Nameless Read Free Page A

Ted shouted.
    Ruby subsided. People were passing in the street, staring at them.
    ‘This is that bastard Tranter’s doing,’ said her father.
    Ruby’s attention sharpened. She knew Tranter. Tranter was a spiv, selling things on the black market and running a gang of boys who struck fear into many of the traders. He was a very influential man in the area.
    ‘Did he ask you to pay protection money?’ she asked.
    Ted’s big beery face came right up to hers and he bawled: ‘ Will you shut your filthy black mouth for one second, you cow? ’
    Ruby cringed. People stepped around them. No one tried to intervene. No one ever did. She stared at the ruined interior of the shop, and could have cried. She’d stacked those shelves, lined up all the products so neatly, made everything shining and clean to tempt the customers. Now all her orderly efforts had been trashed overnight. Tranter had asked Dad for money and he had refused to pay it. And this was the result.

3
     
    ‘You should have told me sooner,’ said Charlie that evening, when he got home and Ted poured out the whole woeful tale.
    This had been boiling up for a long time. Ted Darke had been leaned on – him and many, many others – to pay Micky Tranter money out of the till.
    Ted shook his head, feeling sick with impotent rage. He’d wanted to deal with this himself, but he could see now that it was beyond him. He hated the thought of Tranter having a touch on his living. His own father had started the shop, and he’d carried it on. Times had been hard but he’d kept it going, long after his dad had bought it with a cripplingly hefty loan from the bank; now Ted’s boys were grown up and he felt things ought to be getting easier.
    He was hurt by their disinterest in his business. All he had was the girl, and she was nothing, an embarrassment; a painful reminder of life gone wrong. And now Tranter and his mob wanted a cut of his blood, sweat and tears.
    Ted despised Tranter; most people did, even though they feared him. Greasy, smarmy bastard, oozing his way about the place with his fedora pulled low over his eyes and his swish camel-hair coat draped over his shoulders, smiling and patting people on the shoulder while his heavies followed him around ready to dole out punishment to anyone who failed to see things his way.
    ‘I thought he’d leave it,’ said Ted shakily. ‘I refused to pay. I thought he’d back down.’
    ‘Tranter?’ Charlie shook his head. ‘Not him. Thinks he’s fucking invincible, he does.’
    ‘He’s wrecked my bloody shop. It’ll be weeks before I can get it open again.’
    Charlie stood up and paced around the room. Joe and Ted watched him from the kitchen table. Ruby was upstairs.
    ‘I ain’t having this,’ said Charlie, and left the room. Joe snatched up his jacket and quickly followed him.
    Charlie found Tranter and his boys in the Rag and Staff, and walked straight up to him. Without pausing in his stride, Charlie walloped the spiv straight round the chops.
    Tranter’s boys grabbed him instantly. The barman leaned over, anxious, and the punters scattered.
    ‘Not in here, boys,’ said the barman. ‘Come on. Please.’
    Joe stood there, a heaving mound of muscle, and thought that his brother had gone crazy. But he’d back him, because he always did. He pushed forward. Some of Tranter’s boys grabbed him too, and held him still.
    ‘Go on then, but why not act the big man proper, if that’s what you are?’ Charlie demanded of Tranter. ‘Easy, picking on old men, ain’t it? You did my dad’s shop over, and I’m not having that.’
    Micky clutched at his bleeding lip. Blood had splashed down his thirty-shilling Savile Row suit and he looked down at it in disbelief and distaste. Then he looked back at Charlie.
    ‘You got nerve, doing this,’ he said, very low, his eyes cold. ‘You’re the Darke boy, ain’t you? Ted’s kid?’
    Charlie was struggling against the men who held him. ‘You know who I am.’
    ‘I