Snow paved the cobbles, like the purity of its virgin white hue might just seep into the cracks and crevices of Small Heath and cleanse away the evidence of its tarnishing sin and misery. As though the collection of tiny glittering flakes that fell straight down from the open heavens above, could wash away any lingering trace of despair from the very city. That it might just obscure the true nature of the streets from the eyes of God.
It was a bold juxtaposition, the way the unscathed white coated the coal-stained cobbles, the contradicting shades fighting for dominance in a silent battle. For as the snowflakes fell, so did the fluttering ash of the nearby crackling embers. Melding together as though they twirled within the embrace of a waltz, before clattering to the Earth without a single sound to be heard.
Night stretched far and wide over the city, shrouding the Earth beneath it in an impenetrable blanket of indigo. It appeared nearly black however, as though a container of ebony ink had been knocked over by a clumsy hand and allowed to spill freely over the souls left wandering around below.
For it seeped amongst the atmosphere, saturating every inch in its path, until the evening's sky looked like not a trace of blue was left behind. The stars had vanished along with the pale beam of the cold January moon, leaving the sky above an utterly vacant void that stretched for miles to come, making the universe appear vast and empty. Cold and detached as though it was nothing more than a pit of nothingness, waiting to claim the lonely souls below and take them far beyond this place.
The candlelight tried its hardest to illuminate the shadows that continued to climb the wall, as if they were vines of ivy dipped in the darkest substance of ink imaginable. For they flickered up there upon the alter. Where disheartened souls and mourning mothers, wives, sisters, daughters and all those who had the strings of their beating hearts severed during and after the war, had lit their wicks in the hope that their prayers and their tears might be sent straight up to God's listening ears.
Their flames burned brightly with a deep saturation of citrine, it whispered its presence out amongst the first few rows of pews, as though through the timid breath of burnt amber, you could see the heat leaking along the floorboards. But as harshly as those candle flames burned, flickering with soft ebbing sways like they took notes from the flowing currents of the sea, their attempts to heat the sacred establishment were futile.
For you feared if a single tear leaked from your eye, dipping down from your fluttering lashes and teetering off the edge of your burning lash line, that the trace of salt and shed emotion might just freeze where it fell. Your exhales became soft clouds before your eyes, fogging up the sight of the alter where your absentminded gaze lingered, before dissipating like your breath had always belonged to the frigid atmosphere surrounding you. This Holy structure could be filled with warmth bursting at the very brim of the aged brick and scuffed up pews and yet, this evening, not even the hand of God could wipe away the ice that penetrated his very own house.
You knew he was going to find you sooner or later, sitting here in the darkness and the formidable cold, alone and on the verge of frozen tears, but something about Thomas Shelby's sudden appearance, like that out of thin air, still managed to take you by surprise.
Perhaps it was the sound of his footsteps, falling against the worn panels beneath him with a conviction he never not seemed to carry with him. As though he walked with a purpose, no matter where it was or why he was there, Tommy strode through life as if he were determined not to waste a single step.
Maybe it was the scent that followed his trail like he brought with him his own sense of oxygen, for it penetrated your own and the very space of the building around you. The sharp sting of tobacco, from a cigarette he'd discarded just a step outside of the doors to the church, for the scent still lingered on his clothing like it still burned freely within his clutch. The intoxicating blend of cologne that clung to his flesh, masculine notes and underlying tones of birch and leather and something fresh from the Earth.
