Candy [THOMAS SHELBY]

Chapter Twenty-Six

TW: This chapter has mentions of bloody and stuff so be cautioned!

Josephine travelled down to London at the request of Tommy a week later, they had kept a strickly professional relationship since the kiss and Tommy's impromptu confession and she was grateful for it as she felt suffocated in Birmingham and now she finally had a chance to see Ada. She was meant to sit in on a meeting between Arthur, Billy Kitchen and Alfie and then report back to Tommy.

Josephine walked through the distillery with Arthur and Billy, guided by Ollie to where Alfie was standing at the end of a hallway,

"Gentlemen, welcome, welcome." Alfie greeted Arthur and Billy, not yet seeing Josephine.

"Mr Solomons." Arthur greeted back

"You must be Arthur."

"That is right."

"Arthur, Arthur!" Alfie repeatedly shook Arthur's hands.

"Jo-uh... Miss Lindholm, a pleasure to see you again." Alfie had finally spotted her but he looked slightly alarmed at her appearance.

"Mr Solomons" Josephine greeted him back

"I didn't expect you to be here--no offence."

"Tommy thought it was a good idea that I tagged along, I'm assuming that it won't be a problem?" Josephine was caught off guard by his sudden change in behaviour

"Of course not." Alfie gave what looked like a pained smile before he guided the small group into a room where there was a large table set up. As they took their seats Josephine noticed Alfie whispering to a couple of his men but she didn't make much of it.

"The Passover started off way out there in the Far East - out in the sand, out in the desert, where my forefathers come from - the Jews, the brews, whatever you want to call them.

It started out as a little speck on the horizon." Alfie was going on about the history of the Passover when suddenly two of his men closed the main doors, something that confused Josephine as they had been open the whole time.

"Arthur, this ain't right!" Billy harshly whispered to Arthur and instead of feeling comforted that someone else felt slightly unnerved she felt more on edge than ever. Josephine sat next to Billy, which meant that Billy sat in the middle of her and Arthur.

"Billy, don't worry, mate. If you want, you can leave. If you need to go to the little boy's room, you can leave. We're going to open them in a minute anyway." Alfie rambled

"He's alright, he's alright. Billy Boy." Arthur said

"Arthur..." Josephine said trying to warn him to not get too comfortable

"Do you want to leave?" Alfie asked Billy again

"No, I'm all right."

"You want to stay?"

"I'll stay." Billy looked at Josephine in the corner of his eye and nodded at her, calming her fears slightly.

"You stay there, then, treacle. Okay." Alfie continued his ramblings, "So, the Pharaoh, have you heard of him? He kept my people, the Jewish people, in slavery for thousands and thousands of years."

"Persecuted race."Arthur piped up

Alfie became wide-eyed "He did, he persecuted my race. The killing of the innocent, right? Seder, this feast what we is having here, right? Seder is basically the day when the Jewish angels decided, you know, that the evil fucking Egyptians had pushed their fucking luck."

"Right~" Arthur agreed

Josephine was completely unnerved now, Alfie's actions were striking her as weird. He didn't act like this usually, the Alfie that stood in front of her wasn't her Alfie.