IN BAD FAITH | peaky blinders | T.S

TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY

"Where's Martha?"

"She's gone."

Tommy paused for a moment, unblinking, the words not making any sense in his head. Polly busied herself with a mug of tea, Finn sitting beneath the table spinning a little red book in his hands.

"What do you mean, she's gone?"

"I mean, she's gone, Tommy. I don't know where. I took her out to the market like you told me to, she was fine — well, as fine as someone can be a few days after finding their sister floating in the canal — and the next minute she was gone."

Tommy cringed internally at Polly's harsh words. "What happened then?"

"We came out of the bookstore and she took off."

Tommy sighed in frustration, running a hand through his hair. What was Polly Gray doing in a bookstore anyway? "Well did you follow her?"

"If I followed her I'd know where she is."

Tommy stood angrily from the table, the chair scraping beneath him. His brothers stood quietly, not wanting to agitate him further, but the question was thick on the tip of their tongues and hung in the air between them — why did Tommy care so much?

"Tommy," Polly began, setting her tea cup down in front of her. "What's going on?"

He pushed a cigarette between his lips, sighing in exasperation. He felt angry from the fighting and tired from the journey and guilty, so very guilty for Clara and her children who would be wondering where their mother was right now, scared and alone, just as him and his siblings had been all those years ago. All his life he had tried to escape that place, the place of poverty and hunger and death, and somehow in the process he had created another family of starving orphans. In fact, he'd probably created hundreds.

"I don't know," he mumbled, closing his eyes. "I don't fucking know."

It was Martha's fault. God, even the words sounded childish as they rang in his head. He knew he couldn't blame it on her, but there was an element of truth to them. Before her, he was numb to the little consequences of his actions that were not so little at all; to someone, somewhere, they were explosive. He'd suddenly become aware that, though a random woman's death was almost nothing to him, it was absolutely everything to someone else. Just like Martha's sister — using her in his plan, leading an innocent girl to her death — it was nothing to Tommy, just a part of life in his climb to success. And yet, here Martha was, showing him just how serious his actions were, how deeply they affected other people.

Part of him wished she'd never entered his life, and yet he knew that was a lie — something drew him to her the moment he'd seen her sat in the Garrison with his brother; when they'd walked home from the dockyard, when she lay beside him at night. He'd never felt it before, completely unexplainable, and for the first time in years, Tommy was scared and unsettled by it.

"John, Arthur, get down to the Garrison and tell the boys about last night, tell them what we did and how hard we hit 'em."

The two brothers glanced at each other before pulling their caps on stiffly and exiting through the front door. Tommy listened to their footsteps against the cold pavement outside, growing fainter and fainter as they walked away in silence.

"Finn," he called. The little boy stirred, climbing out from under the table with a look on his face as though he had been caught.

"Upstairs, Finn," Polly muttered, and the youngest brother moved without hesitation. Tommy ignored the book held tightly to his chest. Last time he'd checked, his littlest brother could barely read a sentence.