Shelby Madness

Chapter 25,'She was kind, he was cruel.'

29th May 1919, Small Heath Birmingham

It had been tenses since John and Tommy's argument and the two hadn't really spoken much since then; Libby had, however, ended up arguing with her father because they had plans for Tommy to take her to see his horses at Charlie's stables but didn't bother showing up and after three hours of waiting for Libby had got fed up so went out and had gotten drunk with Isiah, Emily and James. So when Tommy finally came home seven hours later and found Libby coming in drunk he was less than pleased.

Now, this normally wouldn't have started an argument. Tommy would have told Libby off and put her to bed and that would have been the end of it. However, this is when the problems started as Libby was a very honest person and normally had trouble keeping her mouth shut nevermind the two obvious facts that she was now extremely mortal and Tommy was telling her off for being so careless and irresponsible when he couldn't even be bothered to show up to see his daughter for an afternoon together that had been planned for two weeks.

Libby flipped and it ended up in a massive argument of back and forth insults mainly shouted by Libby when John walked in claiming to of left his hat. So, in the end, Libby ended up temporarily at Johns house and had been staying there ever since.

John was relieved in a way as it meant John didn't have to worry about Libby not being looked after properly with Tommy and his own kids now had someone to play with making it easier for john to look after them.
Polly was very annoyed when she heard that Libby had moved out of the house and into Johns but was more annoyed at the fact that Tommy looked unbothered by it. It was like he didn't care.

Today, however, was the day of Chelten races and as Libby still wasn't speaking to Tommy she was doing everything she could to piss him off. So, when she found out what the boys were doing at the races and that Tommy had specifically ordered that she be nowhere near it, it almost made it too easy for her and with a couple of words to John and a bat of her eyelashes to Arthur, Libby now found her self standing around with the other Peaky Blinders about to receive a speech of Arthur for today's mission.

"Attention," Arthur shouted jumping up on a box so he could see everyone. "Right this is what's known as your final breathing before going over the top," He continued while two men placed a medium size wooden box down in front of everyone feet.

"60 miles down that road is Cheltem race tack, whats our mission today John-boy?"

"To stick it to the Lee family, Arthur," John screamed.

"That's right," Arthur was smiling and everyone else was still silent, "The Lee's have been skimming money of legal bookies, running chalk and selling rafflers and beating them up but today we are going to stop that,"

"What about Kimber's men. I thought he had his own protection?" John quizzed, he had been out of the loop for the most part since his fall out with Tommy.

"Kimbers let his troops go rotten, they are on the take from the Lee's to look the other way. We are going to show Kimber how it's done." Arthur announced. "Now take what your good at, if you got guns keep them away unless one is pulled on you we want this done quietly," Arthur finished opening up a box of tools.

"So when do we share out the cash?" John asked once everyone had picked a tool they wanted.

"We don't, we aren't keeping the cash. Your in Tommy's army now boys," Arthur finished causing Libby to look at John and roll her eyes.

Loading into the van they set of to the races.

The races were so much bigger than Libby had expected, there were people everywhere. The Blinders were quick to split up and were all told by Arthur to meet back at the back entrance to the races with the money they had stolen back from the Lees at 4.