But Bert and Margaret were not among the handful of people who knew why Jimmy had suddenly vanished from The Bunk. They would not have understood why his turning up alive was so devastating for Matilda and Alice. And they certainly had no idea that their son’s abrupt decision to go to war had been prompted by his role in Jimmy’s disappearance. At eighteen, Geoff had perished fighting in Flanders, as had Alice’s father.
‘Damn shame the swine ain’t dead.’ Tilly’s mouth pressed into a hard line. ‘Still, it don’t matter. Alive, dead – he’s nothing to us now. He can crawl back under his stone and stay there. I’m just glad yer Aunt Fran ain’t here to see the day.’
Tilly fingered her healing lip. She didn’t bear a grudge against Jimmy’s other half for clumping her. If the woman hadn’t been with him for long she might not know better than to stick up for the evil git. It had taken her sister Fran fifteen years to finally turn her back on him. This new woman had shown her loyalty in public, but what went on behind their closed doors was anybody’s guess. Tilly could guess. She knew Jimmy Wild would never change.
‘That poor cow he’s got in tow don’t know what she’s let herself in for. There’s plenty of people round here could tell her her fortune if she sticks with him.’ She grunted a sour laugh. ‘Nellie’ll give her a piece of advice,’ she said, mentioning one of Jimmy’s fancy women. Nellie Tucker had been a looker in her time and choosy in her punters, but now she’d grown blowsy and turned tuppenny tricks for drunks coming out of pubs. Tilly reckoned that every woman who came into contact with Jimmy Wild would be degraded by the experience. She’d fought hard to prevent it happening to her.
A knock on the door brought Tilly’s reflections to an end and her on to her feet. ‘Not expecting anyone.’ She frowned at Alice, pushing her chair back from the table.
A neighbour, who’d had rooms in a house across the street for almost as long as Alice could remember, barged in before Tilly had the door properly open. Obviously Beattie Evans was bursting with news she wanted to get off her chest.
‘Ain’t sure how to tell you this, Til,’ the woman wheezed out. It was always Beattie’s way to draw out a drama if she could.
‘Straight out’ll do,’ Tilly responded flatly, planting her hands on her hips.
‘First off, I just seen Lou Perkins. She’s back from Kent and ain’t pleased to know Jimmy’s arrived here before her. She reckoned she’d be the one breaking the news about him not being dead, ‘cos she ran in to him in Dartford market.’
‘That it?’ Tilly barked.
Beattie shook her head. ‘Jimmy and his woman are moving in up the road.’
Beattie had been expecting a fiery response to her news, but even so she jumped back in surprise at the force of it.
‘What?’ Tilly roared. ‘Where? What number?’ She was already rolling up her sleeves. ‘If he thinks he can rub our noses in this, he can bleedin’ think again.’
‘Mum! Don’t!’ Alice shot up from the table to position herself between her mother and the door, blocking her way.
‘He ain’t moving back to Campbell Road!’ Tilly thundered, swinging around to slam a fist on the table and send the cups crashing over. ‘Ain’t havin’ the bastard livin’ near me after what’s gone on. I’ll swing fer him, so help me Gawd. If he weren’t dead before, he soon will be.’
Robert Wild was of the same opinion as his aunt about Jimmy returning to his old stamping ground. Not that Robert lived in Campbell Road any more. For fifteen months he’d been renting a smart townhouse in Tufnell Park and kept his new Sunbeam Tourer parked on a side driveway that used to lead to stables. His ambition was to buy the freehold of the property. But for now he was content to use his profits to expand the businesses he already had, and to invest in more. Robert had a wily head on his shoulders and knew acting flash with his cash could jeopardise his plans for his future security. He was twenty-three and intended to retire a millionaire when he was thirty-five. His only real luxuries were his house, his car, and a few decent suits. He had justified those purchases with the logic that an appearance of modest affluence was necessary when negotiating with people who had more money and experience than he did. Young he may be, but he was careful never to present himself as a chancer, or a threat. He knew he was a match for any of them. He also knew it was too soon to let them become aware of the fact.
He had bought property, but none that he’d consider residing in himself. He was the landlord of a shop in Queensland Road and three tenements in Campbell Road. He also had a nicer house in Playford Road, where his brother and sister-in-law now lived rent-free on the ground floor. He’d picked them up as a job lot for refurbishment three years back. Solly, who’d owned the secondhand shop in Queensland Road, had wanted to quickly offload all his premises and retire to the coast before the cancer eating away at his insides finished its work.
Robert had been twenty at the time. He’d used every penny he’d scrimped and saved from working his market stalls for six years to do the deal behind the back of old Mr Keane, who liked to think he was the wheeler-dealer landlord in Campbell Bunk. The sulky old git hadn’t spoken to him since even though Robert had been at pains not to rub his nose in it because you never knew who you might need on side.
The deal had been struck with Solly because the old Jew liked him, and remembered a promise he’d made years before. When Rob had been at school he’d often run errands for Solly, and he’d done a bit of lifting and carrying the old boy couldn’t manage to do himself. Solly had never paid him; at the time he was a regular tight-fist, but he’d always told Rob he’d see him all right one day. And he’d been true to his word. Rob knew Solly could have got a better price for his properties from old man Keane, but he’d let him have them for what he could afford to pay. It had been the turning point in his career; from that point on he’d been resented and courted in equal measure. In the estimation of most of the folk in these parts, Rob Wild had hit the big time when he took on Solly’s stock.
He had three men working for him, but Stevie was the only one of his employees he trusted to collect the rents from his tenants in Campbell Road. Today he had taken on the task himself as Stevie and a few of the boys were picking up a shipment of market stock.
He had just stopped to scrape the sole of his shoe on the kerb, having stepped in some slimy cabbage stalks in the hallway of one of his properties, when he looked up and saw Jimmy carrying sacks of possessions into a house a few doors down from the intersection with Paddington Street.
Robert’s lips whitened over his teeth as he spat out a curse. He sprinted across the road and, grabbing his father by the shoulder, viciously spun him against the iron railings. ‘No yer don’t.’ He thrust his face up close to Jimmy’s concave, unshaven cheek. ‘Wherever it was you’ve been hiding yerself all these years, you can piss off back there. I told you, you’re not wanted round here.’
With a strength that belied his grizzled appearance, Jimmy pulled out of his son’s grip. ‘You don’t own this house, Bobbie,’ Jimmy sneered. ‘I made sure of that.’ He didn’t look or sound so complaisant today. ‘Old man Keane’s still got this one, so you can’t put me out. I’ll live where I want. And I want right here.’ He smiled slyly. ‘Be nice ’n’ close to yer aunt Til again. She’ll like that.’ A private joke caused him to smirk. He turned his head towards the junction with Seven Sisters Road where the Keivers had rooms. ‘Be nice ’n’ close to Stevie ’n’ all. Lives just around the corner in Playford Road now, don’t he?’ He started to gather up his belongings and move again towards the door-less portal, beyond which was darkness and a stink of decay.
Robert took hold of his father’s shirt collar and hauled him backwards. He pushed him stumbling into the