" Tommy asked.

She was taking food over regularly, checking in - she hadn't mentioned that anything was amiss.

"I was thinking maybe about asking them if they wanted to move into my old house - you remember I bought it with the horse money?"

He nodded. He remembered too well when she'd bought that house. It had been just after they'd all found out about Ada. She hadn't been speaking to him and he'd been terrified she'd bought the house so she could leave him.

"I just figured I could charge them less rent than they're paying, maybe make things a little easier. The money you gave her right after - it's tiding them over but Mrs Clayton's looking for a job and she'll not end up in a well paid one, if she finds one at all. She never worked the entire time they were married, he wouldn't let her."

There was a harsh anger to her last sentence.

"It's not uncommon you know," he said gently, "For all his faults, providing for his family wasn't one of Clayton's."

"Stopping her from having a job wasn't about providing for her, or wanting to take care of her, it was about stopping her from having any independence," Rosie said grimly, shaking her head, " She was barely allowed to go to the wash house alone, Tommy. Lived her whole life under his thumb and didn't know how to get out from it - and now she is out from it she barely knows how to function. She's still in the same routines she was for the most part, does her shopping and goes back to the house, barely speaks to anyone. She can't shake the terror he instilled in her off - it makes me sick."

"But you said she's looking for a job?"

"Yes, but she's so brow beaten Tommy, she's no confidence in her abilities. Doesn't apply for most of the ones she sees in the paper because she's convinced she's useless and won't be able to do them. Because he spent so many years convincing her she was useless and she can't unpick that just because he's gone, it's embedded in her."

He didn't know what to say to that, so he ran his hand across her furrowed brow as soothingly as he could.

She sighed, "And if she does get any interviews for anything she does actually go through with applying for, she'll go to pieces in them. She barely knows how to interact with neighbours, nevermind people who are employers, in charge of others, people she's convinced are so much bigger and greater than she is."

"So you think moving her into your old house might mean if she doesn't get a job it'll be something of a relief that she at least won't lose the roof over her head?"

Rosie nodded slowly, then, quiet fury in her voice, "I wanted to use that house to help women with children, women whose children might get taken off them by the parish. That's who this would be helping, that's who and what I bought it for. But Jesus, Tommy, when I first thought of it - I thought it would be women who were in dire circumstances who I might feel sorry for - and I do feel sorry for Mrs Clayton, I do." She shifted herself to be sitting up in his lap, shaking her head and twisting her fingers in agitation as she went on, "But I'm so fucking angry Thomas. At Paul Clayton. He's six feet under and he's made such a misery of her that his knife is in her from beyond the fucking grave. And I suppose it's what I get for imagining myself as some kind of fucking missionary, dispencing out my house to those in need, like I'm the great and the good of the world. It's like the universe is making sure I know this isn't ever going to feel like a good thing to be doing, even if it's the right thing to do - because nothing about the fact there's any need for it to be done is right or good and it's - it's miserable Tommy. I finally have this chance to put that house to the use I planned for it and all I feel is heartbroken over this woman who has no one else to help her and who is so broken she can't help herself, all because of one wretched man!"

Tommy wrapped his arms around her tightly and tugged her to him, tucking her head under his chin and murmuring, "I'm sorry, my little loli phabai, I really am."

He had known the reality of working for the council would hit her one day. That she'd see what a bed of corruption it was, she'd see how the government and the councils and those in charge really couldn't be counted upon to help the man on the street, regardless of what they were supposedly there to do. But he hadn't foreseen this coming.

As if his thinking about the council had brought it into her head, she went on, "I'm doing the work at the council to try and help. And I have this opportunity to help. And I am - I am glad I can help. But my only options are to get into these systems and try and help the outcome of the problems to be managed, to try and offer better solutions than people currently have. But it doesn't stop the problem. It doesn't stop men like Paul Clayton ruining lives. Taking young, decent women, marrying them and - and making them into shadows of themselves. Taking away all their self belief and self worth and leaving them like shells who have to cling to any life raft that passes them, no matter whether it's the right one or not because they've had their limbs cut off so they can't tread water, nevermind swim."

"You got rid of Paul Clayton so he couldn't do anymore damage though. That was your order," he reminded her quietly.

She gave a sad bark of laughter, "Came too late though, didn't it. The damage is done. And undoing it is going to take more than just getting rid of him."

Tommy's mind was whirring, trying to find something to say, something to offer, that might make her feel better. But he came up blank, time and time again. And in the end, he settled for simply holding her, bargaining silently with the God he would tell people he didn't believe in, that his contribution to fixing the problems she was talking about could be being the best partner, husband, father, adoptive father and brother that he could be and that if he was just granted the strength to manage that, he would pay it back somehow. He would do something. He would try and make it better, make it more like how she saw it, make it more like the way she wanted it to be.

Thank you so much to those of you still reading along and commenting, it really does mean the world that you've stuck with me this far!