The Life (6 page)

But he guessed, rightly, that their mother knew far more than she let on about her boys and their lifestyles. She had always said, if you are going to nick, nick big time, and never nick off your own. She accepted what they did, as she had always accepted them.

‘You all right, Mum?’ Davey Bailey was worried and it showed. His mother looked awful, she was white-faced and without her usual energy.

‘I’m pregnant, son, it does tend to take it out of you!’

She was smiling at him, but he wasn’t convinced. ‘Is Dad back yet?’

She shook her head. ‘No, he’ll be back later today, and don’t you tell him that I’m feeling rough. He’s got a lot on his mind.’

Davey nodded, but he was angry at his dad. He should be here, but he was always out ‘on a job’ these days. He took a deep breath. ‘Come on, Mum, sit down. I’ll make you a cup of tea. I wish I had known how you were feeling.’

Lena sat back down and smiled quietly to herself. Not one of her sons had given her condition a second’s thought, and why would they? They were only boys themselves – none of them understood pregnancy and what it entailed. She had not wanted to burden them with it, but if she was honest she didn’t feel good. It was all the worry. She knew her husband was doing some important business with his brother and that always made her nervous.

As he placed a cup of tea before her, Davey berated his dad silently once more. And where was his fucking nana? Normally she was never off the bloody doorstep.

‘The baby’s kicking, Davey. Feel.’ Lena took her son’s hand and laid it on her swollen belly. She saw the surprise on his face as he felt the strength of the child within her.

‘Must be another boy there, Mum! A footballer, do you reckon?’

She smiled. ‘You were the real kicker in the family, Davey. You kept me up night after night.’

Davey looked at his mother, at her heavy belly, at her face so drawn and white. He saw the thinness of her arms, and the swelling around her ankles. He suddenly realised that she had borne all this discomfort for him too, and for each of his brothers. He felt the love she had for them, and he knew, despite his youth, how much they took her for granted. He also saw the enormity of what having a child really entailed. His mother was stoic and uncomplaining, despite having a living, breathing human being inside her. The miracle of childbirth hit him like a freight train.

He laid his hands once more on her belly, and the child kicked again, a strong kick that made his mother wince, but made his heart soften towards the child inside her.

‘That’s amazing, Mum. That’s a real person in there. You’re growing a real person!’

Lena smiled happily. ‘I’ve grown four of you already. Honestly, Davey, it’s not a chore. I enjoyed every one of my pregnancies. It’s just today I’m feeling more tired than usual. I’m not as young as I was!’

Davey grinned. ‘I tell you what, Mum, shall we have a night in, just the two of us?’

Lena really laughed then. ‘I must look rough, Davey! Honestly, son, I’m fine. You don’t need to baby-sit me.’

‘That’s OK, Mum, I don’t mind staying with you.’

Lena smiled. She was under no illusions that her sons
wouldn’t follow their father to becoming hard men, but for now she decided to make the most of any time she had with them. She wished things could have been different, but her Daniel had carved the path for them all, herself included.

She caressed her belly, and she swore to herself that, girl or boy, this little one would never be a part of the world that her husband inhabited and which her sons would one day join. As much as she loved them, she was determined that this child would not be a part of it. Daniel had brought the boys up to be with him; they would be beside him, follow him, and she had never questioned that before. As they approached manhood, though, the reality was beginning to hit home.

Daniel would introduce the boys to, and expect them to be part of, the Life. They would have no choice. But what would their lives be if they were nicked? The thought of her lovely boys locked away for years on end tortured her. Unlike Ria, who was at peace with the paths chosen for her sons, Lena didn’t want it for her boys. She didn’t want them to be villains. Deep down, she hated that she had never had any real say in their lives.

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.’

‘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.