The whisky was making Eddie brave, but Jack didn’t mind. He’d come here for some back story on his birth dad and he was certainly getting it.

Eddie glazed over for a while as he gazed at his dead son’s photograph. During the silence, Jack thought about Charlie. Eddie was still suffering such a great loss—was this what grief was? Was it something you never, ever got over as long as you lived?

“Jackie never actually told me that Jason was Harry’s and I never asked,” Eddie continued, wiping his eye. “Then one day—Jason would have been around five—I said he couldn’t have something, and he looked at me like he’d cut me down if he could. That’s when I knew for certain he was Harry’s. Harry was dead by then, so . . .” He stood up, as if to clear his head. “Jason was taller than you, tall like Harry. You got Trudie’s height.” Eddie cackled as he gauged with his hand how tall he thought Trudie had been. By the looks of things, she was somewhere in between his knee and his shoulder. “Course, I might be remembering her kneeling down . . .” Another cackle of laughter. “No, no, I’m joking. She was a good sort, your mum.”

As Eddie rocked and laughed at his little joke, Jack frowned, and the deep vertical line in between his eyebrows became more prominent. When Eddie looked up and saw his expression of distaste, his laughter stopped as quickly as it had started.

“S-sorry,” he stuttered. “I didn’t mean nothing by that.”

Jack just nodded. “What about the rest of Harry’s family?”

He might as well get everything out of Eddie while he was on the back foot.

“My dad and Harry’s dad were brothers. Harry’s dad was a tough businessman, buying and selling antiques in a relatively legit business, while also running with some heavy-duty villains. Harry’s dad got sent away for armed robbery around the same time as mine died from lung cancer—so Harry’s mum, Iris, made sure me and my mum had enough money to get by. Iris wasn’t to be messed with. She became the head of the family, took over the business, trained Harry to be the man he was—and me to be the man I am, I suppose. She loved him with all of her cold, hard heart.”

Eddie sat back down in his chair and gave a soft laugh.

“When Harry was just 13, Iris would make him memorize every hallmark in her little black book. When he’d got that learned, she’d have Ezra come round—he was a jeweler . . . No, not Ezra—Eli. Eli Jacobson. Dead now. Anyway, she’d have him come round with his briefcase filled with his precious metals. Harry had to value them, find the fakes, all that caper.” Eddie was relaxed again now and happy to talk about this new subject. “I remember one time, she laid out three diamonds and told Harry to pick the one worth 500, then the one worth 1,000, then the one worth ten shillings. If he got it right, she’d give him fifty quid. That was a hell of a lot of money in them days!”