The Life Read online

  She hoped this intense worry was all down to her hormones, because she didn’t like feeling like this. She had lived through her married life secretly anxious that her husband might get a tug, but her husband and her boys were two different things. The thought of her sons banged up was anathema to her. A woman she had known for years had just seen her son get what amounted to a life sentence. He was a bank robber, a nice lad, but he had been caught with the guns and the money. He had been served up at the Old Bailey by the Serious Crime Squad, and they had made him look worse than a fucking murderer. They had arranged police outriders to follow his paddy wagon, so he looked far more dangerous than he was. The jury had seen them and before they had heard a word said in the actual courtroom the impression that he was dangerous was cemented. He had been handed down an eighteen stretch – he would not have got that even if he had raped and murdered someone!

  But money and property – that was what the courts cared about in this country. If you opened the paper, sex offenders were getting away with all sorts on a daily basis. Young girls were cross-examined in court about their sex lives as if they were on trial, not the piece of dirt that raped them. And, even if the man was found guilty, he didn’t get a real lump – four to seven years for ruining a girl’s whole life. But rob a Post Office and you were sent down for the duration. It was a scandal. Eighteen years for a robbery meant at least fourteen years before he was eligible for parole. He would have been better off if he had killed someone – then he would have been out in seven.

  The whole thing with her friend had thrown Lena Bailey; no one in her world had ever got a real sentence, a real lump. Fourteen years was a serious amount of time out of a young man’s life and it had really hit home that soon that could be one of her sons. Suddenly she saw the lives they could be aspiring to in stark reality with what Daniel wanted for them, and it bothered her.

  This child, she would make sure, would know nothing about the Life. This child would be brought up outside of it all; she would make sure that one of them at least would have the chance to escape it. She only hoped this was a girl, because she knew that a boy would be too hard to control, would look at his brothers and want what they had.

  She sighed. ‘Davey, would you do me a favour, son?’

  ‘’Course I will, Mum, what do you want?’

  ‘Can you phone your Auntie Ria and your nana? Then can you please track your father down? My waters just broke.’

  Davey Bailey went whiter than a sheet. ‘Are you sure?’ he stuttered.

  Lena laughed. ‘I’m sure, son.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘It’s a girl, Pete!’ Daniel had just called home to check on Lena and been given the news.

  Peter Bailey was genuinely pleased for his brother; he knew that he’d wanted a girl this time, for Lena as much as for himself. Ria had a daughter, and he was glad about that. In their world, sons were their father’s ammunition – and they were always on their side. If they were big, handsome lumps all the better. Seven boys between him and Daniel made the Baileys a formidable family. Peter and Daniel were just biding their time until they could bring their sons into the business, introduce them properly to the Life.

  Daniel was back in the car now, and they were speeding along the M1 towards London. They had been up to Liverpool, brokering a deal which would cement their standing in London, and make sure that there would be no chance of anyone allying themselves with the North without them knowing about it first. ‘Good job I phoned! She was early. Tania, Lena’s calling her. And you will never guess what, Pete – Davey was there when she was born! He helped bring her into the world. Fucking rather him than me!’

  Peter grinned. ‘Poor Davey. Be enough to put him off women for life! Well, let’s get back and meet this new daughter of yours.’

  Daniel shook his head. ‘I want to finish what we started, Pete, let’s stick to the original plan. We go and see Alfie Clarke and sort him out once and for all. If he is giving our friends in the North grief then we have to show willing, don’t we? Otherwise this was a fruitless exercise.’

  Peter sighed, but he nodded in agreement. Daniel was hyped up, determined to make his mark, create another legendary bust-up to be talked about in the years to come, and all to placate the Northerners. He understood that on one level, but he wondered how he could put such a minor job before the birth of his only daughter. But since they had taken over, Daniel had really grown into his own reputation. They were like good cop, bad cop now; Peter was the level-headed one, the voice of reason, whereas Daniel was the hothead, the one people were really wary of. It worked for them, just as it always had, but Peter felt that now all eyes were on them Daniel should tone the violence down a notch – at least stop the public displays if nothing else.

  A few weeks earlier, Daniel had kneecapped someone who owed a debt. Peter felt it was beneath them to do such a task themselves – they should give those jobs to the men who they employed. As his mother always said, why have a dog and bark yourself?

  But Daniel felt it kept them on top, made people realise that they were still very involved and knew what was going on. He didn’t allow for the fact that, if he got his collar felt, he would end up going down for what amounted to no more than what a local thug would be tried for. Plus, it would bring all sorts of Old Bill down on their heads, from the Serious Crime Squad, to the Sweeney themselves, as well as other newly formed task forces that, as yet, no one had managed to penetrate.

  It was a new world, and they had to work out how to live safely and securely within it. It wasn’t the sixties any more, and the police were suddenly acting like they knew what they were doing. The newspapers didn’t glamorise the underworld now, Princess Margaret didn’t fraternise with them – not in public anyway – and the Krays were a distant memory. The tabloids asked questions these days, wanted to know why certain people were not being nicked. The front pages of the Sunday papers demanded to know why certain people were still walking about even though they were almost certainly living off criminal proceeds – usually immoral earnings. It was an anomaly to him how newspapers that made their poke off sex scandals involving vicars and politicians could have the cheek to talk about living off immoral earnings, but there you go. That was the new world, the new order.

  This should be the era of the low profile for men such as themselves, but Daniel couldn’t or wouldn’t accept that as a fact of life. Since they had become the new Faces, he seemed more determined than ever to be known, to be lauded – to be feared. And Peter felt that was wrong; they should be content simply with everyone in their world knowing their status. Outsiders meant nothing to him personally, and they should mean nothing to Daniel. What the fuck was he trying to prove? If he wasn’t careful they would have their collars felt and, like the Krays, they would be over before they were even really getting started. They had worked so hard for this. Peter was not going to sit back and let his brother destroy it all before they had even really begun.

  Peter could see how the world was going, he could see that these were dangerous times for people like them. They were sensible in that they had enough legitimate businesses to explain away their lifestyles, but there was no reason to attract too much attention to them as people, as personalities. They had enough creds – they didn’t need any more. Plus, if they kept their violence quiet, so only the people who were in their world knew about it, he believed they would get a much better profile anyway. Times were changing, people were much more aware of how they were perceived these days, the Filth had so much more at their disposal, so why play into their hands? Why put yourself in the frame, when you could quietly and calmly take out your enemies with the minimum of fuss and the maximum of terror? If a person just disappeared, never to be heard of again, Peter felt that was a much more sinister ending than a gun shot in a car park, or a battering in a public place. He wanted a low key takeover of the Smoke, not a fucking remake of High Noon. He felt instinctively that the lower the profile, the better the earn. The days of
bursting into a place waving a sawn-off shotgun, or kneecapping an enemy in full view of a crowded pub, were long gone. He believed, strongly, that this was the era of the quiet disappearance, of the ‘Reported Missing’; no one these days drew too much attention to themselves unless they had to. Even then you used someone else to do your dirty work, making sure that when the skulduggery occurred, you were out with at least fifty people who would happily swear on oath that you were in their company should it all turn pear-shaped, and a court hearing ensue.

  Daniel needed to get this point through his head and, after they had seen Alfie, Peter was going to make sure that Daniel understood that, if he wasn’t careful, his actions would eventually be the cause of their demise. Already his brother was pissing him off, making him nervous, jeopardising everything they had worked towards, but this wasn’t anything new; he had always pushed it to the hilt – it was part of his so-called fucking charm. Whereas Peter was the voice of reason, Daniel was the voice of absolute chaos. He relished the drama of the fight, never allowing for the fact that the more people who knew what they were up to the more chance there was of a fucking serious capture.

  Even the birth of his only daughter had not scratched the surface of his arrogance; he was still too involved with what he saw as his personal crusade to wipe out the competition. Peter could not help wondering when that would include him and his boys. Daniel was not a man to take kindly to criticism, and Peter was criticising him left, right and centre at the moment.

  Daniel continued, ‘I want to be there when we tell him the score. I don’t think you understand how important it is for us to show a united front, Pete. You seem to think this is cut and dried.’

  Peter sighed heavily. ‘It is, Dan. You have got to lighten up, mate. We have achieved what we set out to achieve – now we can play the good guys. You acting like A Man Called Horse ain’t going to earn us any creds. Calm down, will you? We don’t need the blatant violence any more, Dan. Alfie’s a good earner, let’s keep him on-side.’

  Daniel was annoyed at his brother’s interference, even though he knew he had a point. ‘What are you trying to fucking say, big bruv?’

  Peter bit back his anger, and instead said reasonably, ‘What I’m trying to say is, Dan, we don’t need the bully-boy tactics any more. We have sorted everything out perfectly well so far. We need to establish a new order, a new way of handling things. You have to see that taking everyone out at a second’s notice will only cause upset and distrust. We have worked long and hard for this, I’m begging you, don’t let’s fuck it up by generating bad will. We don’t need to prove ourselves any more. We’ve arrived, mate. Let everyone else take the chances – we need to be here to oversee everything. To make sure it goes in our favour.’

  Daniel grinned. ‘So it’s all right for you to do things off your own bat but not me? Is that it?’ He was still upset with his brother for taking out Kevin O’Neill behind his back, and Peter knew it.

  He smiled, and held his hands up in mock surrender. ‘I’ll give you that one, Dan. But this isn’t about now, this is about the future. We have always been very different in our approaches to our work, and up till now that has been one of our strengths. No one knows how to handle us, not separately and definitely not when we are together. We are like chalk and cheese, but now we have to pull together properly, and we have to keep a low profile.’ Peter could see the scepticism on his brother’s face and it angered him that Daniel could not see the danger he brought to their daily lives with his violence and his pettiness.

  ‘You think you know everything, Pete, you always have, since we were little kids. And I love that about you, but you can’t sit there like the fucking Angel Gabriel spreading your glad tidings at this late stage in the game. We took all this with our front, and only our front will keep us in the running. You need to remember that.’

  Peter shook his head then. He had dropped the rest of the crew off at a pub, making sure that there were only the two of them for this conversation. He was aware that Daniel would fight him on this – on every level. Daniel always acted first and thought it all out afterwards. When they were on their way up the ladder that had been less of a problem. Now, though, they needed to pull back a little, keep a low profile for a while. In short, they had to wait and see how their new status was received by the general populace.

  Daniel seemed to think they faced no opposition. Well, it wasn’t the case. They had trodden on more than a few fucking toes and, even though they were convinced they were big enough and tough enough for the job in hand, it would not hurt either of them to wait and see if there were going to be any reprisals.

  ‘We don’t know, Dan, what the upshot of this is yet. We have done our best, but we have still fucked a lot of people over. I believe we need to step back and see what the future holds. Alfie is a good earner and, as lairy as he is, he has his creds. All I am saying is, let’s see what he has to offer.’

  Daniel Bailey looked into his brother’s eyes; he was sorry for him in some ways. Peter always believed the best of people if he could – he got that from their mother. He also thought that because he did things on the quiet they didn’t count. But they did. Peter was paranoid these days. Since they had made their move Peter seemed convinced they were going to get their collars felt. Daniel wondered at how he was going convince his brother of his way of thinking. He saw their next moves as pivotal in their conquering of London and the Home Counties. Daniel felt they should be rattling the cages of everyone within their orbit, making them see just how dangerous they were, whereas Peter wanted to tip-toe in, like fucking burglars, creepers – the lowest of the low where they came from.

  Daniel thought they should remove all the old guard, and replace them with their own people. He could not see the logic of keeping people employed who had worked closely with the very people they had annihilated and he said as much. ‘For fuck’s sake, they don’t trust us, Pete, they see us as their fucking enemies. They are wondering what we are going to do to them.’

  Peter smiled. ‘Exactly. And we can work with them. They’ll work with whoever is running the show, Dan. We can use this as our chance to recruit more of the real workers. We already have the bully boys and the fucking romancers. What we should be concentrating on is the real earners. And we should be making sure that they are working for us. They don’t give a shit who they answer to as long as they still get their money. We were the same, Dan – if you remember, we worked with whoever guaranteed us a wage. Now, I know you have a fucking problem with Alfie, but you have problems with everyone, and I want Alfie on our payroll. He’s a shrewd fucker, and he can sniff out a serious earn in his sleep. People like him are few and far between.’

  Daniel knew his brother was talking sense. But Alfie had never been a favourite of his. He looked down his nose at everyone around him.

  Ultimately, though, Daniel had a different agenda to Peter. Daniel had always seen their eventual rise to the top as an opportunity to pay back old debts, insults, fucking piss-takes and, more to the point, he had seen himself paying them all back in a public arena, had pictured himself taking out certain men in front of audiences of his choice. He was well aware that his penchant for petty anger and his ability to hold a grudge was not conducive to the world his brother wanted them to inhabit. He should not let things bother him as much as they did, but that was his nature.

  Peter, who he loved, was more than capable of overlooking slights about his colour. Peter was, in many respects, the bigger man because of that. Whereas Daniel saw any slights, whether towards him or his brother, as something warranting a personal vendetta. He saw anything – no matter how trivial – as a reason to prove how hard he was and show his personal disgust at the treacherous bastards around him. And he enjoyed it. He liked to make people see that he was not a man to be messed with, he wanted people to fear him. Still, he saw the sense in his brother’s words, knew that Peter was trying to keep them on an even keel until they were properly settled in. He would swallow this tim
e; after all, if Alfie Clarke pushed his luck, then that was his fucking look out. Daniel would then take him down like a rabid dog.

  ‘OK, Peter, but if he says one fucking detrimental thing to me, or he fucking dares to treat me like a cunt, he’s fucking history.’

  Peter couldn’t argue with that – it was more than he had expected. ‘Let’s pick the lads up, and go to the meet then.’

  ‘As you wish, bruv. But I’m telling you now, we need to establish our-fucking-selves in more ways than one. You and me need to make sure we are seen as capable of anything. And, let’s face it, we are, Pete. Look at some of the fucking stunts we’ve pulled over the years. But I swear to you now, no one is ever going to disrespect me or mine. I ain’t worked my bollocks off to be made a fucking mug of. Not by anyone.’

  Peter nodded because he didn’t trust himself to speak. They were established, if only Daniel could see that. They didn’t need to prove anything to anyone. But he kept his own counsel, and hoped against hope that Alfie Clarke had the sense to keep his mouth shut, and his sarcastic comments to himself.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘She’s beautiful, Lena. A real little heartbreaker.’ Ria’s voice was choked with emotion. ‘Seven pounds, and a month early. Sure you never got the dates wrong?’

  Lena smiled wearily. ‘No, she was early. Just like a woman, afraid she would miss something. Boys are lazy bastards. All mine were late, too settled in the womb, only came out for the football season.’

  They laughed together.

  ‘I bet your Davey nearly had a seizure! Is it true he almost delivered her?’

  Lena shook her head in abject disbelief at what had happened. ‘Bless him, my waters broke, I told him to get you, his nana and locate his father, in that order and, before I knew it, this little one was here. Within fifteen minutes of my waters going, she was out. It was so quick. Poor Davey saw it all, he was in a right two and eight. But he was a trooper, Ria, he looked after me.’