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A GANGSTER WITH ROSES...
KENT,
TADLEY MANOR, 1919
IT'S POST-WAR and Birmingham has enough smoke in the air to choke you. Too many factories but somehow not enough jobs. Hungry children, liberated women, crime and gangs.
Gangs.
That's the key word.
Now, this book starts and ends with the Peaky Blinders; the most famous gang in all of Small Heath. Everyone there had a story or two about the Shelby's, whether it was true or not, didn't really matter.
The three eldest Shelby boys were more than brothers, blood wasn't enough to bind them together. For their peaky caps were their crowns and the blades sewn in them were their dazzling jewels. They were gangster princes, who like everybody else, wanted a piece of the world.
John Shelby was a fighting man, he said it how it was, he was loyal until the end.
Arthur Shelby was everything at once; cut-throat, brutal and irrational. He made jokes, and good ones too.
But Thomas Shelby, he stood out from the others. He could take on a mob with his bare fists, secure any business deal in the world. Believe people when they say, you'll never find another man like him in a lifetime.
But, we're not there just yet.
We're in a manor outside of London, in Kent, where Rosella Kimber, her twin brother Harry and her father, Billy Kimber, are staying. Rose's father, was a man that needed no introduction in Birmingham. Anything he wanted, he got. For he was the one and only Billy Kimber, he controlled most of the legal and illegal bookmaking sites at racecourses all across England.
And that alone, made him one of the country's richest and most powerful gangsters.
For now.
The door bursts open, and a rather drenched Rose coughs loudly, entering the manor.
"My dress is covered in mud, the dirt out there is seven feet deep, you'd think we're in the trenches!" Rose complains, holding her drenched skirt up.
Her dad and brother, who were smoking cigarettes in the living room, look up as she walks in.
"What do you know about bloody trenches, eh?" Billy taps excess ash off his cigarette, all his daughter had done was complain since they got here.
"Out there makes Birmingham look like heaven!" A gush of rain is blown into the house by the strong wind outside and Rose struggles to close the door behind her.
Unbothered, her dad opens up a newspaper. "Wouldn't expect Birmingham and heaven to be in the same sentence." He mutters to himself.
Rose, Harry and Billy had all been staying in a manor near Kent for the past couple days. Billy had promised them that it was a getaway, but of course, it was really just for business.
Harry exhales smoke out his mouth. "She was probably out there looking for a country boy she could fail to charm."
She crosses her arms. "You talk about me like I'm not in the room."
Although they were twins, they couldn't be more different. Rose was more outspoken and fierce, she didn't take no for an answer and she was stylish, tactical and talented.
Harry was the most nonchalant yet wild person Rose knew. When he wasn't partying or sleeping with women, he'd try his best to impress their dad at every waking second. There was nothing more he wanted than to take over the family business one day.
"I'll get you a new dress ma'am." A maid offers, rushing upstairs.
Another maid runs to Rose's aid, and closes the door after much effort. "That wind seems ghastly, I'll make you a cup of tea right away."
Rose let's her hair down. "Thank you."
It wasn't always like this. They weren't always rich.
Before, the Kimber's were just another dirt poor family living off next to nothing in Aston, Birmingham on Summer's Lane. Those days were a distant memory now but Rose still remembered her childhood like it was yesterday. Her mother, Ethelinda, developed a mental illness and was sent to an asylum when they were just seven years old; her and Harry were often in the care of their mother's sister but their father wasn't absent.
He just hadn't been the same since Ethelinda got sent away.
In the beginning, Ethelinda and Billy's love was puppy love. He called her his 'Etta'. They were just two school kids madly consumed by each other, who both naively believed they could get through anything together. Then as they do, challenges came. They soon became young parents to twins at sixteen, getting married in secret at a chapel in Small Heath. Never once did they leave each other's side. Even in the end, no one walked away. Ethelinda was taken away.
Maybe, just maybe, it would've been easier if she walked away because Billy would have a reason to have so much hate and hurt in his heart.
But now, their kids were twenty-one and facing the same world. And that scared Billy.
Rose joins her brother and father, sitting on the arm chair. The smell in the room was rancid and appalling. Cigarettes on the floor, empty glasses and rubbish.
She huffs, "I mean is there anything to do in the country, this isn't much of a get away is it?"
"Read your prayer book." Billy replies bluntly, his eyes still on the newspaper. "Or you could always go play hopscotch like you used to when we'd come here."
Rose frowns, her father wasn't the amusing type but rather sarcastic. He wasn't really all there in the head either, he wasn't the brightest in the room but, at least he was always the wealthiest.
"Sir?"
A young man in a suit with shiny black slicked hair enters the room, he adjusts his circular glasses.
Billy looks up. "Yes, Roberts?"
Roberts was Mr Kimber's accountant and also advisor, not only did he oversee the financial affairs of Billy's businesses but he also advised him with his every move.
"There's been suspicious betting patterns at Kempton Park sir, with a horse called Monoghan Boy."
Immediately, Billy Kimber gets up.
"Three thousand pound bets all together, yet the horse finished last."
Mr Kimber was a renowned hothead, his blood was already boiling at the news that someone had clearly fixed a race behind his back.
This meant trouble.
"It is believed that the peaky blinders are behind this sir." Roberts informs, not waiting for Billy to ask.
"Peaky blind who?" He shouts. "Who are these fucking people?!" Billy shouts, furious, accidentally spilling the alcohol on the centre table.
"A g-gang, a gypsy gang, in erm, Small Heath. I have some information on them that you'd find use—"
"Get up and go and pack your things now. We're leaving." Billy instructs sternly to Rose before picking up his coat off the chair.
He turns to Harry who was still sat down.
"Don't fucking sit there like a melon, go pack your bags too! Go!"
Harry quickly nods, getting up and sprinting upstairs.
"Roberts, tell Kingsley to get the car ready, we're going to Small Heath. Time to show them who runs the fucking races around here."
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ADA (author) SPEAKS—
RIP to the wonderful Helen McCroy, who played Polly Gray in Peaky Blinders; it's only right I dedicate my first proper chapter to such a brilliant soul off and onscreen.
She will be missed dearly
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