"Oh? What do I look like?"
"Bit posh for Tommy. He likes showgirls from the West End. He"s only brought one home in all the time I"ve lived opposite and Vera threw her out on to the street in a moment.
Called her something unmentionable, too."
Sarah laughed. "I can"t imagine Vera swearing! She"s far too nice."
"You can"t be Tommy Ramsey"s mum and not know a thing or two," Mary replied. "So what"s your story? The women on this street are all dying to know but none of them dare ask. They"re all too scared of Tommy."
"But you"re not."
"I"m the black sheep of Tabernacle Street, didn"t you know?
Single mum, no husband, three b.a.s.t.a.r.ds at me feet." Mary said all this with matter-of-fact simplicity. Sarah was taken aback by the woman"s candour.
"That must have been hard for you. It"s tough enough raising children on your own in my time, but back in the " Sarah realised what she was saying and hastily changed her words. "I mean, that"s tough enough for anyone."
Mary took a photograph of her daughters from the mantelpiece and handed it to Sarah. "These are me daughters.
That"s Jean, she"s the oldest. Then there"s Rita who"s seven and Bette, who"ll be six next week. They"re all off to school already."
"I know, I saw them go this morning. They"re lovely."
"Thanks." Mary drained her cup. "Would you like some more tea?"
Sarah politely shook her head. "No, I"d better get back. I promised Mr Ramsey I"d look after his mother today."
"More like she"s watching over you. Got eyes like a hawk, has Vera." Mary saw Sarah out to the door. "Well, come back over again. It"s nice to have someone else to talk to. My daughters are growing up now, I miss having some company."
"You could get a boyfriend," Sarah suggested.
"No more men!" Mary exclaimed. "Every time one of them comes near me I end up with another baby. One thing I"ve learned growing up women have to look out for themselves.
We can"t depend on men anymore."
"Well, see you later." Sarah went back across the road and into the Ramsey home. Only when she closed the front door did Mary realise Sarah had avoided answering any of her questions.
Callum roused his gang with a selection of kicks to their slumbering bodies. "Get up! All of you! The Ramsey Mob should have got my message by now."
Billy was rudely awakened by a boot to his belly. He sat up sharply, pulling a cosh from his suit pocket. "What is it?
Somebody want some trouble?"
Callum grinned down at the snarling teenager. "Tommy Ramsey does and we"re just the gang to give it to him. Now get up! We need to prepare."
Billy shook his brother awake before standing up. He tried to brush the wrinkles out of his crumpled suit, feeling a churning excitement in his stomach. The prospect of a brawl always put him on edge. When it came to defending your territory, most gangs favoured unarmed fighting. People got hurt, some even died but the old bill didn"t get involved unless weapons were used.
Despite that, you never knew when somebody would pull out a blade or a gun. There were still plenty of service revolvers available under the counter, mementos brought back from the war. n.o.body liked to arrive for a fight armed with lead pipes and pickaxe handles, only to discover the other side was waving shooters. Billy looked at his watch. It was nearly eleven already not much time to get tooled up now. He asked Callum if they needed firepower.
"Against Tommy Ramsey? No. He"s a fool who believes in honour amongst thieves. He"ll turn up mob-handed, but keep his shooter in that Bentley of his, in case things turn nasty." Callum licked his lips hungrily. "I can"t wait to get behind the wheel of that car. I plan to keep it as a souvenir."
Tommy was standing on the bar in the Red Room, addressing his men. He had spent the night driving around the East End, gathering his troops for the coming battle. Nearly forty members of the Ramsey Mob were standing in the gambling club, all armed to the teeth with knives, pickaxe handles and coshes.
They were all dressed in their Sunday best suits, with clean white shirts and silk ties. Looking good was important to Tommy.
n.o.body respected scruffs.
"Callum"s in for a nasty surprise come midday," Tommy said.
"How many spotty-faced jokers has he got in his pack, Jack?"
Jack Cooper stepped forward from the gathering. "Twenty at the most. Most of them are still in nappies, Tommy!" This brought laughter from the men.
Tommy smiled at the joke before holding up a hand for silence. "That"s true, very true but that don"t mean we shouldn"t take them seriously. Remember what they did to Jim Harris. He"s lying on a slab now, thanks to Callum and his gang of upstarts."
The men nodded, the smiles gone from their faces now.
Tommy nodded his approval at the change in mood.
"They"ve been taking liberties. Now it"s time they were put in their place. These are our streets. These are our people. And nothing and n.o.body is taking them away from us." Tommy reached out his hands, palms held open towards his men. "Who"s with me?"
"We are!" the men shouted in unison.
"I can"t hear you! Who"s with me?"
"WE ARE!"
"You better believe it!" Tommy curled his right hand up into a fist. "I said it before and I"ll say it again Callum"s in for a nasty surprise." Tommy punched the fist into his other hand, the flesh slapping together. "Let"s go give it to him!"
The Doctor was picking through the smouldering embers of his watchmender"s shop. The fire brigade had arrived eventually, but too late to save any of the contents. The structure of the brick building remained intact and could probably be salvaged. But the shop itself was a mess of blackened furniture and charred timepieces. Several of the clock faces had warped in the intense heat generated by the fire.
The Doctor ran his fingers along the scorched, soggy floor and then sniffed at his digits. An accelerant had been used probably petrol. He stood up and brushed the soot from his hands. Not very subtle, but effective enough. The ornate ormolu clock he had rescued from the Ramsey thug had suffered in the blaze, its face melted like some surreal sculpture. The Doctor shook his head sadly. So much for valuable antiques! He left the shop, climbing out through the gaping s.p.a.ce where the front window had been. It must have shattered from the incredible heat inside. Fragments of gla.s.s were scattered across the pavement.
The Doctor looked up at the shop"s sign above the door.
The name Fixing Time had been crudely painted over with a single word: Fixed. Ramsey"s men had certainly done their job well. The rest of the businesses along Old Street would not be late with their insurance premiums in the near future. This little rebellion had been well and truly crushed.
"A fire does so much damage," an American accent announced. The Doctor turned to see a priest standing where Steve MacMa.n.u.s had been the previous night. "It"s not just the flames. There"s the smoke too, and then the water. Sometimes I think the fire brigade does more harm than good."
"The damage had already been done by the time the brigade arrived," the Doctor said.
"I"m sorry, I haven"t introduced myself. I"m Father Xavier Simmons. I take service at St Luke"s, across the road." He gestured at the church with its towering steeple before shaking hands with the Doctor. "And you are...?"
"Smith, Doctor John Smith. But everybody just calls me the Doctor."
"A doctor of what?" Simmons enquired politely.
"Science mostly. I"m fascinated with time. Hence the shop."
The Doctor looked at the priest curiously. "You sound like you"re a long way from home."
"The accent. Yeah, I"m from the States. I was stationed near here during the war. Afterwards, I stayed on. I was just about to be demobbed back home when I had what I guess you would call a life-changing experience."
"You saw the light?"
Father Simmons smiled. "Exactly! My new life started just across the road, on the steps of St Luke"s. I realised I had wasted my life, chasing worldly goods and not caring who got hurt along the way. I decided to devote myself to doing the Saviour"s work.
I guess you could say that I was born again that night."
"Fascinating." The Doctor looked up at the church"s steeple.
"So you"ve been at St Luke"s ever since?"
"Oh no. I had to go through several years of training. My vocation may have come in a flash but it takes a little longer to learn the ways of the Saviour. I"ve been in this parish since Fall. I mean Autumn!" The priest shook his head. "I"m not sure I"ll ever remember all your quaint English expressions."
"Not everything about England is quaint," the Doctor replied, looking at the burnt-out remnants of his shop. "Tommy Ramsey"s men did this because I refused to pay their insurance premiums."
"A protection racket!" Father Simmons shook his head sadly.
"I grew up in Chicago I lived beside people like Tommy Ramsey. So much violence. If only people could live together in peace, as one under the benevolent eye of the Saviour. The world would be a happier place, Doctor."
"Do you think that"s realistic? Human nature fights against conformity. The herd instinct is strong but all the greatest advances in human history have been led by individuals, people inspired to push beyond the boundaries of their knowledge and experience."
The priest pointed at the smouldering shop front. "You think this is a worthwhile price to pay for progress? I cannot agree with your ideas, Doctor. I believe we are all but children before our creator. We should follow the Saviour"s will. I am sworn to do everything I can to make that happen."
The Doctor was distracted by two groups of men forming on the roadside outside St Luke"s. "So you consider yourself a missionary?"
"It"s my mission to spread the word of the Saviour, so I suppose so. I"m a missionary for peace and harmony and this city is my station." Father Simmons" eyes were ablaze with fervour. "I opened a bread factory to give people jobs, put money in their pockets and pride back in their hearts. Now we"ve started selling that bread back to people cheaply, giving them the stuff of life itself. I even managed to negotiate a contract to supply all the local police stations with our bread.
That sort of project is the key to my mission"s success."
"Well, it seems your mission is about to go very, very wrong."
The Doctor pointed at the gatherings in front of the church.
"Those men don"t look like they"ve come to St Luke"s for a prayer meeting."
Father Simmons looked with horror at the two gangs. "No!
Not now!"
The Doctor grabbed the priest by the arm and pulled him inside the blackened shop. n.o.body would be safe on the street in the coming minutes.
Callum and his gang stood in a triangle formation on the western side of the church steps. Callum was leading from the front, flanked on either side by Billy and Charlie. The two brothers were both carrying lead pipes and black leather coshes like the rest of the gang, but Callum was unarmed.
"I don"t need any of your weapons to take out Tommy Ramsey," he had said as the gang walked to the church. "I"ll tear him apart with my bare hands."
The Ramsey Mob were gathered on the eastern side of the steps. None of the men brandished any weapons. Jack stood at the front, looking at his watch. Behind him Tommy"s four lieutenants were getting agitated.
"Where the h.e.l.l is he?" Valance whispered.
"Tommy"ll be here he just wants to make a big entrance,"
replied Norman Page.
"Let"s get this over with," Mike Gilmore hissed. "I"m dying for a slash!"
"You do this every time, Mikey," Dave Butcher said with a smirk. "Why didn"t you go at the Red Room, when you had the chance?"
"Didn"t need to go then, did I?"
"Every time we have a stand-up with some other gang, you have to take a slash. Your dry cleaning must cost a fortune."
"Get it free, perks of the job," Gilmore replied.
"Oh yeah, course." The throaty exhaust of the Bentley could be heard approaching from the east. "Here he comes. Not before time, either."
"Shut it," Jack commanded. The lieutenants fell silent.
The Bentley glided to a halt outside Fixing Time. Tommy got out and nodded to Brick, who drove away. Tommy joined his gang as the noise from the Bentley faded into the distance.
He was carrying a long, curved scabbard, the golden, gleaming handle of a sword protruding from it. Tommy nodded to his men before turning to face Callum.
An unnerving quiet filled the street. It seemed everybody knew about the conflict and was keeping well away from the church.
All the nearby shops had closed early for extended lunch breaks.
Cars were taking scenic routes to skirt the expected violence. Net curtains were pulled in all the windows overlooking the street.
The footpaths were empty. It could have been dawn on a Sunday morning but for the pale winter sun overhead and the sound of clocks chiming twelve in the distance.
"High noon," the Doctor whispered. Beside him Father Simmons was shaking his head in anguish, rocking back and forth on his heels.
"I can"t let this happen not again. There"s been enough bloodshed on the steps of St Luke"s. I can"t let this happen..."
On the street Callum and Tommy walked towards each other. They stopped a few feet apart, their eyes locked together, their gaze not shifting. At last, Tommy broke the silence.
"So you"re the infamous Callum. Not much to look at, are you?"
"I could say the same of you," Callum sneered. "The way people talked while you were in prison, I was expecting some giant to turn up."