Crown of a Prince (Finn Shelby)

93.

Finn and Niall had to go back to the betting shop to open up for the day and let the fools in who were especially eager to part with their money. Liam left with Charlie to go light a fire, leaving Ailbhe, Arthur and Tommy to wait in the pub for their expected guest. Tommy had sat down, his head in his hands and a glass of untouched whiskey in front of him.
 
Ailbhe knew she had every reason to be worried about him but there didn't seem enough hours in the day to be worrying about her brothers these days. Arthur was hanging on by a thread as he leaned against the bar, waiting in silence which was quite uncharacteristic for him.  Niall was fighting against the new rules that meant no sport for anyone with the name Shelby or Kennedy, he was coming home with split lips and busted knuckles and that was only when he did come home. Ailbhe never knew where he spent the rest of his nights. Liam was quiet and sulking, worried about everything from how they'd hold Camden Town to whether or not Ada would say yes. He looked exhausted these days, with dark circles under his eyes and refusing to put anything to his lips that wasn't a cigarette or whiskey. But then there was her Finn who was her calm within the storm despite being the storm himself.

Finn watched Ailbhe, who leaned against one of the columns, pulling the necklace around her neck back and forth, her hands fidgeting and nervous. Before he left he had squeezed Ailbhe on the hip comfortingly and nodded at her subtly, knowing she wouldn't enjoy what was coming. Mickey had started off in Small Heath as a decent man but whatever it was, the temptation of money or threats, he had turned against them. And Ailbhe could never defend anyone who betrayed her family or put them in danger.
 
The incident in Chinatown could have killed any one of her brothers or even her Finn. And Chinatown was someone's fault. Titanic's weren't there by luck.
 
The jingling of keys at the door and the noise of footsteps made Tommy pull his head up from his hands. He had been sitting with his head down in his hands almost in his lap, thinking so much Ailbhe wouldn't have been surprised if he sprung a nose bleed. Her own head pounded as if to the beat of her rapid heart.
 
"Oh, Jesus, Mr Shelby!" Mickey exclaimed, not having known that the Garrison would be occupied, least of all by Arthur and Thomas Shelby and Ailbhe Kennedy.
 
"Miss Kennedy, Mr Shelby" He nodded, that innocent smile on his face that he had somehow still kept from the day he landed here. But Ailbhe saw through it now. It wasn't genuine now.
 
"If I'd known I'd have come in early and serve ye drinks!" He exclaimed, putting his coat up on a chair and clearly having no idea what he was in for.
 
"Here, Mickey" Tommy pulled out a chair and put it between them all "Sit down there"
 
It wasn't a request, it was an order without a doubt. And Mickey knew better than not to follow orders.
 
He looked between them, Ailbhe Kennedy standing in front of him and Arthur and Tommy sitting to his left and his right respectively.
 
"Sure I'll have a drink, will I?" He commented.
 
Ailbhe knew it was starting to dawn on him. He had never been waited for, never been requested to come see them or addressed by them and  now he had three of them standing in front of him.
 
"There you go" Tommy sighed, pushing a drink in front of him that he drank down easily.
 
He'd need that drink.
 
Arthur slid off his stool, lumbering around past Mickey and to Tommy's side where he now stood leaning against the other side of the column Ailbhe leaned against.
 
"Few days ago, I went to London, Mickey. My brothers and I had some business, collecting cargo. And when I arrived, I was met by the Titanic boys"
 
Arthur told him and Ailbhe watched. Mickey had these big blue eyes that started to widen, started to get fearful looking as he turned to look at Ailbhe. But he kept his mask on, enough so that Arthur and Tommy weren't yet convinced. But he knew that Ailbhe would see through it.
 
"They knew I was coming" Arthur continued, pointing at Mickey "They knew the when, the where, they even know what cargo I was picking up!"
 
Mickey played dumb, a look he had apparently perfected since he started working for the Shelby Kennedy clan.
 
"Jesus" Mickey commented as if shocked that Titanics had known about the cargo. But Mickey wasn't shocked, not in the slightest.
 
"Four days ago, a soldier was killed outside my house by a bomb" Tommy reminded them.
 
Ailbhe didn't feel the same twinge she had in recent days. It was desperately sad for everyone but Ailbhe wasn't going to point the finger at herself anymore, not when there was someone who had caused it on purpose, knowing what could happen.
 
"I heard that, yeah" Mickey nodded, catching eyes with Ailbhe "I read that it was IRA"
 
He had heard the rumours, the ones about Kennedy father and how he was practically infamous across the water for his anti-British activities. People said that it was his activities that forced the Kennedy's to move to Birmingham, to get away from the mess he left behind when he was executed and his family were going to be taken in for questioning.
 
 People also said that while Niall and Liam Kennedy fought for their king in France, they all believed in the right to freedom especially Ailbhe. Although everyone in Birmingham knew she was a wildcard now, she was even wilder back in the day and she had often been seen and heard supporting Ireland's fight, even the IRA.
 
"It wasn't IRA, Mickey" Ailbhe shook her head, his eyes starting to give away the truth.
 
"I spoke to the girls who work in Digbeth in the telephone exchange they're friends of mine." Tommy explained.
 
This wasn't surprising. Tommy had a lot of friends and a lot of ears in lots of places. Between them all, not much was said in Birmingham without the Shelby Kennedy clan knowing about it.
 
"I asked them what calls were made around the time of the explosion and they told me that thirty minutes before the explosion a call was made to a man in Sparkhill"
 
Tommy continued, leaning against the pillar and looking at Mickey who accepted the glass that Arthur held out to him. He swallowed the whiskey back quickly, feeling a catch in his throat as he struggled to swallow it down without making a noise.
 
"This man has connections to the UVF, Mickey... you know the UVF, don't you?" Ailbhe asked him, tilting her head and her cold eyes that he had often admired seeing straight through him.
 
She could feel her pity for him start to wane as her own past with the UVF began to grow. They were loyalist forces in the North who had worked with the Crown to capture and kill her father. They were the enemy for the most part, at the beginning of Ailbhe's life. They were who her father warned her about and who her mother cursed under her breath most days. It was hard to forget something like that, something poured into your mind as a child.
 
Mickey looked back at her, knowing this was why people were frightened of her. It wasn't the innocent act she could put on while still being in the most dangerous family in Birmingham. It was that fire behind her eyes, the temper and the divine right she felt was theirs to restore justice when the justice system failed. There was the system, there was God and there was the Peaky Blinders. And the system and God had failed Small Heath time and time again. But not the Peaky Blinders. 
 
Mickey nodded as a response, not sure his vocal cords would even work.
 
"He's a man who now offers his services for cash. Paddy Rose." Tommy explained, starting to sense that Ailbhe might get overemotional, letting her own past start to cloud her judgement.
 
"Me and my brothers... we spoke to Paddy. At length. And he told us it was him who planted the bomb" Tommy explained, even though everyone in the room was in full posession of the facts.
 
"Yeah we spoke to Paddy..." Arthur added, leaning his elbows down on the table he was sharing with Mickey.
 
Ailbhe could see him starting to squirm, knowing that his minutes were numbered. They just wanted to explain to him why he was on trial, why these minutes would be his last.
 
"Spoke to him, did a few things that I wouldn't talk about when my sister is here..." Arthur continued, shrugging his narrow shoulders.
 
Whatever Paddy Rose had endured, Ailbhe was sure it hadn't been as painful as Ben Younger burning alive nor the little boy who was killed in the blast, nor how it ached for his parents and for Ben's family, for Ada who had to stay strong because there was a little baby inside of her. That was what Ailbhe had to remind herself when she started to feel sorry for these men, the men who betrayed her family.
 
"Paddy Rose is dead, Mickey. He's at the bottom of the Grand Union Canal because he killed someone close to our family."
 
Ailbhe explained, feeling it start to hit home for him. She might have even pitied him if she could stop seeing the charred and burnt body of Ben Younger, the tiny coffin they put the little boy in every time she tried to go to sleep.
 
"The girl at the exchange gave us a number, Mickey. The number of the man who called right before the explosion"
 
Tommy told him, seeing the beads of sweat gathering on Mickey's forehead.
 
"That was your number Mickey"
 
Ailbhe added, in case the penny hadn't dropped, in case he was stupid. He really must be stupid to think he could betray and fool the Peaky Blinders.
 
"Mickey, we know it was you. We know you've been selling information to Titanics and anyone who'll pay." Ailbhe admitted.
 
Her bets had been hedged between Billy Grade and Mickey. She also had suspected Polly's driver and one of her housemaids but after a bit of digging, she had narrowed it down to just Mickey. And with Tommy's friends in the telephone company they had figured it out. Ailbhe just wished they had seen it sooner, maybe then they could have saved Ben Younger and the little boy.
 
Mickey was crying now, silently letting tears fall from his eyes and slip down under his collar that was feeling tighter and tighter around his neck.
 
"It's been perfect for you. You stand behind the bar, listen in and take a few notes... Selling your stories to the highest bidder"
 
Arthur outed him, as if Mickey needed it explained to him what he had spent the last few weeks doing.
 
Mickey had come to Birmingham with good intentions, glad to be out of Ireland and away from the economic mess and the poverty, the fight for independence that he had no interest in. That day he had walked in on Ailbhe and Finn Shelby kissing, he had been just a young man trying to make it. But being around all of the wealth, all of this money and power he couldn't have got to him. Like a sickness, it swept over him and poisoned him until he would do anything for more money, more control. And that meant selling stories on the Shelby Kennedy family.
 
"Come on" Arthur told him, trying to stop the tears. It was hard to put a bullet in a man's head when he was crying and looking at you like that.
 
Ailbhe watched as Arthur pushed another drink towards him. He didn't want him dying sober, even if he was a traitor. Even a traitor didn't deserve to take a bullet in the head sober. 
 
"I'm sorry, Mr Shelby" he sobbed audibly now, his breathing heavy and laboured.
 
But it was much too late for that.
 
He was looking up at Tommy, hoping that the boss could save him or show mercy. But mercy wasn't something Tommy had a lot of, not these days.
 
Casting his eyes to Ailbhe, hoping that as a woman and someone who had been kind to him she would make her brothers spare him.
 
"Miss Kennedy, please. I didn't know what else to do. My mother, at home, she's sick and my brother was killed, it's-"
 
He tried to reason with her, tried to appeal to her pity or her emotions even if people said that she didn't have any sometimes, that she could turn them off like a light switch. He was exaggerating now, bordering on lying but desperately looking for an ending to this meeting that kept his brain intact. But Ailbhe saw through the lies, he should've known she would.
 
"Mickey." She called him to a stop, interrupting him.
 
"We could have helped you. If you had come to us, we could have helped you. But you sold us out. You betrayed our trust and because of you, we lost someone. We almost lost more."
 
Her voice was stern and laboured, honesty seeping from it. She was almost sure that if Mickey had come to them, wanting more responsibility or needing some money they could have obliged. Ailbhe would have given it to him as a loan from her own purse if he had asked but he hadn't. And he had to pay that price now.