‘Jump on the train.’ Vinny pocketed the ten-pound note and urged Roy to put all the coins in his pocket. ‘Right, when I say run in a minute, we run as fast as we can, OK?’

‘What about our guy?’ asked Michael.

Vinny turned to his youngest brother. ‘Well that can’t fucking run, can it? We leave it ’ere.’

‘But his head is my football.’ Michael reminded his brother.

‘I’ll buy you another one. Right, ready? One, two, three, run!’

Queenie hopped off the bus and ran across to the station. There was no sign of her sons. ‘Excuse me, have you seen three young lads hanging around ’ere with a guy, as in Fawkes?’ Queenie asked the paper seller.

‘Yes, love. They ran into the station, chased by some other lads. They left their guy, if you wanna take it home to ’em. It’s over there,’ he pointed.

Queenie was even more furious as she laid eyes on the guy. It had Albie’s cap on, the good one she’d bought him from the posh menswear shop opposite Cohen’s. Not only that, it had her green cardigan on, a pair of Vinny’s trousers and Albie’s dealer boots!

Cursing her sons more than ever, Queenie ripped the trousers off the guy, took the cardigan off the bastard thing, then picked up the cap and boots. She would throttle those little toerags when she got home.

Queenie then started to worry. She prayed the lads chasing her brood didn’t throttle them first. If anything bad happened to her babies, it would kill her.

Having spotted the two eldest Butler boys being beaten to a pulp by much older lads, the Kelly brothers had stopped their car, chased the other lads away and driven the battered and bruised pair home. They were worried about their brother Michael though, who’d disappeared during the fracas.

‘Please don’t tell our mum we were sitting outside the station asking for a penny for the guy. She’ll kill us,’ Vinny said, holding the side of his jaw that was throbbing. He’d held his own with a couple of those lads to a degree, had kicked one in the nuts and punched another hard in the gut. But it hadn’t been enough to stop them taking the ten-pound note out of his pocket. They’d held him down, the bastards. Thankfully the Kelly brothers had pulled up before they got the chance to frisk Roy. Lots of the change they’d collected was scattered over the pavement, but hopefully they still had something left for their troubles.

The Kelly brothers were two of the most feared men in Whitechapel. They’d taken on Mary O’Leary’s lads as youngsters and now Patrick and Daniel were carving out a decent future in the West End. They still took a cut, though, of course. But they looked after their own impeccably, were always helping out the good people, but took no nonsense from the wrong uns in the community. ‘We’re no grasses, Vinny lad. You tell your mum what you want. But a word of warning, if you were outside Bethnal Green station for hours, some nosy bastard is bound to have seen you and will snitch to your mother. Loose lips sink ships and there’s plenty of loose lips round our neck of the woods. You might be better holding your hands up and coming clean,’ warned Billy Kelly, feeling sorry for the lads. They’d taken a real kicking.