smoke storm. peaky blinders

PROLOGUE

PROLOGUE

The mind of a woman was a tricky thing if one was to believe the articles and scientific journals written on the very fact. It was the men that wrote these studies that loved to summarise them so, as if each girl, each mother and each daughter, were exactly the same type of spinsters of words that they liked to conjure up. It was easy to call them quiet, to name them the 'weaker sex' as if they were anything but smart. It was society that deemed them unable to think, and it was similarly society that forced them to do so.

To be calculating, was a trait that Adelaide Davis decided was most important. To be a woman in a man's world was to learn to read them in the few seconds it took to enter a room, to use words to twist truths, and to use emotions in a fight just as well as any fists would do.

Perhaps she was fortunate, having a father so dull minded that he wouldn't think twice to hand over the business to her, or perhaps it was the fact that her brother was so incapable. Adelaide knew she was fortunate to have such inherited opportunity in the first place, but it wasn't as if the whole thing was legal. Being next in line to rule a small gang in Newcastle was not usually something to be proud of.

But Adelaide was proud. And she would do anything to prove that she was worthy.

Her arms slouched against the oak table of her study, a cigarette hung loosely from between her fingers. Twirling strands of silver were exhaled calmly as Harry Davis entered the room, his shoulders bent at odd angles in his normal odd gait. He was tall for his age, though his arms were much too long even for his lanky body, and his messy mop of hair fell upon his dark eyes- the same dark eyes that stared back at him as he sat in the spare chair.

"We have word from Robert and his men in Birmingham," Harry said as he crossed his arms in front of himself. "The Inspector is due to arrive Friday, at noon, from the nine o'clock train departing from London."

"He's coming with his soldiers, I imagine."

He nodded in confirmation. "A flood of them."

"Well we know what that means, don't we?"

They'd been waiting for this moment for months- a true acknowledgement that what they sought was ready for their taking. Adelaide's hands reached out to take the crystal decanter from the cabinet behind her desk and pour out two glasses. Harry took one in stride, knocking the golden liquid back in one go. From behind his tall collar, his skin was rubbed red-raw, irritated by an agitated hand.

"What do we do? Do we honestly risk it?" Harry asked quickly as he slid the glass back across her desk.

"This is why I decide things around here, Harry," she said, chuckling slightly. "We'd be sleeping in the slums if it wasn't for me."

He let out a spluttering cough. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"You know what I mean Harry."

She should have felt guilty, but there was no guilt in war. It was before battle that the feeling of anticipation would build, a thirst for a fight, and a desire for victory. Adelaide's war, however, came in the form of secrecy and midnight dealings, enshrouded in the shadows cast in the brightest of days. There would be victory, though not in the blood-soaked ways of battle.

"Say, how would you feel about a change in scenery?"

Harry's chin dropped momentarily as his tongue ran over his lips. "To Birmingham?"

"It's about time the Peaky Blinders know who they should really fear."

Edited