The Corrupted Part Two

by G.F. Newman

Genres: Biographical

Synopsis

In 1951 the Festival of Britain marks a new golden age of hope and prosperity for the country. Things are certainly looking up for the criminal elite who run the East End.

For Jack, a draft-dodger with aspirations to be a champion boxer, there's easy money to be made for providing a bit of muscle. Meanwhile his sister Kath must keep secret the fact that she killed their father to protect her son, Brian, from the abuse she experienced as a child. Brian is so traumatised by witnessing this event that the complex union of violence and sexuality will shape his character for life.

As the years go by and disillusion sets in, successive Labour and Tory governments aren't able to stop the rot. Younger, nastier criminals like the Kray twins and the Richardson brothers begin to carve out their own criminal empires and crush all resistance. Brutalised and embittered by years of failure and imprisonment, Jack decides to make a stand.

The stage is set for one big war.

Release date: December 4, 2014

Publisher: Quercus Publishing

Print pages: 288

Sample

GF Newman is a double BAFTA award-winning writer/producer, novelist and creator of the highly sucessful BBC1 series Judge John Deed. His first novel, Sir, You Bastard, was an instant bestseller, while Law and Order, his televison debut, changed the way criminal justice is portrayed on television and caused questions to be asked in the House of Commons. Further groundbreaking television followed, which he wrote and produced: The Nation’s Health, Black and Blue, The Healer, and New Street Law. He lives in an ecological house he rebuilt in Gloucestershire, along with his partner, two rescued dogs and an elderly horse.

‘Newman’s latest magnum opus is a roll-call of Britain from the 1950s to the 1980s, a Sopranos-meets-Eastenders underworld saga that consumes lowlife and highlife alike and spits out both with the same bad taste . . . This is a rumbustious, violent, cynical and yet frighteningly credible romp through the underbelly of three decades of British history . . . At a time when British identity is increasingly swamped by American influences, this is an unashamedly unselfconscious bath in a wholly English underworld. There is even a glossary to help with the language’

The Times

‘This is a true gangster novel with thrills, spills and more twists and turns than Spaghetti Junction . . . if you like crime thrillers, this book will not disappoint. It delivers exactly what it promises’

Edinburgh Evening News

‘More accurate and entertainingly written than much of the fiction that masquerades as books in the true crime section . . . well-written and researched’

Sunday Express

‘This London gangster novel . . . goes straight for the jugular with a sex and violence-fuelled four-generation history of a dodgy East End family . . . it’s certainly a page-turner and Newman possesses both a solid feel for time and place and the ‘nouse’ to tie the Bradens’ trials and tribulations into postwar British history . . . Cushty’

The List

Nicking things was fun. It was profitable and exciting but, most of all, it put Tony Wednesday in charge. He could decide whether he did it or not. Almost every day he nicked something from shops, and sometimes at night he went out nicking from houses or warehouses, slipping out of a window at the orphanage and down the ivy-clad wall.

He lay in bed, listening for the dormitory to settle after lights out. Each night the routine was the same. At nine o’clock the lights were switched off from outside; there was a bit of talk before the room settled, last-minute reminders about tomorrow, a few insults, then quiet. Ten minutes later the brother on duty would look in, walk the length of the dorm with a flashlight to check that the boys were in the right beds, then leave. Staying awake during that time wasn’t difficult for Tony. He just lay in bed thinking of how he hated this place, how he’d like to kill everyone in it, especially the thin, rat-like brothers in their brown habits and the fat, overfed nurse.

Slipping out of bed, he went across the room to Micky Lee, who was only thirteen but went out nicking with him. They couldn’t take many of the things they lifted back to the orphanage, but clothes and money were easy to hide. The rest they sold in transport cafés and spent the money on the pinball machine or jukebox. Often they sold too cheaply so the money didn’t last long.

‘Micky. Micky,’ Tony said, in an urgent whisper, ‘you coming? Mick? Wake up!’

Either scared or tired, his mate wouldn’t respond. Tony hesitated only a moment before he decided to go on his own. He’d been planning to break into a men’s outfitters on the high street to get some new clobber. He was fed up with hand-me-downs. The brothers were tightwads and didn’t spend a penny unless they were forced to. Clothes, the raiment of vanity, were low on their list of priorities. Boys who’d got a place at the local grammar school were bought uniforms, but always grant-aided. Tony had purposely messed up his eleven-plus exam to punish the brothers. He certainly didn’t want to have to wear a free uniform that was to be cherished and guarded against damage because another wouldn’t come your way until the current one was at least two or three sizes too small.

Going down the ivy outside the window was as easy as sliding down a pole. He tried to go carefully because he’d noticed it was getting worn because he’d used this way out and in so often. The brothers hadn’t seen it but, then, they were stupid. Most likely some snitch would tell them about it, and he’d have to find another route.

He made straight for the shops on Kingsland Road. Most were rubbish, with nothing he could take and sell easily – tailors or button suppliers. He couldn’t break into the outfitters without Micky’s help, so he decided on a large tobacconist’s instead. Smokes were the easiest thing of all to sell in a café. Everyone wanted them. They were bulky and difficult to hide, and it wasn’t worth nicking just a few packets. He needed at least two cartons. He’d tried lifting a couple of boxes at the back of the newsagent’s when he collected the papers early in the morning for his delivery round. He earned twelve shillings a week. It was a drag getting up, especially when he’d been out late at night, but it meant he had a legitimate source of money that explained other cash or things found in his possession. He told the brothers he’d saved up his paper-round money. They were gullible and Tony liked to pull the wool over their eyes. What he acquired now was easily explained by his full-time day job, even though they took most of the three pounds he earned weekly for his keep.

‘Fucking hell,’ he said, when he remembered he hadn’t got the breaking tools. Micky usually brought the crowbar. He looked in the alleyway at the back of the shops for something to force the lock on the window. There was an old packing case with strips of metal, none of which was strong enough to use as a bar. He could go across Kingsland Road on to the overgrown bombsite to look for something. He thought about it, then dismissed the idea. He might get nicked for loitering, like some queer.

Tony tried the door and windows. There was always a chance one would be open.

He’d hardly touched the first window when some geezer shouted, ‘Oi! Whatcha doing?’ Without waiting to discover who it was, Tony ran along the alleyway, grateful to the man for being so stupid as to give him plenty of warning. Someone less stupid would have crept up and grabbed him. People were so stupid. Tony heard the man’s lumbering run slow to a laboured, breathless walk and smiled. He didn’t dash out on to the main road in case a cop saw him, but slowed to a walk, wandering the streets of Hoxton, looking for an opportunity. Cars were parked in the streets, some quite smart, but they were a waste of time. Usually all you found were tins of barley sugar and rugs but now and then, during the day, you got a handbag or a briefcase that some stupid person had left on show. Cars were easy to screw, and so were vans. Although Micky was only thirteen he could drive, and a couple of times they’d nicked a car and gone for a spin. It was a big waste of time, Tony decided, with nothing to show for it at the end. If Tony wanted a ride in a car, he could go out with Brother Simon for a jaunt in the country, as the stupid fucker liked to call it. He didn’t enjoy what went with it: giving the brother a wank on the back seat.

Crossing Regent’s Canal, Tony found himself in de Beauvoir Road, his eyes still darting about for an opportunity. He tried the door to the post office and found it securely locked. The houses here were bow-fronted, late Victorian terraces, and Tony didn’t expect to find much. He felt a bit despondent, but he was determined to press on. Most of the windows were dark, people in bed because they had get up for work the next day. He’d be tired at work tomorrow. As a site clerk at a warehouse being built on Leman Street, he’d found a bit of fiddle booking in tradesmen when they were taking days off. He’d got ten bob for that, but knew he wasn’t getting a big enough share. Some of the bricklayers earned four pounds a day. Ten bob was okay for a labourer on three quid, but even that was too cheap. He’d ask for twenty-five per cent in future.

Then he saw his chance, a ground-floor window that was ajar.

He slipped into the shallow front garden, watching owlishly for any sign of movement. He was especially careful because some of these houses had two or more tenants. The ground-floor front was someone’s bedroom, but the people in the bed were sound asleep and smelt as if they were drunk. He went through trouser pockets and handbags, finding a total of three pounds, nine shillings and four pence, which made it worth the bother.

In the kitchen he found a strong carving knife to do the gas meter. With the knife behind the flimsy lock it didn’t need much pressure to break open the box. He got a load of shillings, about two pounds – he didn’t stop to count. As he was about to start up the stairs, to check if the people there were any richer, someone approached the front door and he heard a key scrape across the lock.

For a second Tony froze, then stepped back into the messy kitchen and pushed the door to. What if they wanted a cup of cocoa? The knife was still in his hand. He could stab them. No, that was stupid, he told himself, and put the knife on the dresser. He could hear them whispering. It was a couple.

Then the worst thing happened. The man went up the stairs to their rooms but the woman came along to the kitchen. She opened the door and, finding Tony, screamed, ‘Stephen! Stephen!’ Tony stepped past her and raced to the door. He flung it open and shut it to delay Stephen.

But the man could run. Tony heard him close behind and he wasn’t flagging. Why was the stupid idiot bothering? Tony hadn’t nicked anything worth all this trouble. Come on, give up, you stupid fucker.

On and on the man came, relentlessly, as Tony zipped into Shoreditch Park, thinking he might hide with no lights there, but he wasn’t far enough ahead of Stephen to make that possible. Now Tony could feel himself tiring and wasn’t sure he was going to get away. Panic snatched at him, and he wished he’d kept the knife. No. If he killed someone during the course of a robbery he’d hang. He put on a spurt, lungs burning. He snatched a glance behind him, then wished he hadn’t. Stephen was gaining on him.

Tony burst out of the park on to Rushton Street and was bathed in the yellow glare of the gaslights. There was no escape now, and he thought about turning round and whacking the bloke when he felt a hand grasp his shoulder. Tony found some extra adrenalin-driven energy and spurted ahead. It was now or never. A smile started as he heard the man’s breathing becoming laboured. Yet still he came on.

As they reached New North Road and the brighter glare of sodium street lighting, he knew the game was up. There were two policemen on the far side of the road, patrolling on foot. Two people running couldn’t help but attract their attention. They started towards him, and his pursuer, as if encouraged by this, reached out again and grasped his shoulder, pulling him to a halt.

*

At the police station, Tony was put into a cell to wait. It wasn’t long before Sergeant Watling arrived. He smacked him hard around the head with his open hand, sending him careening off the cream-painted wall that was scratched and scarred.

‘Are you crackers? Are you a fucking mental retard?’ he yelled, and hit him again, knocking him down. ‘Didn’t you listen to anything I told you?’

Tony Wednesday knew he could hit him back and make a good fight of it, even allowing for the old man’s cunning, but that wouldn’t get him out of his predicament. He was completely stupid for getting caught like this. He shuffled away, his back to the splintered wooden bed as the policeman reached down for him. ‘Get up before I kick the stuffing out of you. Lord knows what good that’d do! Those priests must have beaten you often enough and still you end up in the nick.’

Without a word Tony got to his feet, keeping an eye on Sergeant Watling’s hands.

‘How often do they beat you in the orphanage?’

‘They don’t,’ Tony said.

The look Sergeant Watling gave him said he didn’t believe him. ‘It’s lucky for you, son, that the desk sergeant here’s an old friend of mine or you’d have been down at Shoreditch magistrates’ court in the morning and no telling where you’d end up.’

Still Tony didn’t say anything.

‘At least you don’t yak your head off or, worse, cry,’ the sergeant said. ‘Maybe you did learn something from me, after all. I’d’ve thrown you in the canal if you’d been a whiner. So, you like stealing, do you?’

‘I don’t know, guv’nor,’ Tony said. ‘It was the first time.’

The policeman roared with laughter. ‘Like hell it was, you lying little bastard.’ He paused to look him up and down.

Tony was as tall as his mentor, with lean, stringy muscles, a long face and a slightly hooked nose. Sergeant Watling nodded, his anger gone. ‘You’re not stupid, Tony,’ he said. ‘Anything but. A disappointment, though. I didn’t come down to that poxy orphanage every week with a bag of sweets to see you end up nicked. The fuck I did, sunshine.’

No, Tony thought, you came down to do that fat sister on your Mac on her office floor.

‘What you smiling at, you cunning little bleeder?’

‘Cunning’ was a compliment. Tony Wednesday felt better about what had happened. A broad grin parted his lips and showed his even teeth. He had cultivated a smile like Burt Lancaster’s in The Crimson Pirate, all teeth, the same as a shark.

‘If you wanna be a thief, son, get a licence,’ Watling told him.

Tony was unsure what he meant. The old copper always meant something, was always trying to give him lessons. ‘What? Like a fishing rod licence?’

That made the sergeant laugh again, and Tony knew for sure then that he was somehow going to walk away from this arrest.

‘Wouldn’t that be handy? Popping along to the post office and paying over your shilling. No, the police are the only people with a licence to steal – apart from the poxy government what robs from the working man’s pay packet every week. You join the police, Tony, you not only get a licence to steal, all the others protect you. Mark my words.’ He touched the side of his nose.

‘How can I join the police?’ Tony said. ‘I’m not old enough.’

‘A cunning lad like you? You was born old enough, Tony. It’s the cadets you’ll be joining.’

‘What about getting nicked tonight?’

‘That’s where we take care of our own, son,’ Sergeant Watling said proudly, and winked at Tony like he was one of their own already. ‘You’ll see. We’ll get you signed up and you’ll have a job for life. Like me.’ He put his arm around Tony’s shoulders and pulled open the heavy cell door. ‘You know what I like best of all about you, Tone?’ he said.

Tony waited. The policeman zipped his finger and thumb across his mouth. Tony gave his shark’s smile.

*

‘How does anyone come here to get measured for a suit, Sammy?’ Jack Braden said, glancing round the untidy, ash-strewn workshop on Theobald’s Road. ‘I can’t believe people come here for a fitting when they can go to smart gaffs like Montague Burton’s for half the price.’

‘Montague Burton?’ Sammy Cohen hissed, careful not to disturb the ash on the Players Weight in his mouth. ‘All he could ever cut are those rags the army wears. So, why is it you come here, Jack? Is it to insult me? I made you suits like you were born in them.’

‘Yeah, you didn’t do bad,’ Jack conceded. ‘You got a nice bit of Tonik mohair to make me up something?’ He was avoiding getting to what he really wanted and let the man run his tape-measure over him, jotting figures on a torn-up cigarette packet.

When he was done and Jack had chosen a halfway decent cloth, he said, ‘How’s your Leah, these days, Sammy?’

Sammy Cohen threw back his head. ‘How would she be after what that animal did to her? So help me, Jack, if I was half my age I’d have gone after him with an axe. Do I care if he’s Joey’s boy? He should be dead.’

‘Well, ‘s nothing to do with me,’ Jack said. ‘I always had a soft spot for your Leah, you know that. In fact, I wouldn’t mind looking her up, make sure she’s all right.’

‘Looking her up?’ Sammy said. ‘So what is she? A film at the picture house that you can just look her up? See what time she’s showing?’

‘Calm down, Sammy. I’m a friend. It’s me, Jack Braden. I saved her from a fate worse than death, remember?’

‘Should I forget? A father who had no power to stop his lovely little Mädchen being taken by the Krays and put into prostitution? I should go on living.’

‘Yeah, well, that’s in the past now,’ Jack said. ‘I’m not like that. All I’d want to do is take care of her, like you would. Where is she?’

‘It’s more than a year since that monster violated my little Leah. Still she’s not well. What he did to her disturbed her mind. She studies all the time, things of the mind, trying to understand what afflicts her. Her teachers are pleased with my Leah. One day she will qualify, find her place in the academies and put all this behind her, please God. One day.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Jack said. ‘That’s good. Where is she?’

‘Did you not hear me? I can’t tell you that. You’ll be a reminder of her past, threatening to suck her under again. She’ll never forgive me if I bring her back to all that.’

‘And I’ll never forgive you if you don’t cough up the address,’ Jack said, the raw edge of violence suddenly back in his voice.

*

‘Why don’t you and your family leave me alone?’ Leah said, when she opened the door of the ground-floor flat she rented on Malvern Road in Bow.

She’d been forewarned, Jack realized. ‘I’m not my family, Leah,’ he said. ‘The fact is, I can’t leave you alone. I’ve waited as long as I could. I wanted you to forget what happened with Brian. He behaves like an animal nowadays. Just give me a chance, Leah.’

She walked back into the flat without saying anything. Jack waited a moment, then decided this was an invitation to come in.

She was as beautiful as he remembered. The doctors had done a terrific repair job. Just looking at her on the sofa in the ratty little sitting room with its hand me down furniture made Jack breathless. There was only one tiny scar over an eyebrow, and her raven hair gleamed with health, like the woman’s in the Silvikrin advert on telly. Her breasts were still small, her hands, too, where she clasped them on her lap. Her knees were pressed together, her feet small and neat in black pumps. She was trembling, which made her even more attractive. He wanted to fall upon her there and then and make love to her. Her vulnerability was almost unbearably exciting. How he held back he wasn’t sure, but knew he must. How long he could wait he didn’t know.

‘I love you, Leah,’ he said. ‘I’ve loved you from the very first day I seen you in that flat the twins were running. You was just in need of someone to take care of you. I knew I had to protect you.’

‘The only way you can do that now is by going away,’ she said, without looking at him. ‘I want you to go away and never come here again. If you really love me, you’ll do as I ask.’

It was all he could do to stop himself lashing out at her. But that wasn’t the way to win a woman. ‘I can’t do that, Leah,’ he said quietly. ‘You owe me, and it’s time I collected what I’m due. I’ve waited long enough. I’d say there’s plenty of interest owing too. Look, it’ll be good. I’ll get us a nice gaff in Chelsea or the West End, wherever you want to live. I’ve got plenty of money. It’ll be great. Away from all this.’

Leah just stared ahead, eyes blank.

*

‘God, it’s a bit of a gaff, Jack,’ Bobby Brown said, when he walked into the second-floor flat in the pink brick block on the corner of Park Street and Brook Street in Mayfair. ‘How’d you get hold of a gaff like this? You could stick a couple of brasses in here and not know they was there.’

‘Stephen Ward had one here,’ Jack told him. ‘He rents it to me. He thinks he might be nicked soon. He’s been involved with some dirty deeds.’

‘You gonna put some old toms in here or what?’

‘I’m moving in with Leah Cohen.’

‘What – the kyke’s daughter?’

‘Oi, enough of that. He’s all right, is Sammy. He thinks the world of his daughter.’

‘What’s Brian gonna say? He’ll go fucking mad.’

‘Who cares? I mean, what can he say? He’ll get plenty of trouble, if he starts.’

‘He can dish it out too.’

‘Am I an invalid or something?’

‘He’s turned into a right wicked bastard.’

‘I know. He’s getting to be more trouble than he’s worth. I shoulda let the Old Bill put him away when they wanted to. But what can you do? He’s family.’

‘Someone’s gonna end up topping him, Jack, the way he shows out all the time. He mugged me right off in the club last night. Called me a no-good ponce. Said I weren’t even a good thief. Me? I been a thief all my life. If he don’t keep his gob shut I’ll end up topping him.’

Jack followed him as he wandered about the flat. There were two adjoining rooms with sliding doors between them, each with windows that overlooked the street. At the end of the corridor there was a study with bookshelves in the tiny recesses at either side of the fireplace. Round the corner there were two bedrooms and two bathrooms, a kitchen at the opposite end of the hall, with a back door on to an iron fire-escape. That was what Jack liked most about the place – a back way out, if anyone unwelcome came through the front door. There was always someone.

‘I got the nod from that blagger I told you about,’ Bobby said. ‘Ronnie Biggs. It’s the Glasgow-to-London mail train what’s the target. You know me, Jack, I always did like post office goods for getting my indoor money.’

‘What’s it worth, d’you reckon?’

‘’S hard to say. Biggsy’s been plotting it up and reckons it could be as much as a hundred and fifty, hundred and sixty grand.’

‘How many you gonna need to stop a train, Bobby?’

‘You gotta be well firmed up, that’s for sure.’

‘Twelve? Fifteen?’ Jack speculated. ‘It don’t come to a lot between that many.’

‘Seven and half apiece wouldn’t be bad.’

‘’S too many involved. You’d end up grassed for sure.’

‘Not with you and Brian involved, we wouldn’t. No one would dare.’

‘I ain’t got that many I can rely on, Bobby. You should talk to Charlie Richardson and his brother.’

‘Them? You wouldn’t end up with a brad. They’d steal the lot and tell you they had to weigh off the Old Bill and half of British Rail. Unless you’d guarantee it for a piece?’

‘Well, let’s talk to them. See what they think.’

*

The Richardson brothers sat in their sweaty caravan in their breaker’s yard in Bermondsey, then offered the same opinion as Jack. ‘I’d stick to what I know, I was you, Jack,’ Charlie said. ‘You can’t go wrong with spielers, can you?’

Something about the way he said it made Jack suspicious, and he wondered if they weren’t trying to put him off. ‘Good advice,’ he said, and got up out of the little armchair that was pushed into the corner. ‘Wipe your mouth on this one, Bobby. Come on.’

He started out through the narrow door, Bobby following.

‘What was that about?’ Bobby asked, as they crossed the littered yard, avoiding the pot-holes that were full of rainwater with an iridescent oil slick.

‘I think they’ll start plotting this one up themselves now you’ve told them,’ Jack said. ‘Where’s your pal Biggsy? Let’s have a meet.’

They met in a spiel Jack looked after in Holloway. A few blacks used the place, but Jack didn’t mind as long as they lost their money like everyone else. The place was quiet, the gambling earnest. He collected the money once a week and didn’t need to do much for it.

‘How d’you know the train’s gonna be carrying that much?’ Jack asked Ronnie Biggs, who sat at the bar, leaning on the counter as if he was too tired to support himself.

‘We been plotting this one for months, Jack,’ he said. ‘Plus my pal’s got a postal worker straightened. He’s been counting the sacks. It’s sometimes a mixture of registered packages and old notes being returned to the Mint for burning.’

Suddenly Jack sat up, glancing around in case anyone nearby had heard, but they were all intent on their gambling. He nodded at Biggsy and Bobby to follow him as he went into the tiny office behind a grubby velvet curtain. It was big enough to boil a kettle and make a cup of tea without reaching far, and with three men, especially one the size of Ronnie Biggs, it was crowded. They didn’t need to shout. Jack questioned him closely about the notes going back to the Bank of England. That was information worth having and Bobby hadn’t had it. He was glad about that or the Richardsons would known about it.

‘How do we know when old notes are going back to be burnt?’ he asked.

‘We don’t exactly. Or how much. No one can get that info,’ Ronnie Biggs said. ‘But most weeks it goes down. I mean, think about it, Jack, how often notes get handled. Stands to reason it goes each week.’

‘How d’you stop a train? Dynamite?’

Ronnie Biggs laughed. ‘No. We got someone who can fix the signal. Turn it to red. It has to stop. The driver’ll get out and go to the nearest phone, which is about four hundred yards back from the signal. He’d phone and see what’s happening. We’ll capture him, tie him up, and our man backs the train up to the road bridge. Then our blokes have the sacks over the side and into a lorry.’

‘You got it all plotted up, Ron,’ Jack said, ‘but how many villains d’you know can drive a train?’

‘It’ll all go off cushty, Jack, we’ll find someone,’ Ronnie Biggs said. ‘We’d all know our whack would be safe with you in. I don’t wanna involve the twins – Ron’s mad. The hounds’d trust you, Jack. We’d have a right result.’

Jack felt rather flattered.

*

‘Are you completely fucking mad?’ Brian said angrily. ‘You’re not a blagger, Jack, and nor am I. I know what Joey’s going to say if you take this to him – and you’ll need someone like Joey to sell that sort of money. He’ll say stick to what you know.’

‘Blagging money off people is what I know.’

‘Yeah. Not off trains. This is what you know.’ They were in one of their carpet joints in Camden Town. It was carpeted everywhere in red, even the walls and doors. The effect was a powerful assault on the senses. Brian’s interior designer had came up with it.

‘We ain’t gonna get rich here,’ Jack said.

‘We’re getting a living,’ Brian told him. ‘A good one. I know how to get an even better one without putting yourself on offer – muscling in on other clubs in the West End. Paul Raymond’s for one, in Soho. You seen what goes down there? Bundles!’

‘The twins look after him in the West End,’ Jack reminded him.

‘So fucking what? We put up with them for too long.’

‘We agreed a truce, Brian.’

‘Truces are for old men.’

‘Being old,’ Jack said, ‘means you lived a long while.’

‘Either that or you’re a coward. You’ve taken their medicine – up your arse mostly.’

Brian saw Jack tense, but when he made no move he knew he should goad him further. This wasn’t about Jack being a blagger – he couldn’t care less about that. It was about something that tore Brian’s insides apart: him capturing Leah Cohen. He’d sooner kill her and Jack than have that happen.

‘Just watch your mouth,’ Jack warned.

He wasn’t rising, so Brian tried a different tack. ‘What’s Leah Cohen charging you?’

‘I warned you, watch your mouth,’ Jack said, and lunged, but instead of hitting him with his signature punch, which his nephew wouldn’t have been able to avoid, he seized him by the throat and pulled him close. Mistake. Brian put his forehead on the bridge of Jack’s nose and brought his knee up into Jack’s groin. Jack crumpled into a ball, and Brian tried to follow through with his knee in his face. His mistake. Jack caught his knee and unbalanced him, then followed through, hitting Brian a series of blows. They sent him reeling into a table and he scrabbled around to stop himself crashing to the floor. His hand fell on a bottle of whisky and he lashed out, shattering the bottle against Jack’s shoulder-blade. Jack delivered two stinging blows to Brian’s face and would have landed a third if the club minder hadn’t stepped in to pull them apart. ‘You two fucking mad?’ Johnny Shannon said. He was a big fella who’d come over to them from the twins. He wasn’t scared of Jack. Everyone in the club had stopped gambling and drinking and was watching. ‘This ain’t no good for business.’

‘You’re right, Johnny,’ Jack said. ‘Good luck. So pack it in, Brian. Get it?’

Brian dabbed his swelling eye with a handkerchief. ‘She’s still a cunt, Jack, and so are you, for going with her.’

That wouldn’t be the last of it. The rage he felt inside wasn’t about to die down.

Leah Cohen walked and talked like a dead woman after her move into J