The Family Firm

Chapter 1

1992

Freddie Evans had lived in Barking all his life, and for all that time, all thirty-five years, it hadn't changed a bit. There were housing projects and various attempts at cleaning up the place but the borough of Barking and Dagenham, hardly considered London at all by most people's standards, still remained dirty and neglected. The entire area was filled with collapsing buildings with their windows bricked-over, decades-old graffiti, and the noxious scent of industrial waste, shit, and filth. Not the Old Bill, mind you—the police had forgotten the borough long ago and because of it the streets were filled with crime. TV nickings, corner shop robberies, and not enough minorities to blame it on.

To most people, it was the end of the line. You never stopped in the borough, only before it or you continued on straight through it, or even went around it if necessary. He'd heard it said once or twice that if London were a man, then Barking and Dagenham was the scum on the bottom of his boot.

Freddie wasn't most people.

He liked to think he saw a different side of the borough, one they never presented to the public. He saw the school girls on the estate, the Caribbean street markets, Mr Hornsby watering his perennials in the front garden. He saw the colourful rows of semi-detached homes, the single mum pushing twins in a pram along the rain-slicked pavement, the brightly-coloured signs hanging outside the market. To him, Barking and Dagenham held the spirit of the working class; it was not the scum but in fact the heart of what London truly was, or was meant to be. Greasy spoons, pie and mash, knowing everyone you saw; these were the things London was built upon. That was how London was meant to be experienced.

His London.

Well, it would be, soon enough. Once he took care of Archy, anyway—that was, Archy Jackson, the self-proclaimed "King of East End" whose outfit (Archy's Bunch, as they were collectively called) had been the largest mob influence in East London since the Krays.

He was a washed-up old cunt, as far as Freddie was concerned. The 70s and 80s had been Archy's prime but it was the 90s now, and in his opinion it was time for a fresh Face to make a few changes.

And Freddie was a Face, a real villain. He'd been in the business, so to speak, since his twenties and had been doing corner shop jobs and burglaries even in his teens. Villainy was in his blood, like his father before him, and his grandfather too. It was in his nature, and he couldn't have escaped it even if he wanted to, which he didn't.

He was bloody good at it—villainy, that was. Archy had told him that he knew he'd be a good earner from the moment he set eyes on him. Freddie was handsome, with dark hair and striking green eyes, and a smug little smile filled with charmingly crooked teeth. He was broad, too; had a pretty boy's face and a body capable of real violence, which he enjoyed.

He'd boxed as a young lad, bare-knuckled like his dad, and his experience made him dangerous. The most terrifying part was how deceptive he was. With good looks and a cocky grin, he could have all of England eating out of the palm of his hand.

Freddie knew it. Archy knew it too. And that's where they were at, the two of them.

He got off the A406 near the Tesco just as traffic began clearing up. A Cortina rattled past him with New Kids On The Block blasting from the speakers, a stark contrast to the smoothness of Fred's black BMW, which rolled along silently with the flow of the other compact cars traversing the narrow streets.

Just as he was passing the park, he noticed a young girl in a teal-and-white shell suit, no older than fourteen, carrying several plastic bags loosely in one hand. She had her brown hair pulled into a tight ponytail and large, gold hoop earrings which swung wildly with each step. Without thinking, he turned onto North Street to approach her, rolling up alongside the kerb.

'Oi,' he called out the open window.

She shot him a sour look and raised two of her fingers at him crudely. 'Piss off or I'll do you one, geezer!'

Freddie couldn't help but laugh at her open vulgarity. 'Come on, now, love. No need for that. I just wanna talk.'

She hadn't stopped walking, but she was looking forward now. 'Talk to yourself.'

'How's your mum?'

'You don't know me mum.'

'Sara Wickers?'

That made her stop in her tracks. Freddie's BMW halted a few paces behind her, a distance she closed a moment later. She stopped short of him, however, in case he tried to grab her.

'How do you know me mum?' she asked, her brows knitted tensely and eyes narrowed into slits.

Freddie was amused, and laughed over the cigarette hanging out of the corner of his lips. 'Used to be friends. Tell her Fred says hello, eh Katie?'

Katie seemed hesitant to respond, offended that this personal knowledge had been acquired by someone she'd never seen before in her life. At least she had a couple two-litres of Strongbow in her bag she could swing at him in case this "Fred" got cheeky.

'Fred who?'

The gangster extended a tattooed hand with a multitude of rings on almost every finger in her direction. 'Freddie Evans.'

Katie watched him a moment, but didn't take the offered hand. 'Yeah, well you can piss off somewhere else, Freddie Evans.'

With not so much as another glance in his direction, she turned on a heel and stomped off down the pavement. Fred remained stopped up alongside the kerb, watching the stroppy teenager through the windscreen until she'd disappeared around the corner.

Like father, like daughter, he supposed.