Bernie was standing beside me and I could feel his whole body beginning to shake. I could hear a whistling sound, as if he was having trouble drawing breath.
Terrifying thoughts were running through my mind. Bernie is going to crack any minute and tell her what happened in Tommy Tarantello’s car. Moira will go crazy and punish Bernie… and possibly me, too.
Before Bernie had time to open his mouth, however, Gordon said, “McCauley said there were several witnesses—people who saw Simmons’s boat on the canal in Maryhill that night. That’s how Tarantello worked out it was us.”
“Do you think that’s it?” Moira asked.
Gordon shrugged his shoulders.
“Yes, why not?” he said. “The night has eyes, doesn’t it? And Tarantello will certainly have paid well for the tip-off.”
Moira thought for some time before nodding and saying, “Maybe you’re right.” 314
I looked around cautiously. No one seemed to have noticed how frightened Bernie and I had been.
And just then, Skinflint said in a very concerned voice, “Tarantello isn’t going to settle for anything short of us handing over what we stole. It would be just as well if—”
Moira cut him off abruptly.
“Never!” she snarled. “The necklace is mine! Do you hear me? Mine and no one else’s!”
Then she pointed at the door and said, “Get out, the lot of you! Out, I need to think! Clean things up down in the club and put a guard on every door in the building. And make sure you are armed!”
There wasn’t much sleep for anyone in the house that night. After we’d cleaned up Lucky Lucy’s place, Skinflint, Carl and Kevin posted themselves at the doors. Bernie was ordered to guard the basement entrance out to the Broomielaw and I was to go with him.
With the dawn of the new day, the guards were stood down. Bernie and I had just managed to drink a cup of tea when Skinflint came to fetch us. Moira had finished thinking it over.
So there we all were just a few minutes later, all lined up in front of her big desk. The dark shadows under her eyes revealed 315that Moira was weary after a long night thinking. But her lips were curled in a satisfied smile. She looked as if she’d come up with an idea.
“If it’s war that Tommy Tarantello wants, then we’ll give him war!” she said in a calm, steady voice. “War is what he’ll get!”
There were some anxious murmurs from those in the room and Skinflint said, “But we don’t stand a chance against Tarantello’s men.”
Moira nodded. “You’re right, we can’t defeat Tarantello on our own. But we won’t be alone! I’m going to make sure that Dolan Duffy at Queen’s Dock is on our side. And the same with William Turnbull’s gang, and Alfie Cohen and his lot from Kingston Dock.”
The room went quiet. Everyone seemed to be thinking through what Moira had said.
“But why should the other riverside gangs help us?” Carl ventured doubtfully.
“Because I shall convince them to,” Moira answered. “It shouldn’t be too difficult. After all, this is a golden opportunity, both for us and for them. If we’re all in it together, we’ll win the war against Tarantello, and then we—the riverside gangs—will be the ones who run the city!”
Moira’s bold plan was met with looks of astonishment, but after a while the others began to nod their approval one by one. 316
Skinflint’s thin lips stretched into a greedy grin. “Tarantello runs the betting on the racetracks,” he said. “And any number of places round the city pay him protection money.”
“He must be taking in loads of money…” Carl added.
“And it’ll all be ours once we’ve won the war!” Kevin commented enthusiastically.
“We’re going to be rich!” Flintheart said breathlessly, rubbing her plump little hands in excitement.
Moira turned to Gordon. “Get in contact with Dolan Duffy, Willie Turnbull and Alfie Cohen and let them know I want to have a meeting.”
“All right,” Gordon said. “When?”
Moira thought for a moment before saying, “At midnight on Monday night.”
“And where?”
“We won’t say yet.” Moira said. “There’s always the risk that someone will grass to Tarantello. And he is not to be given an opportunity to poke his nose in! Duffy, Turnbull and Cohen will not be informed where to meet until one hour before the meeting. No earlier than that!”
The house in Oswald Street now had to be put on a war footing. The gates into the yard were reinforced with sturdy 317supports and the windows of Moira’s flat were boarded up to protect the treasures she kept there. The outer door of the shop was nailed up from the inside and the shop windows barricaded with heavy furniture. Then, finally, inside the building, Skinflint, Carl and Kevin built a sort of bunker out of old iron stoves and other bullet-proof junk. No one would be able to storm the house from the street, not without risking their lives, anyway.
“But what if Tarantello attacks us from the railway side?” Kevin asked. “You can shoot right down into our backyard from that side.”
Gordon nodded and said, “Good point. We’ll have to put someone on guard out there, too.”
When darkness fell, it was Bernie and me who were sent out to stand guard along the barbed-wire fence that separated us from the marshalling yard of Central Station. No one else wanted the job and I soon understood why. There was no protection from the bitterly cold wind and the dirty, sleety rain. Trains were coming and going, hooting and screeching, their carriages and goods wagons blanketed in hissing clouds of steam. Black smoke from the funnels of the massive locomotives created a fog over the tracks. The gas lamps around the station did not 318offer very much light and I shuddered uneasily when I thought of what might be lurking out there in the darkness.
But nothing happened—apart, that is, from the snowfall getting heavier with every passing minute.
The great, brightly lit station hall with its high arched roof supported on cast-iron pillars lay just a hundred or so yards away. I looked longingly in that direction and thought how lovely it would be to climb aboard one of the trains and be carried away from here in a warm and comfortable coach.
Bernie interrupted my thoughts.
“I need to put on more clothes,” he said, shivering so violently that his teeth chattered. “I can’t feel my toes any longer.”
I nodded. If he had to, I suppose he had to, though being left there on my own didn’t feel very pleasant.
Bernie handed me the whistle Gordon had given him in case he needed to raise the alarm if anything happened. Then he limped off on stiff legs to the steps at the back of the house.
A few minutes passed during which I tried to think pleasant thoughts to keep my fears at bay. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed movement. I looked in the direction of the station building and jumped.
Through all the smoke and the sleet I caught a glimpse of a dark silhouette. Someone was walking along the railway track towards me. A slim figure, walking with quick, firm steps. 319
I started fumbling at the button on the breast pocket of my overalls to reach the alarm whistle and I was just about to put it to my lips when something stopped me. The approaching figure put his hands up above his head as if to show he had no intention of harming me.
Suddenly I saw that it wasn’t a he after all. It was a woman. And I recognized her at once.