Streetwise by Roberta Kray Page B

about the Fox. Anything else you want me to forget about?’ Chris turned on his heel and strode back towards the bar.
    ‘Fuckin’ kids,’ Terry muttered under his breath. He wasn’t going to buy the bloody pub and that was that. All this recent talk of the Fox had stirred up old memories. He could be walking down the road, sitting in the office or lying in bed trying to get some shut-eye, when suddenly an image of Joe Quinn would rise up in his mind. He would see him sitting in Connolly’s, expertly rolling his skinny cigarettes. He would see him holding court at the Fox, supping on his pint and snarling out orders. He would see him climbing into the rusty old van at the start of the last journey he would ever make.
    Terry took a large gulp of whisky. On the whole, he didn’t hold much truck with the concept of karma, with the idea that what goes around comes around, but these constant reminders of Joe had begun to unnerve him. Why couldn’t the bastard leave him alone? What was done was done and nothing could change it. And okay, it was true that he’d let Joe’s two sons go down for a murder they hadn’t committed, but innocence was relative – completely relative in this instance – and he didn’t regret what he’d done. Dog eat dog, the survival of the fittest – those were the rules of the criminal world. There was no room for finer feelings.
    Terry felt a prickling sensation on the back of his neck. He turned his head but no one was paying him any attention. All eyes were firmly fixed on the glistening bodies of the tarts on stage. But still the feeling continued as if somewhere, in the shadows, he was being watched. Although it was the last thing he wanted, he suddenly found himself thinking about Lizzie. The bitch might be six foot under, but she still continued to haunt him.
    He scowled as he buried his face in his glass. Lizzie was the only person he had ever told about the murder of Joe Quinn. He had done it in that first flush of passion when they had shared everything. He had thought then that Lizzie was the love of his life, but as the years passed by she had become his greatest enemy. Had she told anyone else? He didn’t think so, but there was no knowing for sure.
    Terry was still dwelling on this when he felt a tap on the shoulder.
    ‘Boss?’
    He turned to look up at the tall black man called Solomon Vale. ‘Yeah? What is it? What do you want?’
    Vale bent his head and said softly, ‘Vic Delaney’s out front. Says he wants to talk to you. I told him I wasn’t sure if you were here or not, said I’d check. You want me to let him in? You want to see him?’
    Terry didn’t want to see him, but he couldn’t put it off forever. He’d been expecting a visit for the past few weeks. Now that he was here, might as well get it over and done with. ‘Yeah, show him in.’
    ‘Will do, boss.’
    Terry watched as Vale strode back towards the door. Solomon, although tough and reliable, was a man of few words. He’d been with the firm for years, but Terry still didn’t know him that well. He was always polite, always respectful, but he was Chris’s right-hand man and it was with Chris, ultimately, that his loyalty lay. Terry wasn’t sure who he could trust any more. There was no one left of the old firm, the men he’d inherited from Quinn. They were all dead now. And although Terry hadn’t had any problems in recruiting new members, he had always been wary of them. Just as he’d betrayed Joe Quinn, he knew that one of them might do the same to him.
    Now, of course, the firm was a quarter of the size it had once been. Nothing was the same. The East End wasn’t the same. He missed the old days when people had looked up to him, when he’d wielded the kind of power that other villains could only dream about. Those had been the glory days and nothing could compare to them.
    Terry was still absorbed in the past when Vale returned with Vic Delaney in tow. Delaney was a fat man, almost as wide as