TW: The chapter contains the mention of rape. Nothing graphic. Not depicted.

Chapter 75

Despite what he'd told her about them being fine, when he found himself wandering into the kitchen around lunchtime, as had become his routine, the next day only to realise she wasn't there, it made him feel a little lost. He stuck a fresh cigarette in his mouth and poured himself some beer, not bothering with the soup if it wasn't going to come with a side of her presence.

Polly arched an eyebrow at him as he wandered back into the shop.

He supposed, really, he should go see Grace. Cheltenham was tomorrow and he hadn't been to the Garrison much to tell her anything about the plans. Arthur and John had been clued in and he was leaving it to Arthur to brief the rest of the boys.

With them all gone, the shop would stay shut the next day. They'd lose money by being closed, but they'd take the bets today ahead of the races and pay out what needed paying out the day after. Polly had insisted she could run the shop alone, but he wasn't willing to take the risk. He wasn't having Rosie or Lily being in the house with no men around, even if Polly was willing. Not given what had happened the day they'd gone to the fayre. And it wouldn't be happening again that they'd be home with no men in the house – not after tomorrow. Not for a while at least. So best to make sure that was made clear now.

The war with the Lees had been non-existent so far since they'd sent their bullet, as far as he could see, but if Arthur and the boys were successful in taking back the money tomorrow as per his plan so that he could present it to Kimber – well, he imagined the Lee's would be seeking some kind of retribution and he wouldn't be leaving the house unguarded.

"How d'you reckon Katie's getting on looking at paintings?" John snorted as Tommy wandered up to the board, where his younger brother was chalking the odds, rubbing off Katie's illegible writing from earlier and replacing it.

Before they'd left, Katie and Lily had delivered breakfasts to John and Arthur, whilst Rosie had brought him his, and John had wolfed it down, swung Katie up and let her help him with writing up the morning odds. Tommy hadn't intervened because it had made Rosie smile to see it happen, but his niece's hand writing was truly bloody awful.

"Ah I reckon Rosie'll have made it interesting enough for them – and they were getting taken for lunch in town after, so that should make up for having to look at the fucking paintings, eh?" he replied, smirking slightly.

"I've never bloody been, didn't even know we had an art gallery," John said, shaking his head.

"Knew it was there. Can't say I've ever been in it."

"Well, the women of the family will be more cultured than us lot anyway, eh?"

"Aye," Tommy snorted, "They can be cultured and we'll be the ones who bring in the money to pay for their culture."

"Speakin' of the women," John said, looking slightly awkward, "You – eh – you heard from Ada?"

He shook his head, "Heard from Freddie. He's not takin' Polly's ticket to America, they're staying here apparently."

"Right?" John replied, looking at him – it was a question of some sort.

"What?"

John shrugged, "What you saying to it?"

"Coppers are threatening to put Ada on the warrant if we don't turn Freddie in."

"Freddie's your best mate."

"Was."

John scoffed, "Right."

The single syllable wasn't a question this time.

Tommy sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "If it comes to it and it's Freddie versus Ada, John – then what's past doesn't matter."

"If you say so."

"I do."

John didn't reply.

"Don't bring up Ada to Arthur, I need him on good form tomorrow," Tommy ordered, changing his tone from conversational to directorial, finding it easier, "And mind and keep a bloody eye on Finn."

John raised an eyebrow but nodded, not arguing.

Tommy turned and headed out the shop.

With Rosie, he knew her feelings. He knew she was missing Ada and, on top of that, he knew that there was a hurt and rejection still lingering from whatever the bloody exchange they'd had when Ada had accused her of being his lapdog had been. He knew she was hurting. And he knew she thought, despite all of that, that the best way forward was for him to let Ada and Freddie be. He didn't agree with her, but he understood her. And he knew, for all she wanted him to 'see sense' as she'd put it at dinner the night before and talk to Ada, that she at least knew how he felt about the whole god-damned situation too. Even if she didn't agree with him, either.

But with John – or Polly – or any of the rest of them… Whenever it came up in conversation it made his hackles rise. It was like every time any of them voiced it, they were making it perfectly obvious that they were all thinking about how he'd fucked up with Ada all the time - and wondering how he was going to fix it – as if there was nothing else any of them had to do with their own time and energy but focus on his mistakes. It irked him, having it brought up – even if he suspected they all brought it up less than they would have liked to. Yet still, it was like they all thought he wasn't fucking concerned and they asked as if to prompt him to remember and take some action. Well, he was fucking well trying.

He sighed, throwing away his cigarette as he approached The Garrison. It all came from a place of concern, he understood that, somewhere underneath his annoyance. And Rosie had told him, the night he'd come home and told her how he'd fucked it all up with Ada and that he'd understand if she left because of it, that she didn't think he'd fucked anything up in letting it happen in the first place – and she'd insisted no one else was seeing it as his failure. Projecting. That's what she'd called it. He was projecting his own views of himself onto everyone else. Supposedly.

"Your sister was here," Grace told him when she entered the snug with a bottle and a glass for him.

Fucking wonderful. Another person who wanted to talk to him about his fucking sister. He sat down, not replying, trying not to engage at all as she came forward and placed the drink down in front of him. Without looking at her, he leant forward to pour for himself.

"She was worried – you and Freddie…" Grace continued, not taking the hint that he didn't want to discuss it with her, "It had made her sick."

Right. So, not only was she not going to take the hint, shut up and go away – she also thought she was going to stand there and attempt to chastise him.

"She's alright but in her condition, she needs peace," the barmaid pressed, before adding, almost with a slight threat to her voice, "Women talk."

Didn't he bloody know it. She talked. Had talked to Rosie the other day, hadn't she? Had casually been telling everyone that Ada had been in and that she had told her that Freddie had gone to meet him with a loaded gun. He wondered – and worried – about what else Ada had told the bloody woman. Maybe she had been candid with Rosie for a reason.

He realised, as he raged internally, that she wasn't going to give in either – not without a fight. Bloody women. Bloody hens. Clucking away whilst emotions and jumping to conclusions and filling in blanks on their own whims shot out of them like eggs. It was what had intrigued him about Rosie in the bloody first place, was the lack of fucking clucking.

"That is something they do," he agreed with her in a dull, emotionless voice, still not looking at her and busying himself lighting a fresh cigarette.

"She talked about you. Said you keep everything locked up."

"Well," he said, shaking out the match, "That's what men do."

"Your sister's nice, I like her," Grace went on, still not taking the hint that he had barely glanced in her direction.

He picked up the glass and continued to look towards the window and not at the blonde woman as she droned on, "Can't be easy for her – her brother and her husband fighting over the same thing."

He finished his drink and put the glass down, his eyes tracing the knots on the wooden table.

"Men should talk too."

There it was. She wanted him to talk to her. She wanted something from him. He wondered, again, more acutely what exactly Ada had said to her.

His anger and ire left him as he focussed, finally glancing at her and questioned, "To you?"

"Why not? I'm a barmaid, it's my job," she replied.

Her job indeed. He looked away and allowed himself a small laugh. What barmaid would come and stand in the snug, insisting on keeping talking at a Shelby who evidently didn't want to talk. Any common barmaid would have had more fucking sense.

She seemed to take his laugh as some kind of encouragement and her voice picked up tempo as she said, "Men always tell their troubles to a barmaid. What is it you and Freddie are fighting over?"

There was the question, eh? Can't be easy for her – her brother and her husband fighting over the same thing. That's what she'd just said. So, she knew they were fighting – but she didn't know what about. Ada hadn't said what about. He wondered if Freddie had told Ada about the guns. He had told Rosie after all. He half wished he hadn't, wished he hadn't burdened her with the knowledge. But he had. He trusted her. He wondered if Freddie trusted Ada. Wondered if Freddie even had any real regard for Ada, or if he had just wanted her surname and the access he thought it might grant him.

Whether Ada knew or not – she hadn't told Grace. And Grace wanted to know. That was why she was standing where she was, forcing her presence on him.

And the irony was – she wanted to know about the guns. That was what she thought the answer might be, he figured. But the truth of it was, they were fighting over Ada. Over which of them Ada belonged to. He imagined that making its way back to Inspector Campbell. It amused him for a second, to imagine the delicate, softly spoken woman standing in front of the gruff Chief Inspector, explaining to him that Thomas Shelby and Freddie Thorne's conflict was over his sister, and not anything to do with the guns they'd been dispatched to Birmingham to find.

Then he realised, if that ever did make its way to Campbell – it would be a fast track to him acting on the threat, a fast track of getting Ada put on the arrest warrant.

He swallowed, then reached for the paper – deciding the best course of action was to change the conversation, and, ideally, to bring forward the end of it. He opened the paper to a random page.

"I'll meet you here at nine o'clock tomorrow morning," he told her, turning the page over, not looking up from it and not seeing it at all, seeing Ada's face instead.

He needed to focus. He wasn't here to talk. He was here to discuss the plans for the next day. The plans for him to use the barmaid, whether she was who and what he thought she was or not – the plans for her to be a bargaining chip for his negotiations with Kimber.

He supposed he had to look vaguely interested, so he glanced up at her, acknowledging her as he asked, "Did you buy a dress?"

"Yes," she replied, nodding, "I bought a dress."

"How does it look?"

She smiled and nodded and he turned his attention back to the paper. She left the snug without pushing him any further. Compliments. Making her believe he cared about how the bloody dress looked – even when he'd been blunt enough to tell her that it wasn't him she was dressing up for in the first place. Whether she was who and what he thought she was, women were more malleable when you complimented and flattered them.

Women other than Polly and Rosie. He reckoned he'd have made an easier life for himself if he had picked a woman who clucked and busied herself with making noise.

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

"How was the gallery then?" he asked Lily and Katie, who were out on the lane when he entered it as he made his way home.

Katie shrugged, "Alright – we played hide and seek."

"Hide and seek, eh?"

"Yeah, Rosie made us hide behind some statues and stay still and silent until she came to find us."

Sounded less like hide and seek and more 'you hide and I'll tell you when you can come out' to him.

"Well as long as you had a good time – and behaved yourselves for Rosie?"

"We behaved Uncle Tommy," Katie told him, rolling her eyes.

He shook his head and fought not to roll his own, remembering when she'd moaned to him before about being told off for eye rolling and how no one got on at him when he did it.

"Good," he replied, "And you got taken out for lunch as well?"

"Yeah," Katie said, smiling more widely at that than at her talk of the gallery, "I had a sandwich with ham and cheese - and tomato, but I didn't eat the tomato - and soup and cake and ice cream."

"Well you won't be needing to eat for a week then, eh? How about you my little love, what did you have?"

"A ham and tomato sandwich and strawberry ice cream," Lily answered.

"Did you eat your tomato?"

She nodded.

"Good girl," he said, patting her on the head, "Did you like the gallery?"

She shrugged, "I like drawing but I don't really like looking at them once I've done them."

Aye, the women of the family would be cultured. When hell froze over.

Shaking his head, he left them to their game and headed in to see what Rosie was up to.

"Heard you were playing hide and seek," he greeted her with a grin, coming over to where she was stood at the table, kneading at dough.

"Aye," she replied, her face dark.

"There a reason?"

"Aye."

"You going to share it?"

"Your Chief Inspector – the Irish one," she replied, looking at him.

He nodded, "What about him?"

"He wear a black hat? Not like yours, like with a brim that goes…" she trailed off and drew a circle around her own head.

"Aye," Tommy nodded, worry mounting in him.

"Aye, well, he was in the gallery today."

"And you were hiding from him?" he asked with a raised eyebrow.

The Chief Inspector wouldn't have known who she was – nor who Lily or Katie were.

"Not exactly."

"Rosie," he said, his voice getting irritated and impatient, "Spit it out – what happened?"

"He was with Grace," she said, meeting his eye, tension in her jaw, "So I made the kids hide in case she recognised Lily from that day you asked her to the races in the first place, and I ducked in behind a bloody statue so she wouldn't see me."

"So – she definitely is Campbell's female operative then?"

"Looks like it."

"Did you hear anything they were saying?"

"Aye."

"Get on with it then," he said, pulling a face at her reticence.

"Tommy," she snapped – and he recognised the snap as being the tone she used when she was worried and covering it with annoyance rather than actual anger, "I heard her say Cheltenham was tomorrow – and I heard her say whatever the hell they're doing is an active military mission. Military, Tommy. Not just fucking normal police. Military."

"That what you're all worked up over, eh?"

"Tommy, whoever they are – this is serious."

"It was always serious," he replied with a shrug.

She let out a huff and rolled her eyes, "Fine. You do as you please."

"I've told you – I have it in hand. And just as well I did from the get go – at least we're not getting the proof now and having to think on what she's been told before now. Fuck knows what Ada's said though, when she's been in babbling about me and Freddie fighting. She – Grace, I mean – must have gone to The Garrison after she left the gallery cause she was there this afternoon when I was. Trying to get me to talk to her about why I'm fighting with Freddie."

"What did you tell her?"

"That I'd meet her at The Garrison at nine o'clock tomorrow morning."

She sighed, "I suppose you're in this far now."

"Aye, that I am."

"Well, play her like a fucking pipe then."

He was taken aback by the expression and almost laughed as he asked, "Play her like what?"

"Like a pipe."

"Where did that come from?"

"Hamlet."

"More Shakespeare, eh?"

"Aye."

"Fucking hell, how did I end up living with the only woman in Small Heath who knows Shakespeare?"

"Same way I ended up living with the only man in Small Heath who thinks a woman being wet is a good thing."

"Worked out alright then, eh?"

"Suppose so," she shrugged.

He smacked her playfully with a sarcastic, "Oi," before kissing her head.

"I think they're in love, you know," she said, her tone annoyed and clipped, refusing to be drawn out of her mood.

"Who, Hamlet?" he asked, with a raised eyebrow.

"No, that inspector and Grace. I couldn't hear them after they left the bit of the room I was hiding in, she leant in and said something, had her hands on his arm as she did, and he took her hands in his when he replied."

"You sound angry about that?"

"Well – she thinks she's going to the races with you so she can play you and all the while she's holding hands with him."

His eyebrow raised higher and he couldn't stop the amusement creeping into his voice as he replied, "I'm making her think I might be interested whilst holding hands with you."

"Aye, but you're just playing her to get what you want. She's trying to manipulate you for information that would lead you to a noose if she gets it from you. It's not the same stakes."

"I've got your permission to do as I please with her then in pursuit of not ending up in a noose?"

"You end up in a noose Tommy Shelby and I'll kill you – and her - myself."

He snorted, "That makes sense."

"I don't need to make sense, I'm the one having to sit by and watch you take all the bloody risks and not being able to do anything about it."

"Calculated risks, my love," he assured her, kissing her neck.

She closed her eyes and tilted her head, offering him more of the sweet white flesh.

"Tommy," she murmured.

"What?" he asked softly, trailing kissed up to her ear and back down.

"I want you to make sure you get what you need from her tomorrow with Kimber. I want you to get what you want from Kimber, get the licenses, then make good on your deal with the inspector, give him the guns and hope he pisses off out of town and leaves the Freddie part of the deal alone."

"That's the plan, sweetheart, to get what I want from Kimber."

"But Tommy…"

"Hmm?"

"Don't let her get abused. I know what you said about Kimber. He sounds repulsive. And she's repulsive, in what she's doing – I know she is. But don't let him – don't let him use her, physically, against her will, eh?"

Don't let him rape her.

She'd kill her herself – and he believed she would, actually, if she needed to – but he was to protect her bloody virtue.

"I'll do my best Rosie."

"Promise me, Tommy?"

"Rosie," he sighed and stepped back, "I'm not going to lie to you, I can't promise you that."

"Why not?"

"Because, if it comes down to letting Kimber have her to get what I want, to get rid of the inspector and the guns and her and all the fucking danger that's hanging over your head – and Lily's, and Ada's too – if it's a case of sacrificing her to get that – I'll do it."

She looked at him for a long while before saying, "I don't want you to."

"Didn't say I wanted to, Rosie," he replied, keeping his voice steady, maybe slightly erring on the side of harsh, "But I am who I am – you've known that the entire time. And I'll do what needs done. No matter how unpleasant it might be."

Thank you as always for your messages and reviews - particularly on the last chapter as those non plot/action driven interactions are my fav, so getting feedback that indicates you guys like reading them makes me so pleased as I get a little nervous posting them.

Apologies that this is a slightly shorter one, this whole week has just run away with me and I've barely had any time to write! I hope you enjoyed nonetheless.

Also - did anyone else notice with this episode (S1E3), that conversation with Grace and the inspector, which I had Rosie overhear a little of, does have a line in it about Cheltenham being 'tomorrow' then a few days seem to go by in the actual episode - we see night time when Moss and Tommy have their discussion about Ada being put on the warrant, then it's day time again then it goes to a second night which is then the night Tommy has his dream and Danny comes, then it's the next day he has this interaction at the Garrison with Grace, which suggests then a third night between that and the races being the next day?

I just find it slightly irritating because I've so far managed to keep all the scenes and interactions that are lifted from the show in the correct order and more or less very much true to as they happen in the show for the most part and I just feel this one has really thrown me off of my streak of managing that! Totally realise it's not important but I was sort of challenging myself to see how true to canon I could keep this retelling until it gets to a point where it has to veer off and that placement of those scenes in the episode has mucked with my plans lol.