Briony stared at Tommy hard then. Something in what she’d said had sparked off a train of thought. Now it had gone. Disappeared as quickly as it had come.
‘What’s the matter, Bri?’
‘Just then something came to me mind, and went again.’
Tommy got up from his seat and walked around the table to her. Putting an arm around her, he pulled her to him.
‘Look, love, just try and relax. As soon as we get word, whoever it was is history.’
Briony nodded sagely.
‘Oh, they’ll be that all right, Tommy. I’m gonna pay this one back myself. Personally.’
He held her close. Never had he seen her so intent on anything in her life. It was as if Ginelle’s death was a personal affront. As if the girl was a daughter or a sister. Tommy would never realise the feelings Briony had for her girls. She loved them. Each and every one.
‘It had to come now, didn’t it, when we was branching out? I’m supposed to be seeing Nellie Deakins this afternoon. If word’s got to her ear then I’ll be a laughing stock.’
Tommy kissed her cheek, a wet smacking kiss.
‘Nellie’s an old has-been, Bri. Christ, I used to work for her meself when I was a boy. No one will hear anything about any of this, I guarantee that. We have to sit on it, just be patient. Then once we know what we’re dealing with, everything will come right. OK?’
She nodded. But the thought of Ginelle wouldn’t let her rest.
Mariah Jurgens was a big woman. Her grandfather, it was said, had been a large and troublesome Swedish sailor; her mother and grandmother were what was termed Bog Irish. Her father unknown. Mariah had the white-blonde colouring of her grandfather and the Irish temperament of the women in her family. Six feet tall in her stockinged feet, she had a body the like of which was rarely seen. Twenty years before she had been a highly sought-after courtesan. Her huge breasts and tiny waist, coupled with her sheer height and unusual colouring, had been prized by rich men. She had known her high price was for her sheer novelty value and had enhanced it with a pair of shoes especially made with high heels so that she looked even taller than she actually was. The fact that the majority of her clients were small men had made her laugh as she salted away the guineas; as she felt like laughing now, at the little man in front of her. She watched him take a pull on his cigar. It smelt expensive and was nearly as big as the little man himself.
‘So, Mariah, what do you say?’
She spat into the fire and shrugged nonchalantly.
‘Let me think it over, I’ll get in touch with you tomorrow.’
She watched the man frown and felt the urge to laugh again. ‘You do realise what I’m offering you?’
She nodded, serious once more. ‘I do.’
‘So what’s to think about?’
‘Mr Bolger, I always think over everything before I commit myself. It is, to my mind, the only way to do business.’
‘As you wish, Mariah. I will expect your answer in the morning.’
He stood up to leave and she stood too. Towering over the man, she put out a large hand with fingernails painted bright red and grasped his tightly, emphasising the size and strength of her own. He left the room and Mariah rang her bell. It was answered by a young blonde, at whom Mariah smiled sweetly.
‘Bring me some decent brandy and something to eat.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’ The girl was nervous. Mariah changed with the weather. From being a big cuddly woman she could turn into a demon from hell in an instant. Mariah was known as a woman who could ‘turn on a coin’, so unstable was her temper. It was something she nurtured in her madam’s role, a trait that was mandatory in her profession.
She relaxed back in her seat, her mind racing. Bolger was as bent as a two-bob clock. So he was, in reality, offering her something he eventually wanted to take back from her. She had settled that in her mind immediately. He wanted something that Briony Cavanagh had, and that meant he was willing to take on Tommy Lane. That in turn told Mariah he had a lot more backing than usual.
Bolger was just a small-time pimp, really. He now had visions of hitting the big time, and this could only be brought about by an alliance with someone else. An original thought in Bolger’s head would die a slow death from loneliness. No, there was a bigger fish involved in this, a much bigger fish, but who? The girl came back with the brandy and food. Thanking her, Mariah told her to send in Big John. While she waited for him she wrote a note to Briony Cavanagh, asking her to visit her establishment at seven that evening. Two bitches had always had more going for them than one dog, and she had heard through the grapevine that Briony Cavanagh was as sharp as a razor.
Sandy Livingston walked along the Caledonian Road with his youngest son, Pete. The boy was so like his father it was startling to see them together. Pete was only fifteen, but already he was as tall as his father. Both men had watery blue eyes, ruddy complexions and the sandy hair and eyebrows that gave the older man his nickname. Pete loved his father. He knew he was notorious as a heavy, that he was paid huge sums to hurt people, and looked forward eagerly to the day he could join Sandy in the family business. His eldest brother Joseph was already making a name for himself, as were Martin and Eddie, his other two brothers. The Livingstons were a force to be reckoned with around Silvertown, or anywhere in the East End in fact.
Sandy saw the woman approach out of the corner of his eye. He automatically faced her and nodded in a friendly fashion.
‘Hello, Miss Cavanagh.’
Briony smiled lazily.
‘Hello there, Sandy. Come inside a moment, I want to see you.’
Sandy looked surprised at the request but followed Briony into the tiny terraced house without a thought. He knew Tommy and through him Briony Cavanagh. He respected her, a thing that was previously unheard of as Sandy Livingston had never respected another woman in his life, not even the wife who had borne his sons with the minimum of fuss and then looked forward to nothing but the back of his hand at least once a week.
Pete followed his father into the tiny house with exaggerated nonchalance, hands pushed into the pockets of his trousers in a parody of his father and brothers. Inside the house they were startled to see Tommy Lane and two big Arabs standing in the front room.
‘Hello, Tommy. All right?’
Sandy looked around him, a trickle of fear running up the base of his spine.
Pete watched as the two large Arabs grabbed his father and pinned his arms to his sides.
‘What’s going on here? You leave my old man alone!’
Pete was frightened now. His big dad, whom he took such pleasure in bragging about, was scared - and this fact terrified the boy. Briony pushed him out of her way and dismissed him.
‘Shut your trap and you’ll be all right.’ She looked at Sandy. ‘He’s like the spit out of your mouth, ain’t he, Sandy boy?’ Her voice was low now, even friendly.
Sandy licked his lips with a yellow-coated tongue.
‘Look, Miss Cavanagh, I don’t know what’s going on here, but I swear, whatever I’m supposed to have done... well, I never done it!’
Briony and Tommy laughed. Briony slipped her hand into the waist of Sandy’s trousers and took out the large boning knife he kept there. She took it out of its leather sheath and stared at it for a few seconds before placing the tip at Sandy’s throat.
‘You could do a lot a damage with this, Sandy, cut someone to pieces. But then, that’s what you do best, ain’t it? Cut people? For a sum of money?’
‘I swear on my boy’s life I ain’t cut no one you wouldn’t want cut...’
‘Shut your mouth and listen! I’m gonna ask you something and if you lie to me you’re dead, Sandy, dead as a doornail. I ain’t joking.’ Briony held a finger up to his face. ‘Did you cut one of my girls, Sandy? The truth now, I want the truth. A little blonde bird called Ginelle. As God is my witness, you lie to me and I’ll cut your fucking throat meself.’
Sandy looked down at the tiny woman in front of him. He met her hard green stare and swallowed deeply before he answered.
‘No. I ain’t cut no brasses. I swear to you I ain’t cut no brasses! Not for yonks.’
Briony nodded slowly, watching his fear and sniffing it into herself, trying to assuage the rage inside her.
‘Then who has, Sandy? All you cutters know one another, you all talk. Who is cutting up my girls? You give me the name and I’ll see you all right, boy, but I must have a name.’
Pete watched his father battle it out with himself. He knew that grassing was the worst thing a cutter could do. Because cutters were the bad men, the really bad men, and they were the hardest. Hard men did their time, kept their heads down, and emerged from prison with their reputations intact, happy to take on the mantle of hard men once more. He held his breath as he watched his father.
‘I heard a whisper that Willy Bolger done a brass yesterday, down the docks. It was just a whisper, mind, from another cutter. I don’t know the strength of it like...’
Briony sighed heavily.
‘That’s all I wanted to know.’
She nodded at the two Arabs and they let Sandy go. Briony handed his knife back to him and smiled.
‘No hard feelings, Sandy, this was just business, boy.’ She looked at Tommy. ‘Give him a monkey, he’s working for us now. Exclusively.’ She faced Sandy and smiled. ‘That OK with you?’
He nodded furiously. ‘Yeah, I don’t mind. I’m ready when you are, girl.’
‘Then you can go.’ As Pete and Sandy were leaving the room, Briony shouted after them.
‘One last thing, Sandy. I don’t want any mention of what took place in this room, from either of you. If it did I would be very annoyed, you see, and let’s face it, Sandy, there’s more than a few cutters around, aren’t there?’
He nodded again, his face serious.
Outside on the pavement he walked along with his son, quiet and subdued. ‘Little Pete’, as his mother called him, searched his father’s face and swallowed down his disappointment. His dad was a grass. The knowledge broke his heart.
Even worse, though, was the fact that his father was frightened of a tiny little lady with red hair and green eyes and the smallest feet he had ever seen. Even surrounded as she was with big men, little Pete had felt the fire from her, had felt the menace, and as upset as he was, felt a tremor of pity for whoever had angered her so much. If she could frighten his father, she could frighten old Nick himself.
‘Well, you was right, Bri. But it wasn’t Sandy. I heard a whisper a while back that Willy was branching out, but I didn’t dream it was in our game. He’s more a heavies’ heavy, if you know what I mean. He pimps, but not for our kind of girls. He’s always dealt exclusively with the rough trade.’
Briony nodded, her face set in a frown that etched deep lines on her forehead.
‘I have to scoot in a minute, I have to see Nellie Deakins and then Mariah Jurgens. I wonder what Jurgens could possibly want? I have a feeling in me boots she’s involved in this somehow. It seems more than coincidence that she wants to see me after one of my girls gets topped.’
‘There’s no harm in Mariah, I knew her years back. She was always straight, Bri, always fair.’
Briony laughed bitterly.
‘Tell that to Victoria Staines’ mother. Her daughter still carries the scars of her run-in with Mariah to this day!’
Tommy sighed. ‘You’d have done the same, Briony. If a girl is thieving you got to put the hard word on them, otherwise before you know it all the brasses are having a field day.’
‘I can see you like her. Well, I promise to be very, very nice, unless she upsets me. I’ll hear her out. But if she tries to cross me, I don’t care how big she is, I’ll wrap her from one end of London to the other! I ain’t in the mood for fun and games at the moment.
‘Now, you find all the cutters in town, and see if they’re working for Bolger. I’m going to see him, but first I want to know exactly how much muscle he’s got. He’s more slippery than a greased eel, but he’s made two bad mistakes. One, he touched something of mine, and two, the bastard has the audacity to think he can frighten me. Me, Briony Cavanagh! Well, he’s got the shock of his fucking life coming to him. I’ll pay him back tenfold for Ginelle, and for taking the piss.’
Tommy looked at her with awe and a tinge of respect. Never before had he seen her like this, and much as it troubled him, he was happy to know she would always look after herself and her own.
‘We’ll
get him, Bri. We as in us.’ His voice was low.
Briony went to him then and he pulled her into his arms. ‘Yes, Tommy boy. We’ll get him.’ She looked up into his face and tried to smile. ‘But I’ll cut the bastard, you owe me that. I’ll be the one to cut him.’
Tommy nodded almost imperceptibly. It was what he had expected.
Nellie Deakins had grown big over the years. Now she was ponderously fat. Her neck, which had once been long and smooth, sported several chins. Her eyes were embedded in the fat of her face. She looked constantly as if she had just run a considerable distance, though she rarely left her chair. She puffed herself through each day, and even her girls had begun remarking on the unsavoury smell emanating from her.
Nellie had always ruled by fear; nowadays she relied heavily on her reputation from her younger days to keep order in her house. Nellie had once beaten a girl nearly to death, her crime to tip her hat at one of Nellie’s boys. As Nellie had grown older she had taken an undue interest in young men. Big handsome young men whose only duty was to treat Nellie with a bit of respect, light the cigars which she smoked constantly and hold doors open for her. It was the illusion of youth and desirability that Nellie still fostered, even though the illusion was nowadays quite incongruous. Nellie wasn’t really a jealous woman; she had beaten the whore for the simple reason that, if you let them get away with the little things, soon they’d try for bigger. Nellie had lived by that adage all her life. Until now, that is. Nellie was only sixty-two years old, not a great age for a madam. But she was so fat and lazy that the day to day running of her establishment had become something of a bind to her. She knew, deep down, that she had lost the urge to keep the place going, keep outwardly respectable and, worst of all for a madam, the urge to look out for her girls.