Shelby's spy

3.

The toll of last nights events made themselves apparent the second she awoke up the next morning.
After flinging herself from The Garrison so unceremoniously, Charlie had sprinted all the way back to the orphanage, the thrill of having looked a Peaky Blinder in the eye and lived to tell the tale pushing her on. 

She had fallen asleep the second her head had hit her pillow, and waking now her legs ached horribly from the long sprint back. Today was going to be a long day.

But she only had to make it through classes and chores and then as soon as night fell she would be back out onto the streets to meet Ronnie. Saturday nights were always reserved for meetings with Ronnie, where she would hand over any steals from the week and in return Ronnie would hand over her earnings and any new information on jobs. She was excited to show him the Inspectors pocket-watch, she knew he had been doubtful she would pull this one off.

The thought of his surprised face propelled a smug Charlie from her tiny bed to start the day. The rest of the girls in her dormitory were already awake and heading to breakfast so Charlie hurried to shove on her uniform. A hideous black cotton dress with a white collar that came down to her ankles, a white apron on top and worst of all, a white bonnet. She didn't bother to fix her bed head as she shoved the atrocity of a hat on top. Gods what she would do to be able to put on the slacks and shirt now stuffed under her mattress.

Three more months. Three more months then she would be out of here.

Descending down two floors of rickety spiral stairs, Charlie entered the dining hall made up of two long benched tables, one for the girls and one for the boys. She slipped onto the end of the girls table and didn't miss the glares or the way the others subtly shifted further up the bench away from her. She wasn't well liked here, had a reputation of starting brawls in the yard but she didn't care.  There was no point in forming friendships here, not when she had no intentions of sticking around.

Breakfast consisted of the same daily portion of bland porridge and water and then she was sitting through the same dull classes for forced herself to pay attention to. If she was to be independent she would need her reading, writing and mathematics. Charlie was relatively average when it came to her schooling in everything bar maths, that was were she excelled. Something about the numbers and the problem solving seemed to just click in her brain.

After lessons came chores. On this particular day Charlie found herself in the kitchens, laboriously scrubbing away at the dirty pots and pans, elbows deep in soapy water. This was one of the worse chores, miles harder than the light dusting and sweeping the other girls got to do. Somehow she always ended up in the kitchens despite Matrons 'fair' rotation of chore duty. Charlie knew this wasn't coincidental , Matron had always had it out for her and never missed an opportunity to make her life that much more miserable.  

One missed dish, one speck of dirt left and Matron would merrily take her cane to Charlies knuckles. She seemed to have constant lashes and bruising on her hands these days. It could be worse though. Charlie had experienced worse once before after a particularly nasty brawl which had ended with her opponent , John Strucker,  laying at the bottom of the staircase with a broken elbow and with Charlie en route to Saint Hilda's baring the marks of ten lashes to her back. That had been a particularly horrid two months of which she never wishes to relive. Strucker had deserved it though and she would never regret pushing him from the top of the first floor.

This time Charlie escaped chores unscathed and after another bland dinner she crawled under the threadbare blanket on her bed and waited.

Like clockwork, Matron did her nightly rounds, marching the length of the dormitory to ensure each bed was filled and each lantern was extinguished before closing the door and locking the deadbolt behind her. 

As a precaution Charlie always waited until the room filled with the sounds of heavy breathing and light snoring before she rose. Once it had she let the faint moonlight peaking through the uncovered window at the far end of the dormitory guide her, disguise and pocket-watch in hand, past her sleeping roommates. The window slid open silently, as it had every night before, and Charlie stepped onto the flat roof just below it with practiced ease. From there it was a straight shot across the chimney stacked rooftops of the neighbouring two buildings. Then a quick shimmy down the drainpipe of the library she had once tried stealing a book from before realising they were all about law and incredibly boring.

Once her feet finally met the pavement, Charlie couldn't help the thrill of excitement that shot through her. Ronnie was going to be so surprised when he saw that she actually managed to pull this job off, she couldn't wait to see the look on his face. A secret part of Charlie also hoped that this might make the man proud, though she would never admit it he had become somewhat of a father figure to her. Maybe she would leave out the part where a Peaky Blinder had witnessed her crime, that might make him less proud.

In the shadowed alley beside the library, Charlie shoved the boys clothes straight on over her nightdress and pulled her trusty cap on over her head before setting a brisk pace down the familiar path through Birmingham. She reckoned she could walk this route with her eyes closed having taken the same journey every single Saturday for the past year and a half.

Exactly ten minutes later Charlier turned onto the path running along the canal and her destination came into view. Ronnie and her had been meeting under the same bridge for as long as they had worked together, the shadowed under crop offering the privacy needed for their exchanges. Charlie had never been to Ronnie's own home, did not even know what that was. He had never offered the information and she had never asked and she knew it was partly to maintain the professional relationship she pretended to only have with the older man. 

Unwelcome fatherly feelings aside, Ronnie had only ever acted as a strict boss to her and there was no reason for her to need to know where he lived, hence the creepy rendezvous point.

Charlie knew she was early tonight so she took a seat at the edge of the canal and gazed into the dark waters. She wondered what lurked beneath, how many souls took their final resting place at the bottom courtesy of the Blinders. They were notorious for dumping bodies into the cut.

The sound of footsteps interrupted her from her morbid thoughts and without looking back Charlie called out smugly to Ronnie. 

"You'll never believe what i've managed to get for ya this week Ronald"

Okay she was bragging, but she felt she deserved to on this occasion. She had robbed a gods dammed inspector right under his nose for christ sake.

But the voice that answered back was not that of her boss.

~ ~ ~

gorgeous gorgeous girls write new chapters instead of sleeping.