VICES AND VIRTUES | Thomas Shelby

TWENTY FIVE

"Would you two like to make some Christmas cards today?" Florence suggested to the children, not entirely sure of how else to entertain them on Christmas Eve.

"Yes!" Daisy grinned, "We'll make one for Dad, and one to send Grandma Imelda in heaven."

Daisy loved to talk about Imelda, she was obsessed with hearing stories about her. She would tell the other children at school that she was extra special because she had an angel grandma watching over her.

"That sounds like a lovely idea," Florence smiled as she placed Oliver back down on the floor.

"Come on, Ollie!" Daisy grinned as she took her brother's hand and dragged him out of the room in search of the playroom where most of their toys were kept.

"Florence," Emma appeared in the open doorway, "There's some post for you, I've left it on your desk in the study."

"Thank you, Emma," Florence smiled, "Would you mind helping the children, they want to make Christmas cards."

"Of course," Emma nodded before exiting the room, leaving the two Dawson siblings alone.

"Tony told me it was dealt with cleanly," Vinnie told Florence, referring to what had happened the night before.

"Will he be easy to find?" Florence asked, knowing that the orphanage would cease to exist once Mr Chapman's body had been found, allowing Florence to help relocate the children to a safer home.

"I imagine it'll be sometime between Christmas and new years," Vinnie told her, "I've already found them a more suitable alternative home that seems willing to take the children on."

"In London?" Florence replied.

"Birmingham," Vinnie told her, "It's called the Grace Shelby Institute."

Florence had been rather selective in the information she shared with her brother regarding life in Small Heath. She may have mentioned the Shelby brothers in passing, but given that she hadn't returned to the city in six years, she had no reason to tell him more than that. It wasn't an issue of trust, she knew she could trust him with anything, including the truth about who Daisy's father was if she wanted to. She just feared that it might complicate things, and despite the line of work that the pair had found themselves in, she didn't know how her brother would react to Daisy being the product of her relationship with Birmingham's most notorious gangster.

She was also aware that Tommy had married Grace. She had been sent a wedding invitation, it was the first form of contact she'd had from Tommy since the day she left. But it wasn't Tommy who sent the invitation, she didn't recognise the handwriting but assumed it belonged to someone of good education, concluding that Grace sent it to toy with her. So she tossed it into the fireplace, watching the corners of the expensive paper curl up and burn into ash, with no desire to attend or give her blessing to that marriage.

It wasn't that she was jealous, because she wasn't, it was that Grace had betrayed Tommy, and yet Tommy had found it in himself to look beyond that. Whether it was because he was blinded by love or because he had truly forgotten everything that woman put the people he cared about through, she hadn't decided.

But Florence didn't forget, Grace would always be the woman who in many ways signed Imelda's death warrant. As much as Florence had accepted that it was a case of wrong place wrong time, she still blamed Grace for betraying Tommy and the Peaky Blinders like that.

After leaving Birmingham Florence had continued to stay in contact with Polly. The two women would write letters to each other, updating each other on the state of their lives, so with that came the news of Grace's death.