Bloodsport ; tommy shelby

𝒕𝒉𝒓𝒆𝒆 - sticky fingers

"Iris, I need you to work later tonight," Margie ordered one morning. "I'm going to stay with my cousin tonight and frankly I don't trust Betty to keep the place from getting robbed."

"Fair enough," Iris looked over at her friend, who was humming to herself deliriously as she dusted the same surface over and over.

"My brother is coming to stay from midnight so only till then," the older woman told her.

Iris nodded as she fastened her apron.

"Go and open up," Margie said to Iris. "Betty, you can ring the breakfast bell."

The blonde grinned and skipped into the kitchen.

"BREAKFAST!" She yelled, ringing the bell. Margie winced at the loud noise.

"She really is one sandwich short of a picnic, isn't she?" Margie sighed.

"Maybe a few," Iris remarked. "Can I ask, why did you hire her?"

"BREAKFAST IS SERVED!"

"She's my niece," Margie said dryly. "And she loves ringing the bell."

Once everyone was eating breakfast, Iris caught Betty scampering upstairs.

"Where's she going?" She asked Margie, who was leafing through the books at the front desk with her spectacles on.

"Hm?" The woman looked up at Iris. "Oh, she's just putting lavender under their pillows," Margie waved her hand. "She's obsessive about it, says it makes them sleep better. She's always running up there while the guests are having meals."

Iris raised an eyebrow. "I'll give her a hand," the girl said, sneaking upstairs in the direction that the blonde had gone.

Iris followed the sounds of Betty humming, and peered through the crack between one of the bedroom doors. Betty was sitting at the bed with a bunch of lavender on her lap, and some expensive looking brooches in her hand. Iris gulped, pursing her lips as she watched the girl pocket them. She knew she ought to get Margie, or barge in and demand that she put the money back, but she didn't. Instead, Iris walked away, pretending she hadn't seen a thing.

For the rest of the day, Iris observed the girl ducking off and disappearing every few minutes, sometimes returning with a rather bulky apron. On one hand, Iris felt wary of leaving Betty alone with the cash, but at the same time felt a pang of sadness for the girl.

It hadn't been many years since Iris had been reduced to doing the same thing as a method of survival, and she hadn't forgotten the days when she and her older brothers would steal loves of bread from the markets so their family could eat when their father spent all their money on booze. She was no better than Betty, but she needed her job.

"Is it alright if I leave now?" Betty asked not long after Margie had left early. "I've got to go by the market on my way home so I can make my brother his tea."

Iris thought about it for a moment. Betty was a sweet girl, even if she was a bit of a nutter and was robbing the guests every so often, but if Iris or even Margie got the blame for this, it could mean they both lost their jobs.

Betty, the kitchen will be open for dinner in a minute," Iris said. "I'll ring the bell and you can go up and change the lavender under all of their pillows. When you do, you have the choice to put back anything you took earlier, including those brooches. After that you can leave and I won't ask you what you decided to do."

Betty stared at Iris, dumbfounded. "I don't kno—"

"I don't have time to argue on this, Betty," Iris said firmly. "It's your decision. Just think about what consequences this might have for you and Margie."

Betty shut her mouth. Iris sighed, heading over to the bell and ringing it. "Dinner!"

♞

Margie's brother was almost an hour and a half late to pick up from Iris, who had fallen asleep at the front desk. She kept her hand on her gun as she walked through the dark streets as she walked. Recently she couldn't shake the feeling that something or someone was watching her, and it made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She tried to calm her nerves by telling herself that it was just being in a place that reminded her of home so much that made her feel like this. It was all in her head.

She took a shortcut down Watery Lane because it had brighter street lamps and passed a woman who was standing shivering outside one of the houses.

"Excuse me, do you have a match?" The woman asked, and Iris turned. It was Polly Gray standing in a dressing gown with a liquorice papered cigarette between her fingers. She looked worn out and her eyes were puffy as if she'd been crying. Her face hardened in embarrassment. "Iris, is it?"

The girl nodded. "Are you alright?" She lit a match for the woman.

Polly stared at the empty black sky and sighed, blowing out a puff of smoke. "The boys, they're shell shocked." She admitted. "Every fucking night one of them wakes up panicked."

Iris pursed her lips, imagining Tommy for a second. "I didn't take them for soldiers."

"Of course not, they threw every medal in the cut," Polly scoffed. She paused, scanning Iris' face for a moment as if she'd just remembered she barely knew the girl that she was talking to. "Who are you?"

Iris said nothing. It was a simple question with a complicated answer. A dangerous answer, in Iris' case.

Her silence seemed to provoke Polly.

"Who the fuck are you?" The woman demanded. "You turn up here like the Queen of fucking Sheba, you drink whiskey like it's water and you smoke more than I do."

Iris didn't know what to say, so she looked Polly right in the eye.

"You a copper?" Polly asked.

"I'm a lot of things, Polly," she sighed. "But I'm definitely not a copper."