Chapter 96
The house was empty, thank God. Rosie and the baby hadn't yet returned – a small mercy that had been afforded them. Tommy's heart still wouldn't rest its hammering as he imagined what could have happened.
Fucking John and his fucking meeting. Hadn't he told them the house was never to be unguarded? One man wasn't enough when there was an end of day count to be done. Now look where they'd ended up. At what could have fucking happened.
He was as furious as he had been the day Campbell had done his rounds. He was having the same visions now as he had done then – of Lily sitting playing quite innocently and being interrupted by men streaming through the house.
The only good thing was that the shop had very clearly been the target, as far as he could see. The desks were upended, Scud was sitting, clutching at an eye that would be swollen and black and blue the next day – if not within a few hours – and chairs had been tossed around. It had been a thorough job too, not just the main part of the shop, but each of the offices too.
The glass on the framed pictures in his office had smashed, a huge crack right across Lily's smiling face, another right down the middle of his body in the one of the three of them. Thankfully, it seemed the desk had simply been overturned and the glass smashed as a result – the pictures underneath were unharmed. He could get new frames.
If she had been here though, if she had been in the way – he couldn't simply get a new Lily or a new Rosie.
His stomach moved as he thought on what else could have happened. Perhaps they might not have killed her, but a group of men and Rosie – for all she had the temper of a hellcat at times and he knew she'd give as good as she could… She was so small. He'd armed her as best he could with her gun, but it remained in his desk drawer between their practises – it would have done her little good there. Fuck, he hated that he was even thinking about suggesting she start carrying it as standard… But, as his eyes roamed across the room, he couldn't see any other option.
The determination to get her out of this place, to get them all out of this place, growled and flexed its claws, ready to destroy anyone who got in the way of him managing it.
He walked back into the kitchen, glancing around, checking his theory that the house itself had been left alone.
"What the bloody hell happened here?" Arthur demanded of Scud.
Something glinted at him from the mantlepiece.
"The Lees – all of them," Scud replied.
It was his fault then. It wasn't a random attack looking for money. It was targeted. It was aimed at him.
He picked up the tool from where they'd left it, his mind whirring. Did it mean? Was there? Fuck.
"Cousins, nephews, even the bastards," Scud continued.
"They've taken anything they can lay their hands on," Polly snapped, "Four cash boxes!"
In that moment, he didn't give a flying fuck about the cash boxes.
"They left these," he told them, holding up the cutters.
He and John and Arthur exchanged a look – all of them realising the meaning. Arthur's eyes violently began to fly across the room, looking for it.
"Wire cutters – why would they leave wire cutters?" Pol asked.
"Nobody move," Arthur growled.
"I think our friends are playing the game," Tommy said, nodding slightly, keeping his voice steady but clenching his jaw, swallowing slowly once the words were out.
"What game?" Polly asked, making to go into Arthur's office.
"Aunt Pol!" John cried, his voice shaking slightly, holding out a hand to steady her – to try and make the damn woman realise and obey for once in her damn life, "Don't – touch – anything!"
"Erasmus Lee was in France," Tommy said.
"Shit!" Scud expelled, realisation dawning on him, standing up slowly and carefully.
"When we gave up ground to the Germans," Tommy explained to Polly, "We'd leave behind booby traps – set up with wires. And we'd leave wire cutters, as part of the joke."
The joke didn't seem so fucking funny now.
"Somewhere in here there's a hand grenade," John elaborated.
"Holy Jesus," Pol exclaimed, a slight shake in her voice, frozen in place at the door of the office.
"Attached to a wire," Arthur finished, beginning to creep slowly across the open space, his eyes still darting about, trying to spot where would be set up for them to thoughtlessly walk and trigger the thing, "Don't move any chairs or open any doors."
It made sense, why the offices had been thrown into disarray too. Somewhere. Somewhere. Somewhere… But where? And how long before…?
"Go easy John boy, easy," Arthur said, as John joined him in beginning to look.
But the Lee's… They had no issue with casualties, that was standard. Nothing could be done there. But they wouldn't needlessly cause them.
"No," he said aloud, shaking his head, "Boys – no. It's not in here. If it was in here, it would have blown by now. It was my name on that bullet Erasmus sent. He's set up a trap alright. But he's set it up just for me."
But where the fuck was it?
What did they know about him? Where did they think he would go?
They knew, he realised, that for all they called their car the family car, that he had made out it was his to bargain with.
It was quitting time for most day shift workers and Garrison Lane was busy – people coming off work, the men on the handover getting started and the men who had arrived at the Garrison either straight from work or in place of going to it all hanging around, but he pushed through, down to the open garage where he kept the car.
Usually he made the journey with thoughts on his mind of the time he'd taken Rosie on his lap in the car, spread her legs and made her cum before he'd taken his own pleasure thrusting against her arse. But not this time.
He was half hoping he was right, because if he was then he had the answer, he knew where the trap had been laid and he didn't need to keep looking for it. And he was half hoping he wasn't right because if hand grenade went off in that car, with a tank full of petrol – there was no hope of survival, either of the car itself or of him if he was near when it happened. To that effect, it was a bloody good place from the Lee's point of view.
And they had no issue with casualties. His legs went to jelly as he rounded the corner to take in the sight of the car, with a small figure at the wheel.
If he got out of this alive he was getting a door put on the fucking garage as a first order of business and he didn't care if he had to empty the fucking safe to do it.
"Finn," he said, trying to keep the shake out of his voice, trying to appear entirely calm and not alert the child to the danger.
The boy gave him a slightly worried look, expecting, no doubt, to be given a tongue lashing, with the potential for a more literal lashing on his arse, for being out of the lane and playing in the car without specifically asking.
But for once in his life, Tommy's thoughts weren't focussed on the disobedience at hand – merely on needing obedience to replace it, needing Finn to listen to him to get him out of there.
"Finn, stay exactly where you are," he ordered.
The boy, seeming to realise he wasn't in danger of a good thrashing, grinned and laughed, "I was pretending I was you."
Pretending to be him. Wasn't that fucking ironic.
"Which door did you open to come in Finn?" Tommy asked, approaching the car slowly, still fighting to keep his voice from breaking and showing his fear.
He had been in plenty of fucking situations where his own life was the one on the line. In fact, he'd become almost blasé about it. After the war, after the amount of times he had been face to face with death, times he should have found himself dead, he had begun to think that all the time he was being given now was some kind of bonus, some kind of extra that should never have been his. And then Rosie and Lily had come along and given him a bit of a shake with regards to how reckless he could be.
And now – and now it was his kid brother whose life was on the line. Because of him. Because of his actions.
Fuck, the kid deserved fucking better. When he'd come back, he'd taken back over the looking after of Finn and Ada in theory, but he'd been so fucking jaded and angry with everything and everyone that he'd become – he'd become almost fucking inhuman. His looking after, after the war, had consisted of turning them up when they misbehaved around him, barking orders, pulling the business up so he could make money and generally letting Polly do most of the work.
It was only once in a blue moon, back then, that he'd found a bit of softness for either of the two of them.
Yet here the kid was, pretending to be him.
Despite how he'd treated him. Despite the fact it had taken Rosie and Lily to soften him. Despite the fact that Finn and Ada should have been enough on their own. Despite the fact he'd lumped them in with everything about his life pre-war that he'd decided to turn his back on so he could turn his post-war life into what he wanted, into making money, so he could feel like they couldn't ever tell him what to do again…
Despite the fact he didn't fucking deserve that kid to be sitting behind a wheel, grinning and laughing and idolising him.
"I didn't," Finn told him proudly, "I climbed in."
Tommy couldn't see a wire. Despite the lack of door the dark was enough at the back of the garage that he couldn't get a good look.
"I want you to climb out exactly the same way you climbed in, okay?" Tommy almost whispered as he approached the car, using every inch of self fucking control he had to keep his shit together and not just weep on the spot.
It happened in a blur. Finn, thinking it was all some kind of game, laughed and threw open the door, springing down from the car – and he saw the grenade, right under the wheel and grabbed it, hurtling down to the front of the garage shouting for the men to clear and throwing it.
He threw it right onto a fucking coal heap, but he didn't fucking care. He'd shouted clear, hadn't he? All he gave a toss about was making sure Finn never came in harm's way again like he just had done.
As the thing exploded, he grabbed Finn up into his arms and carried him back to the back of the garage, away from it, pressing the kid's body to his, both of them breathing loudly as it hit Finn that it hadn't been a fucking game.
In the dark of the garage, Tommy stopped and held the kid, squeezing him to him, like he used to do when Finn was a proper child, like he'd do with Lily now.
He didn't quite know how long he held Finn for, he could vaguely hear men complaining about the grenade, but it was like it was happening in some very distant world from his – and he didn't give a shit anyway about how anyone else felt or what happened, he just wanted his family safe.
Slowly, Tommy turned his face to the opening of the garage, to check that it had exploded, that it really was done.
He wasn't willing to let go yet though – and neither, it seemed, was the kid. Finn's pudgy hand gripped his as they took the steps to the front and stood, looking at the coal that had gone up, at the smoke coming from it.
It was done. It had to be done. He would make sure it was done. He promised Finn, silently, that nothing like this would ever happen to him again.
He turned to the boy and got down on his knees in front of him, taking Finn's hands in his face and urging him, "That's why you should never pretend to be me, okay?"
Never. Not in his mind, not in his games, never. He didn't want Finn turning out like him. Hell, he wasn't sure he even wanted to be him in that moment.
Finn closed his eyes, looking like he might be trying to squeeze back tears and nodded.
"Okay," Tommy nodded and stood back up, pulling the boy back against him.
Finn wrapped his arms around Tommy's waist and hugged him and Tommy was reminded distinctly of the way Finn had done the same after he'd been taken out the back at Ada's birthday tea. Why was it every time he hugged the kid, it had to be linked to something fucking horrendous happening? Rose hugged Lily all the time.
He was going to do fucking better. He was going to make a point of hugging the kid a bit more, even if it was a bit fucking awkward at first.
He let the boy go, looking around, wondering if there were any Lee's hanging about in amongst the crowds, watching, ready to report back. But even if there were, he didn't see them, he could hardly see straight.
Finn's hand crept into his and Tommy squeezed. They walked back to Watery Lane hand in hand and, when Rosie and Lily arrived back at number six an hour or so later, it was to find Tommy sitting in the sofa in the living room with Finn on his lap, exactly where they'd landed when they'd first returned.
"John said there was an incident?" she said, taking in the scene, standing in front of the two of them.
He looked up at her and nodded mutely.
"You alright?" she asked.
He nodded again and she nodded back before crouching in front of Finn and repeating the question.
"Yeah," Finn nodded, his voice slightly croaky from the fact neither of them had said anything pretty much the entire time they'd sat there.
Lily climbed up on the sofa and curled herself in against the two of them and Tommy, stiff from the lack of movement, heard the crunch in his shoulder as he moved an arm to hang it around her.
Rosie disappeared and reappeared, lifted his arm from around Lily and pressed a glass of whisky into it, guiding his hand up to his mouth to take a swallow like he was a child.
He was grateful for the heat and the burn of it. And soothed when she put the glass down, put his hand back around Lily for him and then placed a cigarette between his lips, lighting it for him.
The redhead held the glass up, examined how much was left in it and took a swig, looked again at what was left and then passed it to Finn.
"Here, you finish this."
Finn looked quite shocked and looked to him for approval. He blinked and nodded. There was only a swallow in the glass, but for one as small as Finn, even the tiny dribble might help the shock.
"Good boy," Rosie said, taking the empty glass from him and passing it to Lily, "You hold this for Tommy to use for his cigarette, alright?"
"Don't I get a drink?" the baby asked, her lip petting at being left out of the communal round.
"You didn't have a traumatic experience today so no, you don't."
"Did too – I had to go to the wash house!"
The indignance on Lily's voice made him crack a slight smile and, slowly coming back to life, he moved his hand from around her to exhale and flick the cigarette into the glass she held out for him, smiling down and saying, "There's my best girl being a help, eh?"
She smiled widely at him, making his heart pound.
"My best girl and my best boy," he said, determined he was going to get into the fucking habits he'd been promising to as far as Finn was concerned.
He hugged them both close then, looking up at Rosie, who was watching him keenly, "And my best woman."
She reached down and very tenderly pushed his hair back off his forehead and laid a gentle kiss down on him, before smoothing his hair back into place and then saying briskly, "Well I'm going to get started on dinner."
It was her forced brightness – and patience to wait for her full explanation – that got him through the night, though he did have to fight his own instincts to allow Finn to sit and eat his dinner from his own chair, rather than forcing the boy to eat sat on his lap as he wanted him to. He even tucked him into bed.
When he came back down she looked at him expectantly and he crossed to the sideboard and poured himself a whisky, tossing it back all to himself before clattering the glass heavily back down and saying, "I owe him and Ada more than I've given 'em. I'm going to fix it Rosie. As best I fucking can."
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