Free East End Trouble by Dani Oakley, D.S. Butler Page A

tonight. The whole reason behind the raid was to make sure they were recognised so everyone would know that Dave Carter was striking back at the Mortons.
    The seconds were slowly ticking by, and Charlie mumbled a prayer under his breath. He was a good Catholic boy when it suited him to be and still went to church every Sunday. He reached inside his shirt and touched his gold cross.
----
    M eanwhile , Henry the Hand and Red-haired Freddie were upstairs in the flat over The Three Grapes. Red-haired Freddie was getting impatient, and he wandered over to the window, peeking behind the net curtains and looked out onto the street.
    “What the hell are you doing? Get away from there. Do you want to give the game away, you daft apeth.”
    Red-haired Freddie gave a toss of his head, but he let go of the curtain and walked away from the window.
    “Why are you so jumpy?” I bet nothing even happens tonight. I can’t see anyone out there. I don’t know where Martin got the tip off from anyway. Do you?”
    They hadn’t been allowed upstairs in Morton’s today, which was unusual as they usually met up with Martin there in the afternoons, especially before a job like this.
    Henry drummed the two fingers of his disfigured hand on the dining table. He was feeling impatient, and he didn’t like being kept in the dark any more than Red-haired Freddie. The difference was Henry didn’t make a song and dance about it. There wasn’t any point.
    “You don’t think it’s a setup, do you?” Red-haired Freddie asked. “I mean, we don’t even know how many of Carter’s men are going to turn up. We could be outnumbered.”
    Henry let Freddie mutter on and on and wished he could tune him out.
    People reacted differently when they were nervous. You had people like Red-haired Freddie, who rabbited on and on, finding comfort in talking constantly. Henry was different. He liked silence.
    The way he looked at it was, they had a job to do, and it was as simple as that.
----
    B ernadette Shaw , known to everyone in the locality as Bernie, was having a terrible night. She’d only been at work for an hour or so when some idiot vomited all over the men’s toilets. In Bernie’s opinion, if a man couldn’t hold his drink, he shouldn’t be allowed so much as a sip.
    Then there was the fact she was working with Clara tonight, the barmaid who was about as much use as a chocolate teapot. The dozy mare was pretty to look at, all tits and teeth, but it took her five minutes to serve just one customer.
    Of course, the landlord loved her, the dirty old pervert.
    Bernie was good at her job. She took pride in being quick and efficient. It might not take a genius to work behind a bar, but working next to someone like Clara reminded her just how much she was undervalued.
    The landlord, being a typical man, thought the only qualification a barmaid needed was a pretty face and a large pair of breasts.
    That was all well and good when they only had a few customers, but when the pub started to fill up and got busier, the customers weren’t quite so happy to wait for their beer. Thanks to Clara’s inability to do her job, Bernadette had been running around like a headless chicken all night and her feet were killing her.
    She couldn’t wait to get home, kick off her shoes and get back to her kids.
    She had just handed Mick his change when there was a loud crash at the other end of the bar. She turned around to seek Clara had managed to drop a pint glass full of beer all over the floor.
    As Bernie made her way over, Clara leant down and began to try to pick up the shards of the glass with her bare hands. She definitely wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box. A split second later, Clara cursed and cradled her hand. She’d cut it on the glass. No surprise there, Bernie thought.
    Bernie rolled her eyes and handed Clara a bar towel, and the girl wrapped it round her fingers to stop blood dripping on the floor. “Go and clean it up in the ladies,” Bernie said.
    As