Faithful

by Roberta Kray

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

Kellston, East London

When crime boss Terry Street is buried, his empire is buried with him.

With his heir dead and his son unwilling, the borough is up for grabs. Gangs circle. Old loyalties crack. Violence is inevitable.

Marianne Day knows this world well. She's lived on its edges for years, hiding in plain sight, waiting. Because the man who destroyed her life all those years ago, is now back in London.

Connor Bond stole her son and vanished.

Now, as Kellston teeters on the brink of war, Marianne sees her chance.

She's waited eleven years.

And she'll stop at nothing to get her child back...

A gripping, new page-turner for fans of Martina Cole, Kimberley Chambers and Jessie Keane.

Release date: November 12, 2026

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 100000

Sample

The cortège passed slowly down the high street, the glass carriage containing the coffin pulled by four plumed horses, their hooves clip-clopping rhythmically against the tarmac. Behind came a row of shiny black Daimlers with tinted windows, the mourners inside obscured from view. It was a chill spring morning but that hadn’t kept the spectators away. People, three or four deep in places, lined the pavements, some bowing their heads as the funeral procession passed. For the older locals it was the end of an era, for the younger – phones raised in the air – it was an interesting spectacle and a lesson in how crime could pay if you had the nous to outwit the law.

If the rumours were true, Terry Street had murdered his own boss to take over the firm. That wasn’t so unusual. What was unusual is that he’d managed to stay in the top job for so many years. He had done it, allegedly, through a mix of wit, guile, bribery, violence and charm. Although the cops had loathed him – at least those he wasn’t paying off – they had to some extent tolerated him too, aware that his style was, in general, more benign than that of the lowlifes who sought to step into his shoes. What Terry had provided was stability and calm, a situation where everyone knew where they stood.

Marianne Day was aware of all this because the elderly customers at the Fox liked to talk, especially in the quieter hours of the afternoon when their audience didn’t stretch much further than the bar staff. Like a sponge she absorbed every detail, never disregarding anything, storing each piece of information in case it could, one day, be useful to her.

She knew that the old boys were uneasy about Terry’s death, afraid of what might follow, anxious at the prospect of war. The east London borough of Kellston, squashed between Shoreditch and Bethnal Green, was currently in limbo but various gangs would soon be vying for supremacy. Terry’s son and possible successor, Danny, had breathed his last six months ago – stabbed to death by one of his own working girls – and now only his older son Chris was left to step up. But Chris, by all accounts, wasn’t going there. There were some who declared he hadn’t the stomach for it, others who said that he had seen the writing on the wall long ago. Times had changed, crime had changed, and the Street name no longer carried the cachet it once had.

Marianne stood on her toes and scanned the crowd. She was searching for her ex, Connor Bond, desperately hoping to catch a glimpse. Most of London’s villains, and plenty from other places too, would be gathered here today, ostensibly to pay their respects, but more importantly to network, to hear the gossip, and to make new deals or settle old scores. Now that Kellston was rudderless, there would also be a fair few wondering whether they could step into the vacant position of captain.

But none of that was of interest to her. Or at least only in so far as it might draw Connor here. He’d always had an inflated sense of his own importance, wanting to be seen in the right places, wanting to rub shoulders with men of dubious reputation. Would he pass over an opportunity like this? She had heard that he was back in London, but London was a big city, and she didn’t even know what name he was going by now.

Marianne had spent eleven years searching for him or, more precisely, for her son Ryan, who Connor had snatched when the child was only two. He hadn’t even cared about the boy, had only taken him to hurt her. No, hurt was too small a word: losing Ryan had shattered her. He would be thirteen now, a teenager who probably believed his mum had abandoned him. That would be what Connor had said. Or that she was dead. She didn’t even know what Ryan looked like these days but would scrutinise every boy of the right age who crossed her path searching for some sign of herself in his features, for a pair of hazel eyes, a shock of red hair, for skin that was prone to freckles.

She preferred not to dwell too much on those long hopeless years when she had followed one desperate lead after another, scouring the country, pursuing vague reported sightings in Birmingham, Liverpool or Glasgow, only to find when she got there that he’d already moved on or had never been there at all. And then came the rumours – real or planted – that he had gone to Spain, and she had wasted two months on the Costa Blanca, traipsing from bar to bar, from hotel to hotel, showing photographs to anyone who’d look until she’d run out of money and had to come home.

By then her son had been missing for five years. Her life, she was ashamed to admit, had taken a downward spiral at that point, spinning out of control – drugs, booze, destructive relationships – but now she was back on track and more determined than ever to find her child. She spent hours on the internet, trawling through all the most popular sites, using a fake name and following men and women who had once known Connor – if only slightly. How could he disappear into thin air? He would, no doubt, be going under a pseudonym – he’d had plenty of those – but she carefully examined every photo she could find, just in case he was lurking in the background.

As the carriage drew level with her, Marianne stared at the coffin inside and felt a familiar jolt in her guts. What if Ryan was dead? What if he was gone for ever? She often had these awful thoughts, waking nightmares that made her blood run cold. A sliver of dread crawled down her spine. She averted her eyes and looked instead at the people on the street.

The first person she noticed was Gilbey, weaving his way through the crowd, pretending to follow the procession while his eager thieving fingers delved into bags and pockets. He lived in Carlton House on the Mansfield estate, just along the corridor from her on the ninth floor. Although he claimed to be fourteen, she reckoned he wasn’t more than twelve. Gilbey’s mother was dead, and his father was a drunk, the kind of drunk who lost his temper and threw his weight around. The boy was small, slight, with a thatch of mousy brown hair. He never went to school, and no one seemed to care. He had slipped through the cracks and survived by his wits: stealing and drug dealing, and whatever else it took to keep his head above water.

Marianne instinctively placed a hand over her bag. He probably wasn’t the only dip doing the rounds and she didn’t have money to lose. Her gaze slid along the crowd across the road, ignoring the women, focusing only on men of a certain age. Her eyes hovered over the faces with beards, making sure that Connor’s features weren’t hidden underneath. Many of the men were wearing dark suits and she knew that these blokes, although trying to look significant, were low down in the criminal hierarchy. The ones further up were sitting in the Daimlers.

She checked her watch but still had a little time before she was due in work. Maggie was opening the pub early today, aware that the tills would be ringing after the funeral. The takings would be huge, and there should be good tips too. If Connor was in London, there was every chance he’d show up at the Fox. She’d been careful since arriving three months ago to not breathe a word to anyone about what she was really doing here. People protected their own on the estate, had each other’s backs, and someone would let him know either out of loyalty or for money. Only her old friend Tamsin – who she was staying with in Kellston – knew the truth.

In the past, she had made the mistake of showing her hand too soon. This time she was keeping her head down, being patient, playing the waiting game. Connor couldn’t avoid her for ever and eventually he’d break cover. In the meantime, she was hoping she wouldn’t be recognised by anyone who knew him, but the chances of that happening were slim. She had never met his family or been introduced to many of his friends.

Marianne suspected her optimism could be misplaced – if he hadn’t turned up after eleven years, why would he now? – but she pushed the thought aside. If she ever stopped believing, she may as well stop breathing too. No, his luck would run out one day. It was bound to. She would find him – and then she would find Ryan too.

With her raincoat hood pulled up over her red hair, she walked down the high street towards the junction. Her eyes continued their methodical search. Connor had been tall, which helped – he could change a lot of things, but he couldn’t change his height – and she kept her gaze at a six-foot level, ignoring every man who was shorter. Perhaps he was already at the church, bagging a seat before they were all taken.

She noticed Harvey Tane standing on the corner, wearing a dark grey hoodie which was probably as close as he got to dressing respectfully. Tane ran most of the drugs on the estate and was a fearsome man, violent and cruel. It was said that he was thin-skinned, quick to take offence, and would shoot any man who crossed him. Rumour had it he’d already despatched half-a-dozen adversaries to the great beyond. The devil in human form.

The crowd was constantly shifting, moving with the cortège, and Marianne was swept along with it. When she reached the corner, she averted her face, skirted round Tane, turned left and strolled slowly towards the Fox. She wondered how it was that men like him were free to walk the streets, to use and abuse, to get away with murder. She’d heard he had a crew of kids working for him, mainly boys, who did his dirty work and took the rap when they got caught. No one ever put the finger on Tane; everyone was too afraid.

Good and evil. The constant battle. Except the evil always seemed to be winning. She screwed up her eyes against a bright spring sun that had suddenly slipped from behind the clouds. She had a thought, even though she knew it was a bad one, that if someone put a bomb under the Fox in a couple of hours, they’d wipe out half the villains in London. Dust to dust, and good riddance. Of course she’d go up in smoke with them, but maybe it was worth the sacrifice.

Marianne passed by the newsagent and noticed, not for the first time, the brass plaque on the door that led up to the floor above: Mackenzie, Lind. Private Investigators. One of the partners, Harry Lind, came into the pub sometimes, but she hadn’t seen him for a week or two. She had half a mind to hire him to look for Connor but couldn’t help thinking it would be a waste of time and money. There was so little to go on. Even the name Connor Bond was probably fake. No, she would hold off for now and wait until a more solid lead came along.

As soon as the traffic lights turned red, she crossed the road, dodging between the cars and buses, walked to the Fox, ignored the Closed sign and went inside. The pub was warm, clean and shiny, the tables polished, the whole place smelling citrus sweet. That wouldn’t last long. Soon it would be full of people, and those people would bring with them all those other smells of sweat and bad breath, musty clothes, garlic, pungent aftershave and perfume.

For all its assaults on her olfactory organs, Marianne still enjoyed working in the Fox. It was a classy pub, old-fashioned, friendly, and there was rarely any trouble. The beer was good, and the customers were usually polite. She looked around. Food had been laid out in the far room, an expensive cold buffet, and the area had been cordoned off, secured until the primary mourners showed up.

She was early and for the moment peace reigned. It was, she supposed, the calm before the storm.

Jack Hallows retired to the end of the curved counter, his back against the wall, where he could drink his pint without getting jostled. The Fox was packed to the rafters. The atmosphere was almost feverish, so noisy he could barely hear himself think. He caught parts of conversation, snippets that drifted in the air, reminiscences about Terry Street, about the things he’d said and done – some of them outrageous, some of them cunning – and it was hard to know how much was true. You could say what you liked when someone was dead.

There were faces he recognised, men from the old guard, whose photos popped up in the papers from time to time, usually when they were releasing yet another embellished memoir. These blokes were surrounded by acolytes, youngsters mainly, hanging on their every word. He wondered why they were perceived as glamorous, especially when they’d all spent long stints in prison, an example surely of how unsuccessful they’d been rather than anything to celebrate.

Jack’s eyes strayed to Marianne, who was run off her feet behind the bar. That was a woman with secrets if ever he’d met one. She could never answer a straight question with a straight answer. Still, he could talk; he was hardly an open book himself. His gaze took in her long red hair falling down her back, and her unusual hazel eyes flecked with gold. She was tall and slim, and shapely too. He tried not to stare.

Marianne came from Ireland originally and her voice still had that soft southern lilt. He liked to listen to her talk, even though she never gave anything away. Maybe one day he’d ask her out. ‘Maybe one day’ was his mantra, his way of avoiding any positive action. As he frequently told himself, this wasn’t a good time for complications.

His gaze slid back to the room, scanning the crowd and eventually alighting on Harvey Tane and his sidekick Lloyd Coffey. Two men the world wouldn’t miss. He was annoyed to see a few lads from the boxing club with them, grinning like maniacs, acting like they’d hit the big time. Jack spent a lot of his free hours trying to teach them discipline, to instil in them a sense of self-worth and purpose. For all the good it did. It was hard to compete with the likes of Tane. Why slog it out in the gym when there was easy money to be made elsewhere?

Tane had two flats on the Mansfield, one he lived in himself, the other where he let the kids hang out, smoke free dope and play video games. He fed them pizza and doughnuts, bought them clothes and phones, and made them feel important. Of course, nothing was for free and in return Tane expected them to work for him, to cut the gear, to sell it on the streets and make deliveries. The kids were just commodities, disposable. If one of them got arrested, there was always another ready to take his place.

Tane and Coffey were both dripping in gold: big Rolex watches, chains around their necks, rings the size of knuckledusters on their fingers. Outside there would be a flash car, a BMW or a Mercedes. They were like caricatures of how a gangster should look, but that didn’t make them any less dangerous. They were users, killers, men who hurt others not just out of necessity but for the pleasure of it.

Jack glared at the lads, but they ignored him. Sod it. They weren’t his responsibility. But then they didn’t seem to be anybody else’s either. Most of them came from abusive homes, living a life that offered little in the way of prospects. The Mansfield estate was a dumping ground for the poor, the needy and the disenfranchised, and a breeding ground for crime. For the kids, being a gang member gave them a sense of belonging, something that filled the gap in their empty, often brutal existence.

There were girls hanging around Tane and Coffey too, skimpily dressed skinny things with empty eyes. How old were they? Fifteen or sixteen, maybe younger. Some of them were probably baby mommas already, children raising children. They’d be beaten up, assaulted, made to lie and thieve and hide guns from the prying eyes of the law. And so the cycle went on, never ending, from one generation to the next.

Responsibility. He rolled the word over his tongue. Parents should be responsible for their kids, but so often they weren’t, either through neglect or circumstance or because they’d just never learned how to do it. Leaving social services to attempt to mop up the mess, a thankless task, like trying to hold back a tsunami. The underbelly of the city went unnoticed by most people, a dark and sinister world that became only briefly visible when it impinged on their own lives.

Jack knew all about this. His younger brother Alfie had been shot dead when he was fourteen, his only crime to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. A victim of mistaken identity, of gang warfare, of an attitude that life was cheap. That had been in Manchester, but the song remained the same wherever you went. Every city had its share of meaningless deaths, of misery and despair.

Jack knew all about killing too. While he’d been in the army, he had done tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, witnessing horrors that were now stacked in neat little strongboxes in the depths of his memory. Not to be opened unless strictly necessary. How many lives had he ended? Too many to count. Of course that was legalised murder, war, and society accepted it. Thou shalt not kill only applied when the law said it applied.

The police had never charged Alfie’s killer, even though everyone knew who’d done it. Not enough evidence. Jeff Merrick been a piece of scum like Tane. Strutting his stuff, free to live and breathe, to screw his girlfriends, to eat and shit, to murder again. Jack felt his left hand instinctively curl into a fist. He remembered his mum’s face, drained and hollow, as she stood by Alfie’s grave. That’s when he’d known what he had to do. If the law couldn’t get that garbage off the streets, then somebody else would have to do it.

Jack didn’t feel any guilt. An eye for an eye and all that. One clean shot between the eyes, a painless death compared to Alfie’s. And when it was done, he hadn’t experienced anything other than a vague satisfaction and the sense of a wrong being righted. He wasn’t stupid enough to think it would change anything, not in the greater scheme of things, but he still wasn’t sorry.

And that had been that. He would never do it again. He wasn’t some sort of vigilante. Yet when he looked at Tane, looked at Coffey, he couldn’t help thinking that the universe would be a better place without them.

Kim Crossen forged a path to the bar, joined the queue and looked at the room’s reflection in the mirror behind the optics while she waited to be served. The Fox was often busy but today was something else, as if ten coachloads of overdressed customers had been emptied into it. She studied the crowd: men and women in black suits and black dresses, some with faces like hatchets, others more benign. Voices rolled over her in crashing waves, rising and falling, gruff and silky, coarse and smooth. It was hard to tell the gangsters from the law-abiding citizens. She glanced to the right, spotted Jack Hallows in the corner and elbowed her way along to him.

‘Lord, it’s busy in here.’

‘If you’re after a drink, you may have a bit of a wait.’

‘I’m not bothered. To be honest, I just came to have a gawp. Mac said all the bad, the very bad and the ugly would be here.’

‘He’s not far wrong.’

Kim had first met Jack Hallows a few months back when she’d been assigned to Kellston gym to investigate a spate of thefts. For a week she’d had to play the part of the gym bunny, hanging around in a tracksuit – she’d drawn the line at Lycra – and trying to look like the sort of girl who enjoyed lifting weights and felt perfectly at ease in a room full of sweaty exercise freaks.

‘You used to be a cop, didn’t you?’ Jack said.

‘In another life.’ Kim had spent five years in the force before concluding that she wasn’t cut out to take orders. Her tendency to answer back had not proved popular with her superiors. Since then, she’d done a stint in an insurance company – equally unrewarding – before working on the doors for a while. As soon as she’d seen the ad for a private investigator, she’d known it was for her: a job that could satisfy her boundless curiosity while not constantly reining her in or demanding she spend half her life doing paperwork. Since starting at Mackenzie, Lind she’d been working long hours, trying to prove herself worthy of their faith in her. Or Harry Lind’s faith, at least. She had the feeling that Mac hadn’t been too keen on hiring a woman.

‘Don’t you have an urge to find some handcuffs and arrest half the people here? I’m sure most of them are guilty of something.’

Kim gave a snort. ‘Not my problem any more.’

Jack was in his late thirties, tall, fair haired, with a face that was full of planes and angles, like his features had been chiselled out of marble. She supposed he was good looking in an intense sort of way. What did she even mean by that? Only that his smile didn’t always reach his inscrutable blue eyes, that he constantly seemed to be weighing things up, that the seriousness of his expression was often at odds with the levity of what he said.

‘What made you join up in the first place?’

‘My dad was a cop. It was all I ever wanted to do. It took me ten minutes to realise that it wasn’t for me, but I stuck with it. I didn’t want to disappoint him. He was so pleased I was following in his footsteps.’ She sighed. ‘I didn’t fit in. And I don’t just mean the being-a-woman thing, although that was bad enough, but in every other way too. I felt . . . I don’t know, hemmed in, out of place, living the wrong life.’

Jack seemed to think about this for a while. Then he said, ‘You want a beer?’

Kim shook her head. ‘I’m on the orange juice. Back to work this afternoon.’

Jack put his empty glass down on the counter, caught the eye of the redhead behind the bar and ordered the drinks.

‘How do you do that?’ Kim said while she watched the girl pull his pint. ‘Even when I’m standing right in front of bar staff, they still ignore me.’

‘Good tipping,’ he said. ‘Bar staff are like elephants; they never forget.’

‘Who are you calling an elephant?’ the redhead said, placing the drinks in front of him and holding out her hand for the money.

Jack grinned. ‘It’s a compliment, Marianne. Elephants are wise, beautiful creatures.’

‘Elephants are big lumbering creatures.’

‘Keep the change,’ he said, passing over a note.

Kim raised her glass to Jack. ‘Ta. Good health.’ She watched as Marianne put the money in the till, dropped the tip into a pint glass, and then picked up a tray to go and collect some glasses. As she went from table to table, her striking red hair swayed from side to side. Kim suffered a pang of hair envy. She’d been wearing her own cropped short for the past year after learning to her cost, while she was on the doors, that drunk women didn’t think twice about trying to yank out a long blonde ponytail by the roots.

‘So how’s it going across the road?’ Jack said.

‘Good. Yeah. Still learning the ropes really, but I’m enjoying it.’ Which was true, even if she did seem to be on almost permanent surveillance of one cheating spouse after another. Or, if she wasn’t doing that, furtively taking photos of insurance claimants who said they were too badly injured to walk but still seemed able to stride to the pub or push a trolley round the supermarket. Chasing and recording other people’s secrets and lies. But she knew this was only part of the job and that more interesting cases would come along if she was patient. She gazed around the crowded pub. ‘So, point out the faces to me. Who’s who in the great rogues’ gallery?’

Jack reeled off a list of names, some of which were familiar, others less so. ‘You missed Terry’s son, Chris. He only stayed for twenty minutes. Had a couple of drinks and then scarpered. I got the feeling he wasn’t overly enamoured of the company.’

‘Can’t say I blame him. It’s hardly a small family gathering, is it? Must be weird to have your father’s funeral hijacked by everyone and anyone.’

‘The price of fame. Or infamy, depending how you look at it.’

‘Mac says there’s going to be trouble now that Terry’s gone.’

‘He could be right.’ Jack gestured towards the room. ‘Some of this lot will be sniffing round, that’s for sure. Nature abhors a vacuum, as they say. Terry’s been out of the game for the past few years, but Danny – his other son – was taking care of business. Now that they’re both gone, there’s a gaping great hole ready to be filled.’

‘What about Chris?’

‘Not from what I’ve heard. He doesn’t want the hassle. He’s happy running his club and whatever sidelines he’s got on the go. Most of them illegal, I’m sure.’ He pointed towards a big guy, muscly, holding court in the middle of the room. ‘That’s Harvey Tane. You know him?’

‘I’ve seen him around.’

‘He’ll be planning to take over most of Kellston’s drug business, and maybe the girls too. But he’ll have plenty of competition. Nothing’s going to be peaceful for the next few months.’

‘Is it ever?’ Kim wrinkled her nose. ‘It’s so depressing. And look at those lads, all gazing at him like he’s some sort of superstar.’

‘He’s the equivalent in their eyes. Money and power; that’s what it’s all about. They don’t see what he really is, only what he represents.’

Kim heard the bitter edge to his voice and glanced at him. ‘You can’t save them all,’ she said, knowing that he tried his best to steer them away from trouble. ‘You’re doing well if you manage to keep one or two on the straight and narrow.’

Jack opened his mouth, about to reply, but was cut off by a disturbance in the centre of the room. Two old blokes, eyes blazing, were squaring up to each other. Even above the noise of the pub, Kim could catch the occasional word. ‘Grass . . . scum . . . bastard!’ The people around had taken a step back, not wanting to get caught in the crossfire. She hoped it wasn’t going to turn violent; there was something vaguely embarrassing about pensioners throwing punches at each other.

‘I think it’s about to kick off.’

Beside her, Jack laughed. ‘It wouldn’t be a proper funeral without a bust-up. Traditional, isn’t it?’

Marianne had a full tray and was making her way back to the bar when she became aware of raised voices to the side of her. Two old geezers having a spat. One drink too many and all the perceived slights and held-in grievances were coming out. At the very same time as she should have been taking evasive action, she glanced towards the door and saw him walk in. Him. Connor Bond. Her heart almost stopped. She sucked in a breath, feeling her throat constrict. It was him, wasn’t it? Eleven years older, a few more lines on his face, but yes, there wasn’t any doubt about it.

She went to dump the tray on a table but wasn’t quick enough. The argument between the two men escalated, one shoving the other so that he reeled straight back into her and sent her flying. The tray tipped into the air and its contents crashed to the floor. Marianne wasn’t far behind, landing on a heap of shattered glass. While the fight went on, she struggled to get to her feet but was unable to escape from the centre of the storm. More had joined in now, some trying to separate the men, others simply wanting a piece of the action, and everything was obscured by a nightmarish muddle of feet and legs, of noise, of spitting rage and drunken abuse.

She had to get up. She had to find Connor.

It was Jack Hallows who finally came to her rescue, who pushed aside the brawling mob, cleared a space and helped her to her feet. ‘Are you okay?’

Marianne stood unsteadily, frantically looking round, searching for those features, for the man who’d eluded her for the past eleven years. But there were so many people, she couldn’t pick him out. ‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. Thank you.’

‘You’re bleeding,’ he said.

‘Am I?’ She glanced at her arm where thin streams of red traversed the skin, a criss-cross pattern of rivulets all running down to her hand and then through her fingers before dripping on to the floor. ‘It’s nothing.’ She looked up again, eyes scouring the crowd. ‘I have to find him. He’s here somewhere.’

‘Find who?’ he said, taking her elbow and leading her firmly away from what was left of the fracas. It was dying down now, burning out as quickly as it had started.

‘Connor. I saw him come in.’

‘Well, whoever he is, it can wait. Let’s get that arm seen to and then we can look for him.’

‘No, it can’t wait.’ Marianne wrenched herself free of his grasp. If only those stupid idiots hadn’t started the fight, she would have caught Connor for sure. She could have confronted him, backed him into a corner, demanded to know where her son was. ‘I have to find him now. It’s urgent.’

With Jack hot on her heels, she started pushing through the mourners, looking left and right, examining every male face, studying every man waiting at the bar, peering at every table and into every booth. He had to be here somewhere. Her pulse was racing, her heart beating so hard she thought it might burst. She knew she must seem mad, possessed, but she didn’t care.

‘Marianne? What are you doing?’

‘I saw him,’ she said. ‘I’m sure of it.’ But she had made a circuit of the pub by now and Connor was nowhere to be seen. Anger and disappointment streamed through her. Tears pricked her eyes. Then she had an idea. ‘The gents,’ she said to Jack. ‘Maybe he’s in there. Will you go and look? He’s tall, brown hair, brown eyes, wearing a dark suit.’

‘That covers half the men in here.’

‘Will you just go and look?’ Marianne pleaded. ‘Please.’

Jack shrugged and