Cosima Blackshaw had buried a hundred men, but never one still breathing. When Thomas Shelby came to her with smoke in his voice and a plan stitched in sin, asking for a casket for a man not yet dead, she looked him in the eye and told him no. Death...
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There was a knock on the door of Blackshaw House. Not the kind that startled—no pounding or panic—just a low, steady thud, as if death had returned politely, having forgotten something.
Cosima paused at the embalming table, heart still. The silence of the house pressed in. No birds outside, no wind in the trees. The pestilence had passed, or so they had all begun to believe. The garden had started to bloom again. She had dared to believe the dead might sleep for a while.
But when she opened the door, Thomas Shelby stood there. Hat in hand, jaw clenched, blue eyes too still. “Freddie,” he said, voice hollow, “Freddie Thorne’s gone.”
It took her a moment to understand the name, to connect it to the man—Ada’s love, Karl’s father, Thomas’s old friend, the firebrand with red in his heart and revolution on his tongue. Cosima blinked. “No,” she said faintly.
He only looked at her, he didn’t nod nor explain, the silence did it for him. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him without thinking. He didn’t move at first. Then slowly, one hand came to her back, clutching the fabric of her dress. “I’m sorry,” she whispered into his shoulder. She meant it—not just for him, but for Ada, for the boy, for the ghost that would walk her parlour come morning. “I’m so sorry.”
The body arrived just before dusk. The sky was grey—not storm grey, but quiet and bruised, as if the heavens had lost interest in mourning properly. Cosima opened the side doors and let them in. They carried Freddie in with reverence, not ceremony. No one spoke.
Ada was already there. She came wrapped in black wool and grief, Karl clinging to Polly's side. Her cries weren’t loud—they were broken things, like birds with snapped wings, ragged and gasping. Cosima couldn’t look away.
She moved with routine. Her gloves on and sleeves rolled. She cleaned Freddie’s face gently, as if he were only asleep. His mouth was parted slightly, as if some final truth had escaped it in his last breath.
Death was a delicate business. She made sure his shirt was pressed, his hands folded just so. His face looked young again, now that the fever was gone. She covered him with the white sheet and stepped back, her arms trembling.
Later, when the house had fallen still, she went to the porch. Thomas was there, seated in his usual spot. Smoke curled from his cigarette, head tilted to the side, as if listening to the trees. He hadn’t said much since the body arrived. Just nodded when spoken to, watched Ada cry with a hollow quietness that was more terrifying than rage.
“How are you holding up?” she asked gently, stepping into the evening air.
Thomas didn’t look at her at first. “I was already at his funeral once,” he said finally. “France. 1916. Artillery took out half the trench. We thought he was gone. Spent two days burying the boys. Wet mud, blood, names we didn’t even know.” He took a long drag. “Then Freddie came back—alive. Laughing. Called us bastards for not waiting for him.”
