The Life by Martina Cole

say is, Dan, we don’t need the bully-boy tactics any more. We have sorted everything out perfectly well so far. We need to establish a new order, a new way of handling things. You have to see that taking everyone out at a second’s notice will only cause upset and distrust. We have worked long and hard for this, I’m begging you, don’t let’s fuck it up by generating bad will. We don’t need to prove ourselves any more. We’ve arrived, mate. Let everyone else take the chances –
we
need to be here to oversee everything. To make sure it goes in our favour.’
    Daniel grinned. ‘So it’s all right for you to do things off your own bat but not me? Is that it?’ He was still upset with his brother for taking out Kevin O’Neill behind his back, and Peter knew it.
    He smiled, and held his hands up in mock surrender. ‘I’ll give you that one, Dan. But this isn’t about now, this is about the future. We have always been very different in our approaches to our work, and up till now that has been one of our strengths. No one knows how to handle us, not separately and definitely not when we are together. We are like chalk and cheese, but now we have to pull together properly, and we have to keep a low profile.’ Peter could see the scepticism on his brother’s face and it angered him that Daniel could not see the danger he brought to their daily lives with his violence and his pettiness.
    ‘You think you know everything, Pete, you always have, since we were little kids. And I love that about you, but you can’t sit there like the fucking Angel Gabriel spreading your glad tidings at this late stage in the game. We took all this with our front, and only our front will keep us in the running. You need to remember that.’
    Peter shook his head then. He had dropped the rest of the crew off at a pub, making sure that there were only the two of them for this conversation. He was aware that Daniel would fight him on this – on every level. Daniel always acted first and thought it all out afterwards. When they were on their way
up
the ladder that had been less of a problem. Now, though, they needed to pull back a little, keep a low profile for a while. In short, they had to wait and see how their new status was received by the general populace.
    Daniel seemed to think they faced no opposition. Well, it wasn’t the case. They had trodden on more than a few fucking toes and, even though they were convinced they were bigenough and tough enough for the job in hand, it would not hurt either of them to wait and see if there were going to be any reprisals.
    ‘We don’t know, Dan, what the upshot of this is yet. We have done our best, but we have still fucked a lot of people over. I believe we need to step back and see what the future holds. Alfie is a good earner and, as lairy as he is, he has his creds. All I am saying is, let’s see what he has to offer.’
    Daniel Bailey looked into his brother’s eyes; he was sorry for him in some ways. Peter always believed the best of people if he could – he got that from their mother. He also thought that because he did things on the quiet they didn’t count. But they did. Peter was paranoid these days. Since they had made their move Peter seemed convinced they were going to get their collars felt. Daniel wondered at how he was going convince his brother of his way of thinking. He saw their next moves as pivotal in their conquering of London and the Home Counties. Daniel felt they should be rattling the cages of everyone within their orbit, making them see just how dangerous they were, whereas Peter wanted to tip-toe in, like fucking burglars, creepers – the lowest of the low where they came from.
    Daniel thought they should remove all the old guard, and replace them with their own people. He could not see the logic of keeping people employed who had worked closely with the very people they had annihilated and he said as much. ‘For fuck’s sake, they don’t trust us, Pete,