Free The Villain’s Daughter by Roberta Kray

more. She’s six foot under, case you ain’t noticed. Poor old bitch. Always thought she were so fuckin’ smart but . . .’
    Albert opened his mouth, but quickly snapped it closed again. Usually, he could worm his way out of any tricky situation, but at the moment everything he said only increased the younger man’s hostility. Danny Street wasn’t normal. You couldn’t reason with him; he wasn’t right in the head. Best not to give him an excuse to lash out again.
    Danny frowned, took a few steps back and gazed critically around the room. It was sparsely furnished with a battered green sofa, a table, an old tasselled lamp and a couple of chairs. The carpet was threadbare. A pair of flimsy curtains, pulled tight across the window, prevented anyone from seeing in. The room was overly warm - the central heating was on high - and the heat accentuated the stinking odour of fear and sweat. ‘Bit of a shithole, Weasel, if you don’t mind me mentioning it. You didn’t spend all that extra cash on home improvements, eh?’ He snorted at his own joke. There was an overflowing ashtray balanced on the arm of the sofa and he reached out and deliberately flipped it over. His voice had become low and menacing. ‘You think he don’t know what you’ve been up to?’
    Albert shook his head, the action increasing the terrible ache in his temples. He drew his sleeve across his nose and looked down at the blood. ‘W-what do you mean?’
    ‘Don’t fuck me about!’ Danny’s eyes flashed bright with anger. He took three fast strides, his right hand raised and clenched into a fist.
    Albert instinctively cried out and covered his face, waiting for the blow that never came.
    Only inches away, Danny stopped and laughed again. Leaning forward, he hissed into Albert’s ear. ‘Didn’t take you as the nervous sort, Weasel. You gettin’ jumpy in your old age?’
    Albert knew he’d been rumbled. It had been a mistake, a bloody big mistake, to get involved with the likes of Lizzie Street. He should never have told her that the O’Donnell girl was back living in Kellston. He’d been greedy; that was the beginning and end of it. He’d seen a chance to make a few extra quid, and with Terry off the scene . . .
    ‘How much did she pay you?’ Danny whispered. ‘What’s the going rate these days for a double-crossing, lowlife grass?’
    ‘I never told her nuthin’ important. I swear.’ Albert laid his hand on his thumping heart. He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple jumping wildly in his throat. ‘She just . . . just . . . she said Terry never talked no more, didn’t tell her stuff.’
    ‘And why do you think that was?’
    ‘Dunno,’ Albert muttered. Then, as he caught sight of the big man’s fist twitching again, he sensibly added, ‘Because he don’t trust her.’ He looked up pleadingly. ‘It was only a few quid, son. I shouldn’t have done it, I know I shouldn’t, but things have been tight since your old man went away. I’ve only got me pension.’
    ‘He’s still paying you, paying you to keep yer big gob shut about his private business.’
    Albert nodded. He couldn’t deny it. But the small monthly allowance he received was barely enough to pay his bar bill. Once he’d been Terry Street’s eyes and ears, doing the rounds of the local pubs and clubs, listening in to conversations and picking up all those tiny but essential snippets of information. Not much on their own, but if you had the nous to put them together . . . And Albert had always had a talent for that. He could sniff out something dodgy in a matter of seconds. Not only had he possessed the crucial ability to merge into the background, but had also known, at least by sight, every local villain in the neighbourhood. If there was a job going down, it had never taken him long to suss it out - and his employer had paid generously for the information. But that had been then. Times had changed and it was getting on for ten years now since Terry had been