Streetwise by Roberta Kray Page A

some charm but not enough to make up for his deficiencies. Danny, on the other hand, had a fuckin’ screw loose. It was a tough thing to admit about your own son, but there it was. Danny was a bleeding liability and that was never going to change.
    Only Liam, his eldest son, his long-dead son, had had the potential to really go places. Liam could have stepped into his shoes if he’d been given the opportunity. Instead, he’d got half his head blown off when he was only seventeen. Terry felt a sudden searing pain in his heart, the symptom of a grief that never diminished no matter how many years passed by.
    He knocked back the whisky and caught the eye of one of the waitresses. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. She came and took his glass and went over to the bar. A minute later, Chris came back with the drink.
    ‘Here,’ he said, placing the glass on the table. ‘I need a word.’
    Terry gestured ungraciously towards the chair in front of him. He would have preferred to be alone with his whisky and his thoughts. ‘Just tell me this ain’t about the Fox again.’
    ‘We need to talk about it.’
    ‘We’ve already done that.’
    Chris frowned. ‘Have we? The way I remember it is that I suggested buying it and you said forget it. Not what I’d call a conversation. You want to tell me why we shouldn’t?’
    Terry glared at him. There was a time when Chris wouldn’t have questioned a decision he had made, a time when his word would have been law. But there was no respect any more. A father couldn’t even expect it from his son. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll tell you why not.’ He counted out the reasons on his fingers. ‘For one, Maggie McConnell ain’t going to sell it to us. For two, even if she did we’d never get a fuckin’ licence. For three, we ain’t got that kind of spare cash lying around. And for four, I don’t
want
to own the fuckin’ place again.’
    ‘We could find the money,’ Chris said. ‘That place is a goldmine. We’d soon be raking it in. And we’ve already got a licence for the Hope so why should getting one for the Fox be a problem?’
    ‘It ain’t the same.’
    ‘No, it ain’t the same. The Fox is a damn sight more profitable.’
    Terry shrugged his shoulders. Although all the reasons he had given were perfectly valid, there was one that he hadn’t mentioned and wasn’t about to. Years ago, when he’d been a young man, he’d murdered Joe Quinn outside the cellar door to the Fox. Bludgeoned him to death with a baseball bat – and got away with it too. Quinn had owned the pub back then, had owned half the East End in fact, and Terry had wanted it all.
    ‘At least give it some thought.’
    ‘Sure,’ Terry said, eager to be rid of him. ‘Now piss off and leave me in peace.’
    Chris got to his feet and then leaned back down and said, ‘And we need to sort out Wilder too.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘Wilder,’ Chris repeated.
    For a moment, Terry couldn’t place the name. Who the fuck was Wilder? As he struggled to find a path through the fog in his brain, he was aware of his son waiting impatiently. ‘What about him?’ he asked, playing for time.
    Chris gazed at his father and gave a light despairing shake of his head. ‘Well, if that’s how you feel, you can open your own bleedin’ post from now on. I’m not handling any more dead rats that were meant for you.’
    It was then that the name finally slotted into place. Wilder. Christ, Guy Wilder. Lizzie’s boy. How could he have forgotten that? Quickly, Terry tried to cover his confusion. ‘He ain’t worth the bother. You really gonna let that scrote get to you?’
    Chris threw him a dirty look. ‘For God’s sake, he sent you a filthy rotting rodent. Since when did you let that bastard walk all over you?’
    Terry gave a shrug. ‘The only person he’s walking over is you. That’s if you let him. He’s a worthless piece of shite. Just forget about it, huh?’
    ‘Right, so forget about the rat, forget