𝙂𝙤𝙡𝙙 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙎𝙞𝙡𝙫𝙚𝙧, Finn Shelby

- 63

- CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE -

- IN WHICH THE WORRY IS RELENTLESS

. . .

NANCY FOUND THE meeting with Oswald Mosley to be an event she wasn't sure she wanted to ever partake in again. From her perspective it was all rather boring and just a reason to get far too many men aggravated for no reason other than for a single envelope to be abandoned on the office desk and left for Tommy to open when he wasn't around.

And yet she chose to help the Shelby make his reputation in Small Heath a little bit more renowned for being a saint than a devil - it also just gave her a reason to get out of the Betting Den which was growing increasingly more and more boring as work became political and less like it used to be.

"It's all right, Mrs Conners, you can carry on. It's just me brother." Tommy looked towards the door as it was opened, then watched Arthur sit down beside Nancy. "So, tell me how it happened."

"They were sleeping downstairs, and then my husband came home," Nancy wasn't sure whether to be concerned about the way this story was headed, and swallowed the rest of her whiskey before the woman went any further. "Drunk from the Marquis even though he'd just lost his job. We don't have any money. Anyway... he came to bed. But downstairs, they must've heard a noise. They woke up. They started, uh, calling out."

Her eyebrows dropped into a straight line, the skin between creasing as she wondered even more what it was Mrs Conners was going to be admitting in this conversation. "They woke my husband up and when he's drunk you don't wake him up. He... he... he went downstairs... he killed them." The Irwin looked over to Arthur curiously and watched as his attention was adverted away from the newspaper in his lap to the woman. "Strangled them, all three of them."

"And you've.. you've brought their bodies here today with you?" Tommy gestured to the table with his cigarette.

"Proof, Mr Shelby," Mrs conners's voice shook. Nancy's eyes widened, sharing a look with Arthur who was just as shocked to hear the dead bodies had brought for them to see. They watched painstakingly slowly as the pile of cloth on the table was unfolded and three bird corpses were revealed. "Their singing was the only pretty thing in my life. I don't care my husband beats me, but not this."

Tommy was the least bit effected by the birds, in fact, he leant forwards and had a short look at them. "Mrs Conners, we have your address. We will speak to your husband. My brother here will go to the Bull Rung Market today and buy you three new goldfinches and have them delivered to your door. "

"With the same colours and, you know, feathers." Arthur finally got to drink the whiskey he had been putting off throughout the story, gesturing wildly at the birds.

"The new ones I will call Thomas, Arthur and Finn." Mrs Conners folded up the cloth again. "That'll make him pause even when he's drunk... good day, Mr Shelby."

The three stood from their chairs to see her out. "You take care, Mrs Conners."

"I don't know how you do this, Tom." Arthur scoffed, pulling off his blazer. "I really don't. This is good for you though, Nance, practicing keeping the game face when you see silly things."

"You learn things, Arthur," Tommy scribbled in his notebook, then moved away from the desk. "That woman has only two rooms downstairs. Her husband has lost his job and he beats her. And yet the thing that brings her to see her member of Parliament is songbirds. Now, that's politics."