Chapter 19

August 1924

The church was filled with flowers once again. Lilies this time. Their heady scent mixed uneasily with the memory of years of incense and the whiskey that laid heavily on the congregation's breath. It made Lizzie's stomach turn.

The guest of honour was lying in state in the transept. Dressed like a princess in a confection of silk and lace, she was receiving petitions from her dutiful subjects under the unseeing eye of Thomas Shelby. Her coffin was lined with satin, and jewels glistened at her fingers, ears and throat.

Gazing down at all this pointless waste, Lizzie's stomach roiled again. She could have fed her family for a year for the cost of a single one of Grace's gems. Even though the woman had had no say over her own burial wear, Lizzie's dislike of her intensified. She had poisoned everything she touched. Tears pricked at Lizzie's eyes.

Walking slowly back to her pew, Lizzie forced herself to look over at Tommy. He sat immobile, his eyes unfocussed and his haggard face as cold and fixed as a death mask. Sat next to him, Polly was showing scarcely more emotion but she held on tightly to Charlie, who was playing contentedly with a small toy horse.

Lizzie found herself tucked in alongside Michael and Isaiah Jesus in the row behind John, Esme and their pack of children. Whilst the two men next to her shuffled awkwardly and muttered to each other in an undertone, those in the row in front were silent. All of them were sitting as still as statues and gazing fixedly towards Jeremiah Jesus who was waiting to begin the service. Even the littlest ones were huddled against the adults, cowed by the oppressive atmosphere.

Looking at Tommy's rigid back, Lizzie felt a little sick. She didn't feel any personal guilt over the situation, not really. She'd only ever wanted a scrap of happiness for herself. Surely, she deserved that after all the years of pain and humiliation? Surely, if there was any guilt in it, then it had to lie with Arthur and John? They had taken their masculine pride out on Angel and caused a blood feud, after all. She felt the tears well up again.

The service dragged onwards. The hymns and readings passed off well enough – although one of her American friends had chosen Amazing Grace which most of the congregation not known - but the eulogy had been excruciating.

Jeremiah Jesus had done his best to include some happy and heart-warming moments from Grace's life but the woman was an orphan who had driven her first husband to suicide and alienated almost all of the people that she knew through her past, or recent, behaviour. The one bright spot in her life had been her son – and given that Tommy could not be acknowledged as his father that was a rather awkward topic to probe in detail.

The committal had come as something of a relief and the least said about the wake that followed the better.