He reached the restaurant. The paper sheets that obscured most of the windows had been pulled away in one corner and he cupped his hands around the aperture, staring into the darkened room. He could see the brighter white of fresh paint on some of the walls, paint pots and brushes arranged neatly on the floor, and then, beyond them, two chairs had been overturned. A cold fear ran across Edward’s body and he knocked loudly on the door, then, when there was no response, he crouched down and pushed open the flap of the letterbox with his fingers, calling into it.

He went to the flat, let himself in and knocked on the inside door. The dog barked again. There was nothing for several minutes until, finally, a light came on and Edward heard Jimmy’s voice asking who it was. He sounded frail.

“It’s me––Jack,” he said.

Jimmy unlocked the door and opened it and Edward came inside. There was enough silvered light from the street outside to see that Jimmy’s face was puffed and bruised. Both eyes were blackened and livid contusions marked his cheeks and forehead. Edward felt the beginnings of an awful fury at what had been done to his uncle. He slipped his arm beneath the older man’s shoulders and helped him to the settee. He set him carefully down and switched on the light. Jimmy’s injuries looked much worse. One eye socket had swollen so badly that the eye was shut, dried blood had collected beneath his right ear and, when he smiled painfully at him, Edward saw that two teeth had been knocked out.

“I’m sorry,” he said, because that was all he could think to say.

“I tried to telephone,” Jimmy said, his voice weak. “I couldn’t get through.”

“I’ve not been around. I’ve been busy. Oh, Jesus, Jimmy, look at you––I’m sorry.”

His uncle dismissed his apology with a feeble wave of his hand. “Looks worse than it is,” he said, his laugh whistling through the gap in his teeth. Edward didn’t believe him. “Who was he?”

“His name is Billy Stavropoulos.”

“I’m sorry, Jack––I told him everything.”

“It’s not your fault. It’s my fault. I was stupid.” Edward thought of the blasted newspaper article, and was conscious of a certain sense of annoyance as he recalled it, because it had been an awful, amateurish error.

“What’s he going to do?”

“He means trouble. He knows about father.”

“Don’t worry,” Jimmy said. “I spoke to the sanatorium. They won’t let him have any new visitors.”

That, at least, was a relief. Edward thanked him for it.

“What are you going to do?” Jimmy said.

Edward thought about that. What was he going to do? He realised, then, that he had already decided. He had been considering what to do ever since Paris. There was a line that he had thought he would not need to cross. It was funny, he thought, just two hours ago he still thought that. Now, though, he saw that it would be necessary, and much more besides. “I’ll sort it out,” he said. He waited until Jimmy had settled himself back into bed and then spent the rest of the night in the front room, sitting at a table with a bottle of whisky and a single glass. He spent the next hour running through what he knew he had to do. He would have to amend his plan a little to take Billy into account, but that should be possible. He plotted out his next steps, considered the two alliances that he would have to form. His timetable would need to be accelerated a little. He built the story that he would have to tell and planned where he went from here.

He would fix it all.

Joseph.

The family.

Billy.

He would take care of everything.

56

IT WAS JUST before dawn. Ruby Ward stood by the side of the street as George Costello’s driver stepped out of the Bentley and handed him the keys. “Can’t get it started most mornings,” he complained. “If you ask me the engine’s shot. He wants you to have a look at it.”

“Of course,” he said. “Leave it with me.”

Ruby had sold that car to him––well, he said ‘sold’, but George had made it clear that he wanted it and Ruby had ended up practically giving it to him. It had been a very nice motor then, a top of the range Mark V1, but that was nearly five years ago and it was beginning to show its age. The motor sounded throaty, the paint was fading, the leather upholstery was cracked and weathered. It had seen better days, Ruby thought, and that was just about right; the car was like George and the rest of his insane family.

He watched as the chauffeur disappeared down the street towards the Underground. Ruby had known them for years. He had started doing business with George’s younger brother, Harry, taking nicked cars, filing off the registrations and flogging them on. Harry Costello: now there was a man. Astute, ruthless, all the angles covered, nothing ever got past him. His siblings weren’t a patch on what he had been: Violet was shrewd, for sure, but you didn’t want a bleeding judy at the head of the family; George could be a frightening bastard but he was too simple to be really dangerous. Neither of them––not even when they put their heads together––could match up to old Harry. He had been the real ticket.

He wasn’t foolish enough to bring it up––not with anyone––but Ruby could see an end to it for the Costellos. They’d had a good run at the top, coming up to twenty years, but the last two or three had been difficult. Harry’s death had started it. They had been kicked off the race-courses, swapping their action there for the same kind of scams at the dog tracks. Like George’s car, that, too, summed up their plight: from private boxes at Ascot to chicken-in-a-basket at Walthamstow and Wimbledon. The gee-gees had always been their bread and butter, that was Harry’s father had started out, and without that action; well, Ruby thought, things looked bleak. He had been over to the big house in the Cotswolds for Chiara Costello’s birthday and the place was starting to look tatty, unloved, nothing like what it had been like before the war. That was a sign, and now George couldn’t afford to replace a five year old motor that was well past its best; as far as Ruby was concerned, the writing was on the wall.

A case in point: the five hundred pounds he had given George were for the lorry-load of stolen whiskey he’d bought from him the previous month. Ruby had turned the booze around the next day for a grand, so he was laughing. It wasn’t going to be so good for George; he’d have to split his gelt, passing the right amount down the line to the blokes who’d hijacked the truck; more to the geezer from the hauliers who’d passed on the inventory and shipping timetable; more to his dodgy coppers down at West End Central so they’d let him know if the Swedes were barking up the right trees. By the time he was done with settling all of that little lot the most he’d be left with was a hundred, two if he was lucky.

No, Ruby Ward was not a stupid man. He had started to hedge his bets, started to cast around for other people to work with. He didn’t want to get caught with all his eggs in one basket.

He shivered in the damp cold and closed his overcoat more tightly around his body. He went through the garage to get back to his office. This business had been his career once, but times had changed. He still made plenty from it, but the black market paid more. Ruby washed his illicit profits through the garage and the two pubs he owned south of the river; there was a lot of money to hide. He bought this place ten years ago, selling his first dealership and funding the difference with a loan he had inveigled out of the bank against trumped-up accounts they must have known were moody. He had worked hard for the first three or four years, but it hadn’t taken long for him to realise that, when it came down to it, his old man had been right: ‘only mugs work.’ There was more to be made on the fringes of things, in the margins between legal trade and the black market. The war had been the best thing that had ever happened to him.