by Jessie Keane
‘Shit,’ he said.
Gordon rolled up, and Pistol Pete. People were standing out in the street, looking at the smouldering frontage.
‘I saw it go up,’ said one elderly gent, trotting over to where the three of them stood. ‘I don’t sleep too well. Got up to take a piss, looks out the window, there was a bloke getting out of a car, and then boom! Window could have blown in and the glass could have blinded me. We could all have been killed in our beds.’
Marcus guessed this was the most excitement the old geezer had had since the Blitz. The man’s myopic eyes were dancing, he looked almost happy.
‘You see who did it?’ he asked. ‘Get a car registration, anything . . . ?’
Bert shook his head. ‘Nah. Sorry.’
‘Nothing too drastic, by the look of it,’ said Gordon, already adding up the cost of repairs in his mind.
‘This Jacko Sears, you think?’ Marcus asked Pete when the old man had wandered off out of earshot.
‘Bloody sure,’ said Pete. ‘He was in the Bear last week, saying he was going to do this. Thought it was drunken bullshit. But it wasn’t, was it.’
‘You know what?’ said Marcus. ‘That prick’s starting to get on my nerves.’
‘So what was it?’ asked Paulette when Marcus got home and crawled into bed. By which time dawn was breaking, the birds were singing, and he was very annoyed.
‘Club business,’ said Marcus.
‘What sort of club business?’ she asked, cuddling up.
‘The sort that’s none of your fucking business,’ snapped Marcus, turning his back and pulling the covers over his head.
Jacko Sears.
Sears might have thrown a scare into poor old Con Beeston, but he was going to find Marcus Redmayne a tougher nut to crack. One way or another, that cunt was going to have to go.
17
There was somebody banging on the bedroom door as if they wanted to break it down. Clara shot up in the bed, fumbled for the bedside light, switched it on. Her heart was beating frantically.
A jumble of thoughts spun around her mind as she was jarred out of sleep and into wakefulness. Waking up was always the worst part, the part where reality flooded back in and struck her like a physical blow. Mum, lying dead and bloody. The baby, whose birth had killed her. The police coming with the doctor. Running with Bernie and Henry, and coming here to Hatton’s place. She saw that Bernie was awake too, and sitting up. Bernie clutched at her sister’s arm. Henry somehow kept sleeping. Thank God for that, at least.
‘What is it . . . ?’ gasped Bernie. ‘Who . . . ?’
Clara looked over to the door. She’d told Bernie to give her a hand last night, and together they’d pulled the chest of drawers against it so that no one could come in.
Thank God we did that, she thought.
‘Ah, come on, girl. Let me in,’ said Hatton’s voice. He sounded drunk.
It must be gone twelve. Clara felt anger overtake her. He’d come home from a shut-in at his local and now here he was, shit-faced and hammering at the door, scaring them all half to death.
She slipped out of the bed and went to the blocked doorway.
‘Go to bed!’ she hissed loudly.
Too late. There was a gasp from Henry. ‘What is it? Where’s Mum? I want Mum!’
‘Shh, Henry,’ said Bernie.
‘Now look what you’ve done,’ said Clara as Henry started to cry.
‘Come on, girl,’ he wheedled from outside the door. The handle rattled and the door opened a fraction of an inch. The chest of drawers stopped it moving further, but in alarm Clara flung her own weight against it too, in case it should tip over.
‘No!’ Clara shouted out. They were all awake now, thanks to this drunken stupid bastard. ‘You listen to me, Frank Hatton,’ she said, full volume. ‘Go to bed. We’ll talk about this in the morning. You understand?’
He said nothing.
‘Are you hearing me, Hatton? You’re not coming in. Go to bed. We’ll talk tomorrow.’
She stood there, panting with alarm. The door handle turned again, once. And then she heard him going off along the hall.
‘What did he want?’ asked Bernie, shushing Henry, trying to calm him down once more.
‘Nothing, he’s drunk, that’s all, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.’
Bernie nodded. Her sister was the boss, she was always the one in charge and that reassured her a little. Clara always knew what to do.
It was past three when Henry cried himself back to sleep. At last Bernie was slumbering too. Exhausted though she was, Clara couldn’t sleep.
We’ll talk about it tomorrow.
Yes, they would talk it over. They would discuss the fact that she had her family to support; and the fact that Hatton wanted her so much that he’d be willing to stumble in here drunk and force himself on her. She had a plan, oh yes. A deal would have to be done, even if it made her sick to her stomach to do it. Come hell or high water, she was going to protect Bernie and Henry, and they were never going back to the slums. Whatever she had to do, she would do it.
18
There were plenty of chancers around Soho planning to take over a chunk of the action for themselves. For Soho, Marcus often thought to himself, read War Zone. Still, he was ready to fight his corner. He regretted what he’d had to do about Lenny, and he wasn’t going to give up any of the ground that had cost him so dear.
These people were a constant nuisance to Marcus, causing him to send gangs of raiders into clubs and gambling houses and onto the racetracks to make the point that he was in charge. But the firebombing at the Blue Banana had taken the nuisance to a whole new level. In fact he was so pissed off at that cunt Jacko Sears that he decided to do Sears’s new club in Greek Street.
So, yeah, as far as he was concerned, it was war. But before he could get in his retaliation, once again the war came to him. He was out in one of his own clubs, the Blue Bird, for an evening’s entertainment when in came Sears with a gang of fifteen and started kicking the living shit out of Marcus and his men.
‘Jesus!’ shouted Gordon as the mob poured in. Women were screaming and men were hurtling around the room, upturning gaming tables, sending counters and chips and cards in all directions, and throwing punches. The band scattered in a cacophony of off-tune notes, right in the middle of ‘Pretty Little Black-Eyed Susie’.
‘Get out the back, Gord,’ said Marcus, slipping on his spiked knuckledusters and picking up the hammer he kept under the table.
Gordon was away in an instant, along with the women. Marcus and his men got to work, and Pistol Pete was instantly getting the worst of it off Sears. Marcus piled in to help. Sears was a huge bald-headed git with a flattened nose from punching it out in the ring in his youth. Marcus knocked him down with a bone-cracking blow of the hammer straight in the centre of his pug-ugly mush.
Busted that nose a second time, thought Marcus.
‘Shit!’ burbled Sears, and Marcus dragged him back up and punched him in the jaw with the knuckledusters, snapping his jawbone and breaking the skin open like a watermelon. Blood flew and Sears collapsed to the floor.
Again, Marcus pulled him up. He wasn’t going to piss about with Sears; he’d had enough. He was going to stamp it out, this last little flicker of the flame, and sadly for Sears that meant he was in deep trouble.
To his surprise Sears recovered himself enough to rear up bloody-faced and send a crashing blow into Marcus’s middle.
Shit, that bloody hurt.
Wincing, Marcus flailed backward, falling over a table, then crawled upright again and hurled himself at Sears. All around them, men were cursing and shouting and falling about the place as blows landed. Marcus swung again and this time the hammer hit Sears square between the eyes. He toppled back, hit the ground and lay there, out for the count, blood all over his face.
Marcus summoned Pistol Pete, bruised and bloody but still looking flashy with his moustache and his spivvy taste in clothing. Together they yanked
Sears out into the road.
‘Shit,’ said Pete as they stood panting over Sears’s prostrate form.
‘What?’ Marcus was leaning against the wall of the club, feeling like he was about to fall down. That was one hard bastard.
Pete was bending over Sears, a hand on the man’s thick neck.
‘Think he’s croaked,’ said Pete. Then he straightened and looked into his mate’s eyes. ‘We got to tidy this away.’
Marcus was nodding, still breathing hard. He pushed himself away from the wall. ‘Let’s get him in the back of the car,’ he said.
As Pete went to fetch the motor, Marcus stood there looking down at his fallen adversary.
No more petrol bombs then, no more raids. Not from this arsehole, anyway.
Sears was done for.
Once they’d finished with Sears, Pete and Marcus drove back to the club and took a look around. There was an ambulance outside, blue lights flashing. Inside, stragglers were being picked up off the floor. The ambulance men were stooping over one bloke who’d got the worst of it; they were getting him onto a stretcher. Gordon appeared, stepping over fallen men and shattered fittings, to make his way to Marcus’s side.
‘Jesus!’ he said. ‘It’s going to cost us a fucking fortune, kitting this place out again. There’s blood all over the effing walls!’
Money! That was Gordon’s God. There were men with their arses hanging off, limbs broken, faces slit with razors, gouged with bike chains; Jacko Sears had cashed in his chips for good and was mouldering in the ground right now – and here was Gordon, worrying about the cost of a tin of paint.
‘You take the bloody cake!’ said Marcus with a painful laugh. One of his front teeth felt loose, and his left eye was swelling shut and turning blue where Sears had punched him. His knuckles were bloody. His stomach felt like a piledriver had hit it.
‘I don’t see what’s funny,’ sniffed Gordon.
Marcus patted his mate’s cheek, leaving a smear of dirt and blood on Gordon’s face.
‘I honestly don’t,’ said Gordon, wiping Marcus’s pawprint fastidiously away with a spotless handkerchief.
But Marcus was satisfied with this night’s work. Sears was gone: that was the important thing. Gone for good.
19
Water was trickling over Frank Hatton’s face – freezing cold water. He sprang up in bed and there she was, standing over him – Clara Dolan, fully dressed, holding an empty milk bottle above his head.
‘What the fuck?’ he demanded, spitting water out of his mouth. It was daylight. It was morning.
Clara stared down at him. ‘Get washed and dressed and come downstairs – it’s time we had a talk,’ she said, and left the room.
He could hear the child grizzling again in the room next door, and the other one, the dainty little pixie-faced sister with the red-brown hair, was shushing him. Head thumping, he crawled from the bed in his long johns and went over to the washstand. Looked in the mirror. Saw grey stubble on his chin. His nose mottled red. He was getting bags under his eyes with all the booze. He splashed a bit more water on his face, dried it with the grubby towel. Rinsed out his foul-tasting mouth. Yanked on yesterday’s shirt and his trousers and slippers, and trudged off down the stairs, pulling his braces over his shoulders.
Clara was sitting at the kitchen table, looking around at the place like it fell far short of expectations. Hatton felt anger stir. She’d come from a rat-hole slum with cockroaches climbing up the walls, and she was looking down her nose at his place? It was OK. It was presentable. Not entirely clean, he knew that, he wasn’t a fucking woman after all and he lived alone so there was no one to see to things like that.
‘Make us some breakfast, will you?’ he whined, slumping down at the table and putting his head in his hands.
‘Make it yourself,’ said Clara.
Hatton let his hands fall to the table. His bloodshot eyes took on a mean look. He stabbed the table with his finger. ‘Now look here. You owe me, girl. I just took you in, nobody else was going to do that.’
Clara stared at Hatton like he was something nasty. ‘You took me in for your own advantage,’ she pointed out. ‘You were trying to get into my room last night.’
‘Was I?’ Vaguely he remembered beating at a door and a sharp female voice telling him off.
‘You were. And I won’t have it.’
Hatton’s eyes widened. ‘You’re a stroppy little mare, ain’t you? You’ll have whatever I choose to give you, that’s what you’ll have.’
He lunged up from the table and was halfway round it when Clara stood up and swiped her hand left to right. There was a ripping sound and Hatton felt a sharp stinging sensation. He looked down in surprise. The middle of his shirt was torn open and there was a thin line of blood seeping out, staining the dull grey-white to red. He looked at Clara’s hand. She was holding his carving knife.
He felt the pain of it then, and hastily pushed the shirt up. His long johns were slit open. And she’d cut his skin. ‘You little cow!’ he bellowed, and started forward.
Clara held up the knife. Looking in her eyes, he could see that she would use it, too. He stopped, uncertain.
‘Cow, am I? Not so much a cow as I’d let an animal like you into bed with me. And think on, Hatton. You might be able to take this knife off me, but there are other ways to skin a cat and if you cross me, I’ll make you pay. You can be sure of that.’
Hatton stepped back a pace. Jesus, what had he invited in here? His midriff stung like a bastard, but he had to admire her somehow. Hardly more than a girl, but fiery and bloody pretty too. After a long, long moment when it could have gone either way, he stumbled back to his chair and collapsed into it like a sack of spanners. Clara stared at him, then she said: ‘I’ll put the kettle on then, shall I?’
And she went over to the sink and started making tea as if she hadn’t just slashed him with his own knife. She filled the kettle, tossed the washing-up bowl to one side and slapped the kettle onto the range, wiping dust from her fingers with a grimace of distaste.
‘This place is a mess,’ she said. ‘You live here on your own, do you? You’re single?’
Hatton sat back and stared at her. ‘Oh, sorry, don’t it meet your standards?’ he mocked. ‘And yes, I am single. Never been married. What’s it to you?’
She looked at him. ‘It don’t meet my standards at all. But it’ll have to do. You’ve no kids then?’
‘None I know of. And what do you mean, “It’ll have to do”? What makes you think I’ll let you stay?’
‘Course you will.’
‘Why’s that?’ he asked. You had to credit her for her audacity, if nothing else. All right she was a looker, a stunner, but she was crazy with it.
‘Because you want me. Don’t you?’ said Clara as the kettle started to whistle.
Hatton said nothing. It was the truth, after all.
‘But I can’t stay in a house unmarried with an unmarried man. That isn’t on. So as soon as I pass my sixteenth next month we’re going to get wed, and you are going to keep a roof over my head and treat me respectfully as is a wife’s due. And there’s another thing.’
Hatton was sitting there goggle-eyed. Marriage? Had she really said that? Maybe he’d misheard. His head was still banging away with the booze.
‘What’s the other thing?’ he asked, as she started spooning tea out of the caddy.
‘You provide for Bernie and Henry too. You keep us all under your roof, and you provide for us.’
‘But—’
‘No arguments. It’s me and them, or nothing at all. I’ll go, we’ll all go, we’ll find somewhere else.’
Hatton sat back and eyed her, arms folded. Jesus, his middle was sore and throbbing. And sticky. He unfolded his arms with a wince. ‘You ain’t got nowhere else. Or you wouldn’t have come here.’
Clara shrugged. She knew this was true; she’d thought about it, worked it all out. Marriage to Hatton was the only way to keep the family together, and saf
e. Working in clubs, even going on the game? Too risky. No, what the family needed was stability, security, a settled home; and this was the best, the only way of providing it. She brought the pot to the table and fetched cups from the draining board.
‘I’d find something,’ she said.
‘You’d starve.’
‘So stop me starving. Do the decent thing and provide a home for my family and for me. You’re in steady work, aren’t you? Rent-collecting?’
It wasn’t exactly steady, working for Lenny Lynch. Sometimes the coppers got lively and the rent-collecting got all mixed up with the ‘milk round’, which he also did: collecting protection money from the clubs, restaurants, flats and whorehouses on Lenny’s manor. He also went round the market collecting subscriptions for Lenny Lynch on behalf of what he called the ‘stall trader’s fund’, which amounted to five shillings from each stallholder a week. One way or another, it all ended up in Lenny’s pocket.
But he’d been hearing rumours, unsettling tales of Lenny vanishing from the scene and someone else taking over. He didn’t believe it for a minute; Lenny had been in charge for years, and that wasn’t going to change.
But good Christ, this was the strangest experience of his entire life. Within the space of a half-hour, the girl had poured cold water on his head, slit open his belly and proposed marriage. She was stirring the pot now, head bent in apparent concentration. Yes, she was a beauty. Mad, of course, but maybe he’d knock that out of her.
‘We can’t get my parents’ permission. Mum died with the baby, and fuck knows where my dad’s got to. So are you going to make an honest woman of me, or what?’ she asked, pouring out his tea.
‘What’s in this for me?’ asked Hatton.
She shrugged. ‘Bernie will help keep the house tidy and cook the meals.’
Hatton frowned. ‘And what are you going to do?’ he asked.
Clara sat down opposite him and looked at him without even a hint of a smile. Inside, she felt sick. Felt the cold, gut-heavy anger against their father, who’d ruined them, cast them into this evil darkness. ‘I’ll manage the housekeeping and I’ll be your wife. Aside from that? I’ll do anything I damned well please. We’ll have to see to a school for Henry, of course; that’s important.’