by Roberta Kray
‘What about Grandad?’ Debs asked, whirling round to stare at the pub.
‘He’s not home, hun,’ Yvonne said. ‘You don’t have to worry.’ She looked down at Tommy and scowled. ‘What the hell were you thinking, you moron? You could have been killed in there!’
It was another ten minutes before two fire engines, their sirens shrieking, arrived at the Fox, along with an ambulance. By now a small crowd had gathered, a group of neighbours and people who were just passing by. They stood around in clumps, pointing and whispering as they viewed the spectacle.
A middle-aged woman with her hair in curlers laid a blanket around Helen’s shoulders as she sat perched on the low wall of the car park. Up until that point she hadn’t even realised she was shivering. Becoming suddenly self-conscious about the fact that she was dressed only in her pyjamas, she wrapped the blanket tightly around her.
As the firemen fought to extinguish the blaze, she sent up another prayer that the Fox wouldn’t be destroyed. It was probably asking too much – whatever limited credit she might have had must have been used up by now – but she had to try at least. It occurred to her that everything could be her fault. Perhaps she had more than bad blood – perhaps she brought bad luck as well. Misfortune seemed to follow her around. First her mother, then her gran, and now…
Helen gave a tiny shake of her head. The fates might not have been kind to her recently, but the blaze at the pub wasn’t down to any accident. She had heard the crash of the window breaking just before the fire started. Someone was out to hurt the Quinns. They had only partly succeeded this time, but what about the next? Her stomach turned over. This might be bad, but she had a feeling that things were going to get worse.
17
Tommy sat quietly in the corner of the living room, drinking a beer while he listened to his father rant and rave. It was three days now since the Molotov cocktail had been hurled through the front window of the Fox, setting the place ablaze. The word on the street was that the Gissings were responsible, and not one member of that family had come forward to refute the accusation.
Joe, egged on by his entourage, was busy plotting revenge. If the Gissings wanted a war, he was more than happy to oblige. An eye for an eye was his mantra, and his retribution would be suitably violent. The Gissings owned a nightclub in Shoreditch, and his intention, for starters, was to burn it to the ground. Such was his rage that he was unable to sit still, and continuously paced the floor from one side of the room to the other. ‘Fuckin’ bastards! Fuckin’ bastards!’ he repeated endlessly. His face, flushed with booze, was a bright florid red and his eyes were dark with hatred.
From downstairs came the sound of hammering and sawing as a team of builders worked to repair the damage to the pub. Tommy was torn between the desire for revenge – his own kids had been put in danger by the attack – and the anxiety of embarking on a full-scale battle with the Gissings. Once Joe retaliated, the violence would escalate rapidly, and when that happened, it wouldn’t just be buildings that were targeted. There could be no backing down without losing face; the battle would continue until one family or the other was finished.
Tommy glanced over towards the kitchen, where Mouse was busy making mugs of tea for the workmen. Yvonne had taken the girls and gone to stay at Carol Gatesby’s house until the pub repairs were finished. She could have stayed put – the flat was still perfectly habitable, apart from the lingering smell of smoke – but he hadn’t tried to dissuade her. With all the shit going down, he preferred them out of the way. It was one less thing to worry about.
Mouse, however, had refused to leave, although he wasn’t sure why. He thought she would have jumped at the opportunity to get away from his father, especially in his current mood. He wondered how much she understood about what was really going on. She hadn’t asked a single question about the fire, and he couldn’t figure out whether she thought it was accidental or simply didn’t want to talk about it. On balance, he favoured the latter. She might be the quiet sort, but she had eyes and ears.
Fat Pete leaned forward in his chair and slapped his palms against his thighs. ‘I’ll take a couple of the boys over there tonight, suss the place out.’
‘Yeah,’ said Joe. ‘The sooner the better.’
Terry Street, who had been sitting as quietly as Tommy until this point, leaned forward too. ‘They’ll be expecting you.’
‘So what?’ Joe snapped impatiently. ‘Who gives a fuck?’
By which he meant that when they did retaliate, they’d be tooled up. Tommy felt his guts tighten. He wasn’t afraid of a scrap – in his younger days he’d have been more than up for it – but this one would end in major casualties. If the truth be told, he could do without the grief.
Terry gave a thin smile. ‘I heard a rumour that Lennie Gissing’s been cosying up to the filth.’
‘And?’ retorted Joe impatiently. There wasn’t a firm in London that didn’t pay off the law. It was all par for the course.
‘Thing is, I did a bit of asking around, and it turns out the geezer’s not local. He’s a DI called Tony Lazenby, and he works out of West End Central. I mean, the Gissings ain’t got any interests up West, so what the fuck’s the connection?’
Tommy’s ears had pricked up. ‘Hang on. What does he look like?’
Joe gave a snort. ‘What the hell does that matter?’
‘’Bout forty,’ said Terry, ignoring Joe’s comment. ‘Six foot, solid-looking, brown hair, thinning a bit at the front. You know him?’
‘Not me,’ Tommy said, ‘but I reckon it may have been the same fella who was sniffing round Shelley Anne on Saturday night. She’s working at the Dog and Duck now, over at Finsbury Park. He came into the pub just after she’d started her shift and she clocked him for the filth straight off but didn’t let on. She played along, you know, just to see what he was after. He said his name was Tony. He was doing a lot of digging, asking her stuff.’
‘What sort of stuff?’ Terry asked.
Tommy gave a shrug. ‘Oh, who she was seeing, how it was going, that kind of thing.’
Joe stopped pacing for a moment and stared at his son. ‘So he was chatting her up, so what? Won’t be the first or the last time some copper tried to get into a slapper’s knickers.’
Tommy glared at him. ‘She ain’t no slapper,’ he snapped back, although he wasn’t sure if he was defending Lynsey or Shelley Anne.
‘What else did he say?’ Terry asked, before the exchange between father and son could escalate into a full-blown row.
Tommy continued glaring at Joe for a few more seconds, and then glanced over at Terry. ‘Said he thought he knew her from somewhere else, Hackney maybe, or Kellston. She told him that she used to work here at the Fox, and that seemed to interest him a lot. Anyway, she called me on Sunday after she heard about the fire, reckoned there might be a connection.’
‘Bit of a coincidence,’ Terry said. ‘Don’t you reckon, Joe?’
Joe gave a shrug and went over to stand by the window.
Tommy hadn’t thought too much about Shelley Anne’s call before. Like his father, he had pretty much dismissed what she’d told him as some guy trying his luck. He was having second thoughts now. And shit, if this inspector had teamed up with the Gissings, it would mean even bigger trouble. What if the guy started poking his nose into Tommy’s business and found out about the long-firm fraud in Romford? It could result in all his plans going right down the Swanee.
‘It don’t smell good, Joe,’ Terry continued. ‘Fact, it stinks. It might not only be the Gissings who’ll be waiting if you go for the club. Could be the filth, too.’
Joe Quinn looked over his shoulder. ‘What did you say that geezer’s name was again?’
‘Lazenby, Tony Lazenby.’
Joe’s forehead crunched into a frown, and his face took on a strained expression, as if he was struggling, through the haze of booze, to retrieve the name from some lost corner of his addled brain. ‘Lazenby,’ he murmured.
‘Y
ou heard of him?’ Terry asked.
Joe gave an abrupt flap of his hand. ‘Shut it, I’m trying to think.’
A silence descended on the room. When Joe Quinn gave an order, everyone obeyed. For a while, the only sound came from two floors down, a monotonous hammering that never seemed to end. The minutes ticked slowly by, and then suddenly Joe’s face cleared and he slapped a fist triumphantly against his thigh. ‘Jesus,’ he snarled. ‘Lazenby, bloody Lazenby.’
‘What is it?’ Tommy asked quickly.
Joe gave a growl. ‘That precious sister of yours might be dead and buried, but she’s still causing grief.’
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Yeah, I remember him now.’ Joe gave two abrupt nods of his head. ‘Lazenby used to work with that no-good bastard Alan Beck. The two of them were in Vice. They hung out together, too. Yeah, that’s who he is.’
Tommy stared at him in surprise. How could Joe have known who Alan Beck hung out with all those years ago unless he’d done some pretty intensive digging? It had always been his belief that his father had cut all ties to Lynsey after she walked out that fateful night, but that clearly wasn’t the case. He wondered what his motives had been – to simply check out his daughter’s husband, or something more sinister? Well, whatever his plans, he hadn’t gone through with them.
‘I still don’t get it. I mean, I know about—’ Terry stopped, not wanting to invite Joe’s wrath by even referring to the fact that his daughter had got herself knocked up by a copper. ‘But why should he be out to target you?’
‘He’s the filth, ain’t he,’ Joe retorted sharply. ‘He don’t need a fuckin’ reason.’
Tommy wondered if the news of Lynsey’s death had stirred up old resentments in Tony Lazenby. Beck must have whined to him about his lousy marriage to a villain’s daughter, and about how he’d been forced into it. Perhaps, with Lynsey gone, Lazenby had decided to focus his anger on her family instead.
‘So the bastard’s looking for a fight,’ Joe said. ‘Well, we’ll fuckin’ give him one!’
And all end up in clink in the process, Tommy thought. His old dread of prison rose like bile into his throat. The moment they turned up at the Gissings’ club, the law would be all over them like a rash. ‘It’s a stitch-up, for Christ’s sake. We lift a finger and they’ll have us bang to rights.’
‘What’s the matter, son?’ his father sneered. ‘Haven’t got the bottle for it?’
Tommy glared back at him, trying not to rise to the bait. His father had all the subtlety of a bull in a china shop. Act first and think later. Which was all very well when you were dealing with lowlife thieving scumbags or the collection of protection money, but not so smart when it came to dealing with the law.
‘Sure it’s a stitch-up,’ Terry said, grinning from ear to ear. ‘So why don’t we give ’em a taste of their own medicine?’
‘What are you thinking?’ Tommy asked, eager to encourage a less self-destructive approach.
‘I’m thinking why bother to fight your own battles when you can get some other sucker to do it for you.’
‘Go on.’
Terry took a swig of beer and stood the bottle carefully on the coffee table. He glanced over at Joe. ‘Didn’t you say that Lennie Gissing had a run-in with Mickey Stott a few weeks back?’
Joe gave a nod. ‘What of it? Those two are always at each other’s throats.’
‘Exactly,’ Terry said. ‘And as the Gissings are looking to take over Kellston, it won’t come as any great surprise if their next target is Mickey Stott’s gaff. He’s got a pub on Lincoln Road, ain’t he? Be a shame if those Gissings gave it the same treatment as this place.’
Joe narrowed his eyes as the likely outcome of such a scheme slowly sank into his head.
Tommy didn’t say a word. It was a brilliant idea, inspired. Mickey Stott was a drug dealer, a man verging on the psychopathic, and he wouldn’t think twice about wreaking revenge on the Gissings. However, as his father was likely to reject the idea out of hand if he expressed any enthusiasm for it, Tommy wisely kept his mouth shut and waited for the great man to work out the virtue of the plan for himself.
Joe turned his head away and gazed out of the window. He lit a fag and sucked in the smoke. He scratched at his balls. The rest of the room maintained a reverential silence. Finally, just as Tommy was beginning to lose hope, he barked out a laugh and said, ‘Those sonofabitches are going to regret the day they ever crossed Joe Quinn.’
18
Helen sat on the lower bunk with her knees drawn up to her chin. It was three o’clock in the morning, fifteen minutes since Tommy and the others had left in the white van. How long would it take them to set the Lincoln alight? And what if something went wrong? Her uncle had almost got himself killed once, and still had the burns to prove it.
Too anxious to sit still, she got up and wandered downstairs to the living room. She’d been in the kitchen this afternoon when Terry Street had come up with his plan. No one had paid her any attention. She was just a kid making tea, and they’d continued to talk freely despite her presence.
Later, she had used more furtive methods to get her information. When she was supposed to be in bed, she had crept down the stairs and along the landing to peer through the crack in the half-open door. There were five of them sitting round the table, speaking in hushed tones. The atmosphere was tense, but excited too. Fat Pete was the one who had made the bombs, emptying out two vodka bottles and carefully filling them with petrol and some motor oil. He had soaked two rags in petrol too and stuffed them into the necks of the bottles.
Helen kept the lights off and peered down the street, willing the van to appear. She knew that what Tommy was doing was wrong, but what the Gissings had done was wrong too. Her grandmother would have said, ‘Two wrongs don’t make a right’, but it didn’t feel that simple. Turning the other cheek hardly seemed like a viable option when someone had tried to burn down your home.
‘Lazenby,’ she murmured, rolling the name around on her tongue. Although she searched her mind, she couldn’t recall ever having heard it before today. If he’d been a friend of her father’s, then her mum must have known him too. But it was too late to ask her now. Impossible to ask her grandmother either, who was still languishing in hospital. She frowned. Why should this man want to hurt the Quinns so much? It was a question she had no answer to.
Helen scoured the empty street again, her nose pressed against the cool window pane. For the plan to work, Mickey Stott would have to believe that the Gissings were trying to take him out of the game. At least that was what Terry had said. But of course Mickey would believe it, because they’d attacked the Fox in the same way a few days earlier. There would be no reason to suspect Joe Quinn.
She didn’t, as yet, fully understand the nature of Joe’s business. What she did understand was that he didn’t operate inside the law. Joe Quinn was a villain, and she supposed that made Tommy a villain too. It confused her to think of Tommy doing bad things. He had shown her nothing but kindness since bringing her here. She’d been uprooted and thrown into a world that was completely alien to her, but gradually she was learning to cope.
As the minutes passed by, she grew increasingly worried. Where were they? How long did it take to throw a bottle through a window? If something went wrong, if they got caught by the police, then it could be hours before she even found out. Tommy had wanted her to go and stay at Moira’s for the night, but she wouldn’t leave and he hadn’t insisted. She wasn’t afraid of being here on her own, but she was afraid of Tommy never coming back.
She tried to distract herself by thinking about the pub. It wouldn’t be that long before it was up and running again. The workmen started at dawn and didn’t leave again until it got dark. Already the evidence of the fire was beginning to fade as the interior was stripped out and gradually rebuilt. There would be new paper on the walls and new seating with fresh upholstery. Soon the customers would return and everything would be as it
had been before.
Helen crossed her fingers, hoping that was true. She strained her ears, listening out for the sound of the van, peering both ways along the road. They would probably come from the direction of the high street, unless they decided to take a less direct route home. She tried not to think too much about what could go wrong – a panda car passing by, a witness who might recognise them, a random puncture as they attempted their getaway.
Her thoughts drifted back to Tony Lazenby. Maybe she could ask Moira about him. If he’d been a good friend of her dad’s, Moira might have met him at some point in the past. But then again, perhaps she was better off just keeping her mouth shut. After all, that was what she did best. She was Mouse, the girl who was seen but rarely heard.
Helen moved away from the window. A watched kettle never boils. She patrolled the living room for a couple of minutes, skirting around the furniture. A thin light coming from the street lamp outside cast an almost eerie orange glow. Did Yvonne know what was happening tonight? Had Tommy told her, or was he keeping quiet about it? Tommy kept quiet about all sorts of things. Like his friendship with Shelley Anne, for example. He was always chatting to her on the phone when Yvonne wasn’t around.
Unable to resist, Helen returned to the window. The sound of an engine made her heart leap, but it was only a taxi going by. She clenched and unclenched her hands, humming the chorus of Marvin Gaye’s ‘I Heard It Through The Grapevine’. She could relate to the lyrics: she was just about to lose her mind too.
And where was Frank Meyer? she wondered. There had been no sign of him for a couple of days. He’d turned up on Sunday, but she hadn’t seen him since. Had he and Tommy fallen out? She knew that Frank blamed Joe for the fire. He had said as much when he’d been viewing the damage downstairs. Tommy wouldn’t let her go into the bar – he said it was too dangerous – but she had stood at the door, her heart sinking as she gazed at the wreckage of the Fox.
