by Beezy Marsh
‘I’m your boss, the Queen of Thieves,’ I said. ‘And you’d better watch that tongue of yours after your performance in here today.’
Her next words stopped me in my tracks.
‘You are Billy Sullivan’s sister, aren’t you?’
‘You don’t know what you are talking about,’ I scoffed. ‘You’re making up fairy stories, Nell. I think you might have had a funny turn after I clumped you one in that scrap with Molly.’ I forced a laugh.
‘I’ve seen the picture on his desk, of you both when you were kids. I hadn’t realized it until you let your hair down, but it is you in that photograph, isn’t it?’
‘I dunno what you are talking about,’ I said. ‘He’s no brother of mine.’
But she wouldn’t let up.
‘Is that why you sent me to spy on him? You want to settle an old score? I can’t say I blame you…’
‘If I do have scores to settle with Billy Sullivan, it’s no business of yours…’
‘I don’t appreciate being a pawn in your game with Billy Sullivan,’ she said, her eyes burning with anger. ‘You should have told me at least.’
I rushed at her and grabbed her by the lapels of her coat.
‘Who do you think you are, talking to me like that? You were a clueless, snot-nosed little nobody from the backstreets of Waterloo who couldn’t keep her knickers on when I found you.
‘Now look at you! I made something of you. I’ve given you a life and I get to say what you do with it. That is the way things are. There are dozens of girls like your old mate Iris out there, girls who have come off on the wrong side of me, who rue the day they crossed me, so don’t start now.’
My legs started tingling again, that dead-leg feeling. I swear this girl was raising my blood pressure and it weren’t good for my heart. I didn’t want to show it, but I had to sit down for a moment and catch my breath.
I could see Lim’s callous face, sneering at me all those years ago, telling me to put myself on the game. Nell had brought it all back to me and suddenly I was fourteen again, with my whole world turned upside down. I pushed it away and pulled myself together.
‘The Forty Thieves has only lasted this long because of the Hoisters’ Code and loyalty to the Queen is the first one,’ I spat, ‘Testing that loyalty as I see fit is part of that, because we offer such a lifestyle and a wage. I had to know you were game enough. That is why you went to Soho.
‘You found out who was snitching on me, and you’ve got your foot in the door in Billy’s world. You proved yourself and you have got more to do, for the good of The Forty Thieves. That is all you need to know. Now, get out of my sight.’
Nell buttoned up her coat and got up to leave.
But as she was standing in the doorway, she turned and said: ‘He keeps the picture of you because you are the one that got away from him, Alice.
‘If there’s one thing I have learned about Billy Sullivan, it’s that he hates to lose. After all this time, he’s never forgotten you, has he? And you have never forgotten him either because you are two sides of the same coin. Blood is thicker than water.’
I jumped to my feet, with all the energy of a spring lamb. Mrs Tibbs was screaming to get out of my pocket, to taste blood, but I knew she’d have to be patient. My fingers worked at the lace handkerchief that wrapped around the blade.
‘You know nothing of who I am or where I have come from,’ I said. ‘Don’t ever mention Billy Sullivan’s name and mine in the same sentence again; not if you value your life. The past is just that, the past. And that is way it has got to stay, Nell. Stay out of it, if you know what’s good for you.’
All these years of carrying my secret and this girl, this nobody, this thing I had shaped out of the dirt in Tenison Street, had seen right through me.
She stood there, her blonde curls brushing against her jaw, her shoulders pulled back and her chin tilted up, to face me. She was the most beautiful hoister I had ever seen in that moment; daring and determined, as if furs would fling themselves off clothes rails in her presence and follow her anywhere. The power coursing through her veins almost crackled at her fingertips.
It winded me.
‘I want to get even with Billy Sullivan too, for what he done to Jimmy,’ said Nell, turning on her heel.
‘Jimmy?’ I scoffed, ‘You ain’t still harping on about that good-for-nothing, are you? I can give you a better life in my gang than he can provide in a month of Sundays and anyway, he’s up to his neck in it with the cozzers now…’
She glared at me, a look that could have stopped traffic: ‘He may be good-for-nothing but at least he’s honest about it. How’s a man like Jimmy supposed to make it in this life, with the likes of Billy Sullivan pulling all the strings? He didn’t even stand a chance. I said I’m going to get even with Billy Sullivan for landing Jimmy in it.
‘And one day, I’m going to.’
Chapter Twenty-Nine
NELL
Westminster, London, March 1947
As the chimes of Big Ben rang out across the River Thames, I felt time was running out for me and Jimmy.
He’d been collared by the law and was now sitting in a police cell, waiting to come up before the beak in the morning. He’d been hung out to dry, just as I feared he would, and a little knot of anger tightened in my stomach at the sneering way Billy Sullivan had cast him aside. The newspapers were having a field day and he was being blamed for all the violence that ever happened in Soho. Jimmy and I were just pawns in the game for the Queen of Thieves and the King of Soho but I’d had enough of it.
I was still reeling from the realisation that Billy Sullivan was Alice’s sister, even though she wouldn’t admit it. Talk about crime running in the family! But there was no love lost between either of them; that was something I was determined to turn to my advantage. Alice’s threats rang in my ears but for once, I was unafraid. Something about me knowing her secret weakened her. It may only have been a chink in her armour, but perhaps that was all I needed to pierce it and run her through.
The wind whipped through my coat and swept my hair around my face as I ran down the grey stone steps to the riverside. Detective Sgt Hart was already there, walking along, his hands thrust deep into his pockets.
He smiled as he saw me approaching, lighting up his handsome features.
‘I was worried you wouldn’t show up,’ he said, as I fell into step beside him.
He tried to pull me into an embrace, and I knew it would feel good, but I resisted, out of loyalty to Jimmy.
‘That was last night,’ I said. ‘For show. It’s different now.’
‘I wasn’t taking a liberty with you, Nell,’ he said, looking hurt. ‘I was trying to make it look like we are a couple.’
‘Well,’ I said, with a shrug. ‘We ain’t. So, why don’t we talk business? I’ve seen ledgers, in Billy Sullivan’s office, which might be useful to you in your investigation into bent cozzers.’
‘What exactly?’
‘Lists of officers names and payments, dates and times, that sort of thing,’ I said.
He looked gobsmacked: ‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course, I’m sure,’ I said. ‘He’s always noting down payments he receives and what he pays out for business, his protection rackets, that sort of thing. Billy Sullivan is ruthless but he’s also meticulous.’
‘I know,’ said the detective, his finger tracing down the long scar on his face.
‘Did he give you that?’
‘I can’t prove it was him, no, but I suspect he did, a long time ago when I was a bobby on the beat and I broke up a fight between some Italians and some thugs in a Soho shop.’
‘It must have hurt,’ I said.
‘Like hell,’ said Detective Sgt Hart.
‘So, did you get that key cut?’ I asked, watching as a tugboat struggled its way upstream towing a barge full of rubbish.
He fished deep into his coat pocket and pulled out a shiny brass key.
‘I’m not sure
if it will work, but it’s the best we could do with what you gave me.’
‘It’s the only way I am going to slip into Billy Sullivan’s office unnoticed,’ I said. ‘So, you’d better pray it works.’
‘I need to see that ledger, to get the proof of his protection rackets and the bent officers on his payroll. But how will you get it out?’
Then I said those three little words that every hoister in The Forty Thieves knows, but men never really understand: ‘In my knickers.’
‘You heard me right,’ I said, catching the look of disbelief on his face. ‘I am going to hoist it down my drawers, like the best shoplifters.’
The detective didn’t know whether to laugh or throw the key in the river, for all the good he thought I’d be able to do with it.
‘We can meet here at same time tomorrow, and I will hand it over, but there are other conditions, or I will just chuck it in the river myself and you will never nail Billy.’
‘Tell me your terms,’ he said.
‘I am modelling in a fashion show at Gamages tomorrow afternoon. The Forty Thieves are going to hoist a few bits and pieces. I want you to let us get away – all except Alice Diamond and you know what she looks like, because you’ve seen her at close quarters, haven’t you?’
He shifted uncomfortably at the memory of her clumping him one in the lift.
‘My, my,’ he said. ‘She really has upset you, hasn’t she?’
‘Yes, she bleeding well has,’ I said. ‘She landed me in it that time I went hoisting by telling the Old Bill where I’d be and what I’d be up to. It’s some stupid test that she’s got for new girls in the gang, to see what they will do. I think she thought me being a first offence and pregnant that I’d get off with a warning, but the world has changed. You walked into my life and the rest is history.’
I stared at the water, swirling and churning in the wake of the little boat, as it struggled against the tide. Joseph was three months old now and someone else was loving him, while my arms were empty. And Jimmy was sitting in a cold, hard, police cell for his trouble.
‘I intend to repay the compliment, see how she likes it,’ I said. ‘I think the time has come for a new Queen of Thieves, don’t you?’
He laughed out loud.
‘Oh, God, Nell, your naked ambition is showing.’
‘And so is yours Detective Sergeant Hart,’ I replied. ‘Don’t be a silly boy and pretend you don’t need me. Times are changing in gangland. Alice Diamond belongs in a world from before the war, a time that is past. And you will find me a lot easier to deal with than the likes of her or Billy Sullivan.’
He couldn’t disguise a look of admiration for my sheer brass neck.
I went on: ‘And you might want to tell a few of your Ghost Squad cozzers that after the show, Billy Sullivan and his mob plan to use a lorry to block the street off and nick all the furs and designer dresses they can get their grubby little mitts on. Might be nice to pay them a surprise visit?’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ he said, smiling at me.
‘But I am going to need guarantees about what is going to happen to my friend,’ I said.
‘Who is that, then?’
I could tell he was still trying to imagine me shoving that book down my underwear and walking out of The Windsor, with the secrets to Billy Sullivan’s empire in my drawers.
‘Jimmy Feeney. He’s up on a charge of assault.’
He threw his hands up.
‘He’s one of Billy’s henchmen, Nell,’ he said. ‘He’s in the frame for that razor attack on Alf White.’
‘I know exactly who he is, and I know what he’s done,’ I said. ‘He’s just a foolish barrow boy from Waterloo who was trying to make money so we could start a life together, the life we would have had if you hadn’t collared me for those stockings I nicked from Gamages.’
‘Oh, you can’t go dragging up the past and blaming it all on me, Nell,’ he said. ‘You were the one breaking the law that day, as I recall. And Jimmy Feeney’s already been identified as the culprit by Alf White’s wife. There are other witnesses who will swear it was him. The case is very important. The public want to see justice done, in the current climate.’
‘You and I both know that the real culprit, the man who stood to gain and who is getting an easy life of it, is Billy Sullivan,’ I shot back.
‘Well, perhaps your friend Jimmy should talk to the police about that…’
I grabbed hold of him: ‘Perhaps I should walk away now and the next time I see you in Billy’s club I will tell them exactly who you are and what you are up to? Jimmy was my fella…’
‘And is he your fella now?’ There was a look in his eye, and if I didn’t know better, I’d say it was disappointment.
‘He ain’t perfect but then you show me a man who is.’ I sighed. ‘His heart’s in the right place. He was trying to make things go right for us both and he’s landed himself right in it instead. Jimmy ain’t the brightest button in the box.
‘He hasn’t got what it takes to survive in prison. He will crack up. I know, I’ve been there, and I can tell,’ I added, quietly.
‘He should have thought of that before he—’
All the anger of the past year came bubbling up inside me, like a great tide: ‘Do you have any idea what it is like for people like me and Jimmy? We don’t stand a chance, we are just used by the Alice Diamonds and Billy Sullivans of this world and tossed aside when they’ve finished with us. Jimmy was foolish enough to think he was one of the gang, but I know different.
‘I’m giving you the chance to break Billy Sullivan’s grip on Soho, but you have to help me save Jimmy or there’s no deal.’
Detective Sgt Hart furrowed his brow.
‘The best chance he’s got is to cop a guilty plea and I will try to get his brief to come up with some mitigation, self-defence, maybe,’ he said, mulling it over.
‘He can’t grass on Billy Sullivan, or he’ll be a dead man,’ I said. ‘But if he admits it, will he at least get less time in prison?’
‘I am sure I can have a word with the powers that be, see what I can do,’ said Detective Sgt Hart. ‘He’s very likely to get a shorter sentence, especially if you can provide the information you are promising.’
Then I remembered something; that posh idiot Lord Dockworth, the former Home Secretary.
‘You need to be careful because Billy Sullivan’s even got spies in the House of Lords,’ I said. ‘Lord Dockworth owes him thousands in gambling debts but if he looks at the cards they played with, he will see that they are marked. Billy Sullivan’s running a game with a fixed deck which meant Lord Dockworth could never win. He’s been played by Billy Sullivan too.’
‘This is getting more intriguing, Nell,’ said Detective Sgt Hart. ‘There was I thinking you were nothing more than just a little shoplifter—’
‘You have no clue who I am or what I’ve done or what I’m prepared to do,’ I spat. ‘I’m a woman from a slum that’s been knocked down because people say I was no good but I’m still standing.’
‘I think I’m just beginning to understand that, Nell.’
‘It pays be a woman on the sidelines in gangland, watching the men while they are swinging their dicks around being powerful, because sooner or later, they will screw it up, won’t they?’ I said. ‘And it’s always the little details that catch them out. We women have a good eye for detail. I learned that down the fur factory.’
I was turning to go when he caught hold of my sleeve.
‘As you’ve been so honest with me, there’s a piece of information I need to share with you,’ he said. ‘That day in Derry and Tom’s when I caught you in the lift, I’d been tipped off.’
‘Yes, I know,’ I said. ‘It was my old mate Iris. I still can’t work out how she did it, but she paid the price for her big mouth.’
He looked puzzled. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It was someone much closer to Alice Diamond, someone in the gang, with an axe to grind and she was the one who shopped Jimm
y Feeney when he showed up down the Elephant after the razor attack too.
‘It was Alice’s second-in-command, Molly.’
They say revenge is a dish best served cold but as I crossed Westminster Bridge to catch the tram back down to the Elephant, I was burning with anger and raring to serve it up to Molly, piping hot.
Iris was a snitch, nothing could change that, but Molly had betrayed not only the gang, but my Jimmy. I always thought she’d been jealous of what I’d had with him and now I knew it. The spiteful cow had it coming, and I was going to give it to her, good and proper.
I felt in the bottom of my handbag for the billiard ball in a sock she’d given me when I first crossed the water into Soho. That would come in handy.
The problem was, Molly was a wildcat, even in drink. I knew I needed someone else to help and there was only one person I could rely on.
Darkness was falling as I made my way into Iris’s tenement and climbed the stairs to her front door. I knocked softly and her frightened little face appeared, her shorn head covered by a scarf.
‘Go away,’ she said, pushing it shut, but I’d already got my foot in the doorway.
‘Let me in, Iris,’ I said, ‘We need to talk.’
When Tommy caught sight of me in the hallway, he avoided my gaze, grabbed his coat and cap and left.
‘Are you happy now?’ said Iris, pulling off her scarf, to show the tufts of hair left on her head. ‘Have you got more to do to me?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I’m here to explain things and to ask for your help with something.’
‘I don’t know you anymore, Nell,’ she said, tears welling in her eyes. She was shaking as she spoke: ‘You ain’t my friend; you ain’t the girl I used to know from Tenison Street. You’re a monster, that’s what you are.’
‘You don’t know what I’ve become or why,’ I shot back. ‘You are in no position to judge me, Iris. You done wrong by grassing to the tallyman and you know it. It was a risk you took for reasons I understand, but you were playing with fire and you got burned.’
‘But the way you hurt me,’ she said. ‘It was like you were enjoying it.’
