Christmas to Come: a heartbreaking coming of age saga set in London's East End Carol Rivers (best sales books of all time .txt) 📖

'Toothpicks. What do you think? Shove 'em in the back.'

Sean struggled to lift the array of heavy iron bars and hammers into the back seat. 'You didn't say it was that kind of trouble.'

'Be prepared is my motto,' Henry declared as he jumped in beside him.

'I can't see you in a boy scout's uniform,' Sean murmured, and shuddered at the thought of using the weaponry. He wondered if Henry was exaggerating, but when they arrived at the club and walked in through the door, he knew that he wasn't.

Sean gasped as he gazed around the wrecked club. Tables and chairs had been turned to matchsticks, glasses and mirrors smashed. Sid and Bernie were standing with Ronnie. They were holding iron bars and looked as though they'd been pulled through a hedge backward. The two big men dwarfed Henry. They had obviously dealt with trouble and were about to tie rope around two men who lay on the ground bleeding and groaning. Sean was relieved that Ashley wasn't there. He would have fainted at the sight of them.

'Ronnie, are you hurt?' He felt queasy as he saw Ronnie holding his side, his shirt soaked in blood under his jacket.

'Thanks to Bernie and Sid, I'll survive.'

'Shit, Ron. What happened?' he asked, dreading the answer.

'Let me ask you a question,' Ronnie said angrily. 'Where's Micky? Or are you going to tell me you don't know?'

Sean was silent, his face grey with shame. He had to tell Ronnie the truth and he wasn't looking forward to it. He began to tremble at the enormity of the disaster that had befallen them. A disaster that clearly involved the two bodies on the floor that were bloodied and bruised and currently being tied like lambs to the slaughter. A disaster that in all certainty would now involve him and Micky.

Unable to look his brother in the eye, words failed him. Ronnie wiped the blood from his own face with a handkerchief and placed it under his jacket. 'As bad as that, is it Sean?' Ronnie's voice was rough with pain and Sean could detect it. He dragged his eyes up from the wound in Ronnie's side and finally to his waiting gaze.

Sean nodded. 'You won't like it, Ron.'

'Why am I not surprised?' Ronnie's dark eyes accused him. And Sean's annoyance with Ashley, his feeling of abandonment and the way his day had been spoiled by his family, now paled into insignificance as he began to explain.

Chapter 14

It was Sunday morning and Bella gazed out of the broken window; the mild February weather was more like spring. The city was hidden in haze as the tide ran out to sea, a ripple of smooth grey-green.

She had been working for Micky since he opened the still; it wasn't the palace he had described, but it had become her second home. The first she had ever shared with Micky. Used for storing munitions during the war, the wooden timbers still smelt faintly of explosive. She had bought cushions from the market for the couch and a rug for the floor. There was a cupboard in the eaves and she'd cleaned it, filling it with her clothes. When they were alone, she and Micky made love here. The couch wasn't a bed, but it was heaven compared to the hotel in Tottenham Court Road. Lenny kept a Primus stove downstairs and sometimes she cooked food on it, pretended she was a real wife to Micky. And she'd even made them a spaghetti dinner to celebrate her seventeenth birthday in January. Pasta was Micky's favourite dish accompanied by a special sauce that she had made from fresh tomatoes and herbs. All down to Gina's training, of course.

'Blimey Bells, are you a bit mutton or what? I've been yelling myself hoarse down here,' Micky shouted up the stairs.

Bella reluctantly left the window and went down the rickety staircase. Micky was waiting impatiently and thrust his hands deep in his overcoat pockets. 'Just in case you're interested, we're behind schedule and I've got deliveries piling up like farts in a constipated bowel. Sean and Ashley are missing as usual so I'll have to deliver this lot up West myself. There's twelve quart bottles of cherry brandy, fifty assorted spirits and five crates of beers over there. Check them and make sure they've got tops.'

Repeating the numbers in her head, Bella crossed to the table where the crates were piled. There was no paperwork to refer to and no accounts to keep. Micky had decided that all the accounting was safer done in his head. Not that Bella was disappointed. She preferred helping Lenny to refine the alcohol in the big hundred-gallon tank that rumbled like thunder and fermented the contents into a potent wash.

When she had confirmed the bottles were in order, she tied an apron over her coat. It was dirty work as the bottles needed cleaning before they were filled. Bella's fingers often turned blue under the freezing water. She was in the middle of scouring a large green gin bottle when Micky appeared beside her.

'Where's Terry disappeared to?' he asked irritably. 'He's never around when I want him.'

'He's having a smoke.'

'One day he'll turn into a chimney.'

'He works hard in here, Micky, lugging all them crates.'

'And so he should. Who else would give him a job?'

Bella turned sharply wiping her cold wet hands on her apron. 'What's the matter with you this morning, Micky?'

'What do you think? I've been out since the crack of dawn looking for that flaming sugar beet. You would have thought it was a life and death situation and yet when I get back here, this place is practically deserted.'

Bella knew that Lenny and Micky were arguing again, which wasn't unusual. It was a way of life for the two men. Usually the quarrel was forgotten by the end of the day, but this disagreement had begun yesterday morning, when Lenny had asked Micky