Tommy opened his front door, frowning. It annoyed him that she thought him capable of killing an old woman, even if the old woman was Elizabeth O’Malley!

As he climbed his staircase though, he felt a sort of lightness come over him. He was young, he was unattached, and he was a man of substance.

He had severed his ties with Briony, even though they were still partners. He would still look out for her, no one would hurt her while he breathed, but now he’d look out for her from afar. Her status in the East End wouldn’t change. Briony would still be the force she had always been, only now she would be on her own.

Chapter Twenty-four

Chapter Twenty-four

Delilah Glasworthy was fifty-five years old and looked good on it. Her hair was still thick and dark, with only a sprinkling of grey, her eyebrows lustrous and finely shaped and her deep-set brown eyes were humorous. She was tall and slim with long shapely legs which she did not try to hide. A widow for over twenty years, she owned a house in Stepney, in East Street, and let it out to boarders - gentlemen of good standing, civil servants, engineers, and others of that ilk.

She looked down her nose at the people around her, watched young mothers giving their windowsills what she called a ‘cat’s lick’, tutted over children with dirty knees and snotty noses. But in general she kept herself to herself. Today, though, she was sitting in Molly Cavanagh’s kitchen drinking a cup of tea and trying her hardest to pluck up courage to talk frankly to the woman in front of her.

‘You look great, Delilah, your hair is beautiful still. You always had the hair, even as a child.’

Delilah smiled tremulously. She had known Molly Cavanagh from childhood. Their mothers had known each other in Cork; their fathers had both been seamen, then dockers. Of an age, the two women found it easy to pick up exactly where they left off, even though they might not see one another from one year to the next.

‘I still board, Molly. I have some lovely gentlemen at present. Refined types, you know.’

Molly stifled a grin. Refined my arse! she thought, but she nodded pleasantly anyway.

‘But East Street! Molly, it’s gone downhill, I tell you. We have some horrible characters there now. The young women of today. Make-up in the middle of the afternoon! Tally men banging their doors down at all hours, men coming home to ructions and fighting. It’s a disgrace, I tell you. And over the road to me, well, they take blacks now. Nanny Carpenter lets to blacks!’

Molly looked suitably scandalised.

‘Nanny Carpenter! Why she was always the one for respectability!’