Things were also happening inside The Borough. First of which, two out of breath urchins were earning their bread for the day by talking to the Gold twins. Back home, Mammy and Uncle Danior were finding out for the first time about the disappearance of Joe Spivey’s red-haired cat-burglar protégé. On the outskirts of The Borough, The Reading group plus and minus one were worming their way through a hole in a wall in only the way kids can without doing themselves serious injury. Silvanus and Shelta looked at each other. “Looks like Spivey is up to no good, sister mine.” “And on our patch too, naughty that is.” “Very naughty. And what do you think we should do about it?” “Slice ‘er up.” Silvanus pondered. “Hmmmmm maybe later. For now, let’s just interrupt whatever it is she’s after in the bone yard. Then maybe take her to Mammy” He giggled, which sounded wayyyy too weirdly high-pitched. “Uncle Dan falling down on the job… it won’t look good.” “Then we slice ‘er up?” “Aye, Shelta; then we slice her up.” While Danior remain calmly impassive on the sofa, Moira paced back and forth across the polished floorboards. “What the feck is going on? You’re sure we don’t have her now, Danior; you’re sure?” “Very sure. I’ve got Seamus checking but I’d have heard about it if she was in The Borough.” Moira stopped pacing in favour of staring across the room and out of the window. She’d grown to hate The Borough, with it’s lurking buildings, dour-faced people and the constant smell off piss in the streets. If it wasn’t for the money they were raking in… But after the demise of her father, Moira and her family were far from welcome in Traveller society. That would change of course, throw enough money around and the doors that were now closed to them would soon open again. She checked the clock on the mantelpiece and came to a decision. “I’ll talk to Joe. You come with me Danior, bring a posse.” Brother and sister headed for the door, Danior gesturing for the men waiting in the hall to follow. Bill Skye was one of them, he got up but Danior stopped him. “Stay with Patrin Bill, we’ve enough here.” Bill nodded. He was glad in a way. Joe had never been anything but straight with him; he didn’t much fancy the idea of being in a shoot out with him. Bill climbed the stairs to check on the boy. Plastic Micky, followed by Lucas and finally Onetooth bringing up the rear, stepped into the street outside the derelict house they had just come through. While the boys looked around, turning their noses up at the unpleasant smell and brushing themselves down, they noticed that the daylight in The Borough seemed... different. On the other side of the falling down house it had all been bright sunshine and wide streets with proper side-walks. Here, everything was all cramped together, houses leaning into each other, some even propped up with steel or wooden beams. The sky was still the same bright blue sunlight, but the light seemed to struggle to work its way through all the buildings so that by the time it touched the street it was like rainy-day light, all faded and washed out. Lucas shivered. “I don’t like it here.” Casper was very much of the same mind, but he was on a quest. “Which way Micky?” Micky looked around, getting his bearings because it had been four years since he had been rescued by the Union in one of their random sweeps. He remembered being dragged out of the chimney he had chosen to hide in and carried kicking and screaming to one of the waiting trucks and locked in with all the other frightened kids. Then it had been off to the Union Medical Centre for a thorough and totally embarrassing, delousing before being handed over to the orphanage where an army of women were waiting with soap and scrubbing brushes. “Looks like some places have fallen down since.” Micky pointed to a small corner house. “That used to be a sort of tower thing.” If you looked at the house closely, you would see that part of it’s walls were obviously from some other building and even the bricks were different in places, giving the little house a sort of patchwork appearance. “They fell down all the time.” He turned and nodded down the street. “Anyway, we need to go that way.” Silvanus picked up a couple of extra minions on the way to Krook’s warehouse. He’d figured the four of them would be more than enough; old man Krook employed the unemployable, old fogies, little kids not much more than toddlers, cripples, loonies and other riff-raff of the slum they all lived in. No guard on the door; why would there be? You would have to haul away carts full of Krook’s assorted crap to make any money from the theft; not that it would be worth much even then until it was processed. The only ones even interested in doing anything like that would be other rag merchants, but they were all thick-as-thieves anyway. Silvanus, with his sister and the two thugs just walked in the front door… and came to an unexpected halt. Two men with clubs stood at the bottom of some stairs; two men who became suddenly very alert at the appearance of members of the Gold gang. Then two shouted words fought for first place in the sudden surprised silence. “Help!” From one of the billy-wielding chaps at the bottom of the stairs, and… “Charge!” From the overly excited Shelta. ‘Help’ in the form of a third man, wearing a red leather mask, arrived at the exact same time as Shelta and her two large bowie-knives. Club-bearer number one went down with a wicked slash to the throat, rendering his thoughts on the matter unheard, while the second was left dropping to his knees looking at the blossoming red flower on the front of his flour-covered apron. The rest of Shelta’s group arrived as red-mask man turned and fled up the stairs. Leaving Shelta to her manic stabby-stabby enjoyment, Silvanus and the two thugs gave chase. Upstairs, red-mask man had a choice of direction; he could run to the right, along the corridor and down the other flight of stairs and outside to freedom, or he could run left into the dead end that also contained the locked door to where Finny was wondering what all the noise was about. Red-mask man chose poorly, his life ending as he slid face first down the locked door; Silvanus’ long stiletto blade having very effectively stopped his heart. Silvanus wiped his blade on the dead man’s paint-flecked shirt. “Well that’s that then.” Searching the body gave Silvanus two paint brushes, a few coins and a large key that looked like it just might fit in the large lock of the door in front of him. Silvanus pocketed the coins, drove the paintbrushes into the dead signwriter’s back and stood up. The key, of course, fit perfectly. “Hello little girl.” Outside Beau’s Tavern, two cars were parked nose to nose in the street, each with half a dozen members of each gang standing with folded arms and tough-guy expressions lined up next to them. Weapons, for now, were pointed at the ground. Inside an empty Beau’s, Joe and Ned took their places on one side of a table while Moira and Danior did the same on the other. “Hello Moira.” “Hello Joe.” The Finny Stories In chronological order: 000 Finny Intro 001 The Locket 002 Rats 003 A Christmas Finny 004 The Secret Adventurer’s Club 005 The Secret Adventurer’s Club: Second Adventure 006 Finny’s Birthday 007 Union Candy 008 Then There Were Three 009 Then There Were Four Again – Sort Of (WIP)