Red On Her Hands | Tommy Shelby

Chapter Eleven

C h a p t e r E l e v e n

There had been a lot of chatter in Small Heath in the days after Freddie was arrested. Many assumed that Tommy's truce was a lie, and that he had shopped Freddie into the police. No one had seen Ada since that night, she had confined herself into a tiny apartment that belonged to the communists to hide away from the world. Polly and Lynette were the only people to know of the address, Polly had asked the younger woman to visit the home with her. She thought that Ada might have been more comfortable to open the door to someone that was not family, but the idea had failed.

Lynette had not been back to the house since then as she had responsibilities that she could not miss at work. As the manager of The Garrison, she took on all of the duties that Arthur couldn't do with his absence, as well as her own.

Thankfully, the bar was quiet on Tuesday meaning that Lynette had some time to catch up on what she had to do undisturbed. Grace was also in the pub, sat in the small office space working on the books.

"Grace," Lynette started as she entered the office. "Can you leave a note for me in the diary that there is a barrel delivery next Sunday?"

"No problem," Grace answered as she pulled the book towards her. "Do you know what time?"

"Um...It should be at ten, but I wouldn't count on it," Lynette answered as she sat on the wooden chair in the corner.

She watched as Grace dotted down the information in the diary, it was part of a new system they were working on together. They were trying to help Arthur turn The Garrison around and improve it, but it turned out that Arthur was not too worried about how the business was run. Instead he left it in the hands of his two barmaids, and paid them well for their efforts

The two women looked up at the sound of footsteps approaching the room, a figure entered and paused at the doorway. Lynette attempted to smile assuringly to Tommy as she saw the blank expression on his face, it wasn't hard to tell that he was struggling now that most people had lost their trust in him.

"There's tea," Grace offered, but Tommy didn't respond. Instead he approached the desk to look down at the open diary that lay on the stacks of paperwork.

"The new system. Everything in the diary, eh?"

"Mm-hm."

They watched in interest as Tommy pulled a pen from inside his coat, leaning over the desk he drew a small black star on December 3rd.

"A black star?" Lynette asked as she uncrossed her legs to get a closer look. "What does that mean?"

"The black star day is the day we take out Billy Kimber and his men. No-one knows this."

The redhead nodded slowly, understanding that this was an order to not pass the information on. But Grace needed more answers.

"Not even your family?" she inquired him.

"Grace everyone in my family hates me," Tommy stated as he shook his head. "Why would I tell them?"

Before he left the office, Tommy nodded his head to Lynette indicating that he wanted to speak to her in private. She followed him silently, closing the door behind her to leave Grace in the office.

Lynette folded her arms over her chest as she stood in front of Tommy next to the bar. She waited for him to say something, but when the period of silence continued she decided to break it herself.

"How are you, Tommy?"

Tommy let a humourless, breathy laugh escape his nose as he paced. "My whole family thinks I'm a liar, and the only person who believes me is the bloody barmaid who I pay to snoop for me."