Streetwise by Roberta Kray

wasn’t exactly a happy one – neither of them were the faithful sort – and she’d grown pretty powerful while he’d been inside. They say that Terry wanted his empire back and didn’t want a row about it.’
    ‘Jesus,’ Ava murmured.
    ‘And Guy Wilder has always believed that Chris and Danny were involved, that Terry wouldn’t have trusted anyone else. And Wilder might have hated his mother’s guts – he didn’t ever forgive her for abandoning him – but he didn’t want to see her dead.’ He scratched his chin where a day’s growth of beard gave the skin a bluish hue. ‘But like I said, it’s only a rumour. The cops never found any evidence and no one was ever charged. Could just be a pile of bollocks.’
    Ava tried to imagine Chris Street lifting a gun and shooting his stepmother through the heart. Was he capable of such a thing? She didn’t really want to think about it. There were enough horrors in the world without creating imaginary ones too.
    Jimmy finished his beer and raised his empty glass. ‘You got time for another?’
    ‘Of course. Let me get these.’ She reached for her bag, but her father was already on his feet.
    ‘Keep your cash,’ he said, flapping a hand. ‘These are on me.’
    As Ava watched him standing at the bar, she wished that he could find someone to settle down with. The girlfriends came and went – usually arriving when her dad was in the money and leaving as soon as it ran out. And okay, maybe he wasn’t the greatest catch in the world, but he still had his own hair and teeth, was kind and loyal and never bore grudges. There were far worse guys out there.
    She saw him pay for the drinks and that nagging worry came back to haunt her again. Where had he got the dosh from – and how long before the law came knocking on his door? Her father never could say no to a ‘sure thing’. Hope always triumphed over experience. Raising her eyes to the ceiling, she silently prayed to the heavens above:
Please God, just for once, let him get away with it.

8
    Terry Street was sitting at his usual table in Belles, near the back and off to the side where he could see everything that was going on. He was staring at the girls, but he wasn’t really seeing them. After a while, one half-naked body looked much the same as another. Tits and bums, tits and bums. He felt no lust for them, no desire. The only thing that brought him any pleasure these days was the booze.
    He reached for his glass and drank some of the whisky. When he put the glass down, he frowned. He’d been mulling over something, but now he couldn’t remember what it was. It had been happening to him a lot recently, this weird disconnection halfway through a train of thought. And he kept putting things down and forgetting where he’d put them. Age creeping up, he supposed, although he was only in his sixties.
    Terry picked up his glass again. He glanced across at the bar and saw Chris standing there, chatting to a group of banker types. Once Terry would have been the one to do the schmoozing, but lately he couldn’t be bothered. It was too much of an effort and basically he didn’t give a toss about the customers. So long as they paid their money, drank the champagne and kept away from him, he was happy.
    Terry knew that he was becoming anti-social. The truth was that most people bored him these days. The younger generation didn’t know the meaning of a proper conversation; it was mobile phones and texting, Facebook and all the rest of that crap. Even the villains were bland. Back in his time, there had been real characters, men with personalities. Now you were lucky to find someone who could string more than a couple of sentences together.
    He looked hard at Chris. Both of his boys, in different ways, had been a disappointment to him. Neither of them had what it took to be a real success. Chris was smart enough but he lacked the killer instinct. If he could avoid trouble, he would – and everybody knew it. He had