Shelby's spy

1.

The streets of Birmingham after dark were barely safe for anyone, least of all for a fifteen year old girl by herself . Hence the reason Charlie had taken to donning a disguise made of clothes boys had left behind at the orphanage over the years. The grey slacks were a tad long, she'd had to roll them to stop them dragging on the ground and the not-so-white shirt swallowed her thin body completely but it helped sell the scruffy street kid vibe she had going. The tartan cap however, was perfect. She could stuff her hair up inside it and pull the rim right over her eyes and instantly be transformed, becoming a boy not worth a second glance. Ideal for slinking round the dingy streets she called home.

because disgusting as they may be, the streets of Birmingham were more of a home to her than the orphanage she had slipped from the first floor window of earlier that night was. That place was no home at all. And god if matron knew were she spent her nights. There were worse places than Birmingham city Orphanage she could be sent to. Places she had no intention of revisiting. 

But Charlie was confident enough in her own skills that being caught was not happening anytime in her future. The drunks and harlots that roamed the streets at this hour did not see the shadow that slithered through small heath, little more than a whisper in the wind. She had perfected this part. The invisibility, the slipping and slipping out of a room unnoticed, the snatching of a wallet or a shiny pocket-watch. 

Bar selling her body to a brothel, there were little other ways for a girl to make money at her age and so stealing had become somewhat of a career path for Charlie. She had started off small, just the occasional scone cooling on a windowsill then a particularly cosy looking pair of socks hanging on a clothes line. But then she had been caught attempting to snatch a juicy looking red apple from the fruit stall at the sunday market by owner Ronnie and rather than kicking her on her way he had made her an offer.

Apparently Ronnie didn't just sell fruit. And he'd said that in return for not handing her over to the coppers for takin his goods she could do him a favour. Charlie knew she should have run at this point, shouldn't have truster a stranger whose fruit stall actually fronted as some sort of black market valuables resell business. But Ronnie saw Charlie, actually noticed her and the skill she possessed and Charlie couldn't help the but enjoy the satisfaction of being seen for once.

And so Charlie accepted Ronnie's offer and promptly found herself stealing a shiny pocket-watch from some hotshot factory owner and by the time he had noticed it missing, she was already handing it over to Ronnie ready to be pawned off. 

In the following weeks Charlie stole many shiny Pocket watches. And then there was the sparkling jewels, silver and gold straight from the necks and wrists of aristocrat ladies. and then the  luxurious fur coats hanging, just waiting to be taken, in the cloakrooms of some of the nicer restaurants in the city. Once there was even a painting, taken from the front room of a towering townhouse to which Ronnie somehow knew the owner kept a spare key stashed under the plant pot on the doorstep.

Charlie suspected that before her, Ronnie had done the dirty work, the slinking and the snatching. But now that he had her, he need only give a direction and she would go. And then when Ronnie sold the items to whatever sketchy clientele he had, Charlie would get 5% of the profits. A small cut but certainly better than nothing and certainly better than being handed over to the coppers for stealing an apple.

                                                                                                                                                                         

Strolling past the darkened factories already shut for the night as she approached tonights target, Charlie was on a high. Soon she would be sixteen, which meant soon she could take the fair amount of savings she had stashed under her mattress and finally be free of that gods dammed orphanage. Tonights steal would certainly bring her closer to that glorious freedom she craved. 

An out of town copper, Ronnie had said, high profile and arrogant enough to stroll around with likely a full wallet but more importantly a very valuable pocket watch. Charlie had scoped this target out for a few days, a precaution she not often took but with the status of this particular victim she'd wanted to suss out exactly who she has getting involved with.

And sure enough Inspector Campbell was as loaded as Ronnie had predicted and after her scouting Charlie had deduced the prime location for this particular heist. Though not a place she had ever dared to operate in before, the thrill of being so close to freedom perhaps Charlier taking a few small extra risks. The risk in the case, stealing under the noses of the Peaky Blinders.

As she turned the corner, The Garrison shone like a beacon in the foggy street, noise and drunk inhabitants spilling out into the surrounding street. There was a reason Charlie had never stepped foot inside this pub, a reason Ronnie had always warned her to steer clear from it. The Peaky Blinders were devils, unholy enough to take the eyes of any man who so much as looked at them wrong. But Charlie didn't believe in the devil. And walking into the gangs lair tonight she was confident this risk would pay off. Campbell spent an almost concerning amount of time lurking around this place and there was a reason pubs were her favourite place to pickpocket. Drunks wouldn't even know that they'd been stripped of all their valuables until the next morning when they'd slept their hangover away. Or until they tried to buy another round and found their wallet missing. Either way, pubs were always easy pickings. 

But tonight she was after so much more than a drunk mans wallet, and gods did she need that extra money. The thought of those extra coins spurred her to take the final steps up to the door of The Garrison, pull her cap further over her face, and step inside.

                                                                       

              

- - - - - - -

Thanks for Reading ! :)