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empty bar of one of the four Soho clubs that had once been Lenny’s. Now Marcus had them in his power. His old school mate Gordon might be weedy, useless in a fight, bald as a coot at twenty-two, and always down with colds, but he was a wizard at maths and keeping books straight. Gordon was happily trotting around the place like a bloodhound, sniffing out boozer rackets. And there were plenty to find.
    These clubs were a great wheeze for club owners. Didn’t matter whether you were in Soho or Berkeley Square, the scams were the same. The licensing laws were crazy, so to get around them the proprietors had the customers sign order forms, which were sent to all-night wine retailers; in effect, this meant that the customers ordered the booze, not the club. Everyone was a winner: no laws were broken, the punters could enjoy all-night semi-legal drinking and the clubs were free to make a hefty profit.
    ‘No reason to change an arrangement everyone seems happy with,’ said Marcus, with a shrug.
    ‘Poor fuckers,’ sighed Gordon. ‘All these damned hostesses have to do is bat their eyelashes and the punters stop worrying whether they’re being ripped off.’
    ‘Sounds OK to me,’ said Marcus. He suspected that Gordon would kill to get one of the hostesses up close and personal, but poor bloody Gordon never had a clue with women. Figures were his strength – the mathematical ones rather than the feminine kind.
    The system worked. The Bill had tried to spoil things for everyone by making it an offence for all-night wine retailers to solicit orders by giving blank forms to the clubs, but so far no court in the land had been able to make it stick.
    ‘You know what? This is going to be good,’ said Marcus, stalking around his new domain.
    Gordon put pad and pen onto the bar and looked at him. ‘No regrets over Lenny?’ he asked.
    Marcus stopped pacing and turned his steady black gaze onto his mate. Anyone else asked him that question, he’d rip their heads off. But this was Gordon.
    ‘Nah,’ he said at last. ‘Had to be done.’
    Gordon nodded. You had to hand it to Marcus. The takedown of Lenny Lynch’s little empire had been a thing of beauty, a carefully coordinated pincer movement of military precision. Napoleon couldn’t have done it any better. Once Marcus knew Lenny had turned on him, he’d swung into action. Hardly a drop of blood had been spilled, except for Lenny’s, and the two boys he’d sent to do Marcus, and that mouthy bitch Delilah – and she just had to go, she’d have been a thorn digging into Marcus’s side and he couldn’t allow that. In a matter of days, every single club, pub, snooker hall, restaurant, rental property and whorehouse that had once belonged to Lenny had been seamlessly transferred into the hands of Marcus Redmayne.
    ‘We’ll get it all legal and above board, I can do that. Get the properties transferred and all that stuff. No problem. Make sure the Maltese or the Eyeties or that mad fucker Jacko Sears don’t try to take it back off you,’ said Gordon. ‘All you got to do now is hang on to it.’
    Marcus looked at Gordon with a grim smile. ‘I bet there are people all around Soho shitting themselves right now, thinking I could be coming for them next.’
    Gordon took up his notepad and pen and heaved a sigh. Marcus had been his friend just about always, but sometimes Gordon found Marcus’s self-belief bloody terrifying.
    What the hell made anyone so driven?
    Gordon didn’t understand it.
    He never would.

9
    On Tuesday morning, Clara took her mum in a cup of tea. She put the cup and saucer down on the hideous little curtained table beside the bed. Yesterday had been horrible, almost beyond bearing. She shuddered to think of it. A baby sister, and she was dead. Unnamed – unwanted, truth be told. Poor little sod.
    Mercifully the nurse had taken the dead baby away with her, saying she’d dispose of it. She also wrapped up the afterbirth in some of the soiled