When the door shut behind him, Celeste sat down and lit a cigarette from her secret stash. Jonny hated her smoking, but she needed it to calm her nerves. She knew something big was going down tonight, and she feared in her heart that it was something that could go very, very wrong. She trusted Jonny, but she knew he was taking some big risks these days – at least as far as her dad was concerned he was, and her dad wasn’t a spinner. If he was worried, there was something to worry about. Her dad might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he heard anything that was worth anything, and her husband should listen to him now and again. In fact, he ought to understand that he should listen to the truth sometimes even if he wasn’t in the mood for hearing it. She felt personally that it was always worth a quick listen to the local gossip. Nine times out of ten, they knew more than the Filth ever would and even more than the people involved in a scam. Gossip was a serious thing where they came from; it was the forerunner to a serious nicking. If it was known outside their workforce, it was dangerous to everyone involved. It meant that it wasn’t as secret as they all assumed. In fact, it meant it was common knowledge, in the public domain, and that meant that someone in his personal circle had a big mouth and that big mouth could cause more fights than John Wayne. She couldn’t talk to her husband about any of this because he saw local gossip as nothing more than fabrication, stupidity and idiocy. Those being his exact words.

Celeste loved her husband more than life itself, but she knew he wasn’t exactly kosher. In truth, she knew a lot more than he gave her credit for. She also understood what he was capable of, and that frightened her. Not for herself – he would never hurt her, of that she was sure. But he was capable of murder, she had no doubt about that at all.

She smoked the cigarette with shaking hands. Tonight was going to be a long one.

Chapter Twenty-Four