Jonny Barber was nearly sixty years old. He had pretty much looked that age since his early forties. At only five feet eight inches, he wasn’t tall; but with his barrel-chest, and bow legs he made quite an impression. His thick black hair had started to go grey in his late twenties, and he’d worn it as a steel-grey crew cut ever since. It was the only haircut that suited him. He was not a handsome man but his eyes were unforgettable. Like both his brothers, he had inherited his mother’s big blue eyes framed with long, dark eyelashes. These were so striking that people always gave him a second look. He couldn’t blame them – he knew they were wasted on him. His eyelashes were the envy of many a woman, and they also explained why he had been married three times. His eyes had the power to make a certain kind of woman forget about the rest of his face, though his reputation and large bankroll were also a great help.
These days, Jonny was a worried man. He had heard that his youngest brother Rob had been making a nuisance of himself as usual. Only this time it seemed he had been foolish enough to take his anti-social personality outside his home turf and all the way across London to the East End. He had decided to go and pick a fight with young Michael Flynn, a lad who had a good reputation and never looked for trouble, but was more than capable of looking after himself if it should find him. He was also one of Patrick Costello’s workers. Patrick, as everyone knew, let his brother Declan run the main business, while he dabbled in everything and anything that was illegal and lucrative. He wasn’t only talking drugs. From acquiring prestige cars for the booming Arab markets, to firearms of any kind, including sawn-off shotguns for the bank-robbing fraternity, and army-issue heavy artillery, you named it, Patrick Costello could get it. Jonny Barber had even heard a whisper that the man could procure Semtex if the price was right.
Over the years, the Costellos had made a good name for themselves; they out-classed the Barbers in every way, and that they had never once encroached on the Barbers’ turf was something Jonny really appreciated. The Costellos had integrity. They still lived by the old code, and that meant that you never trespassed on anyone else’s pavements. Jonny knew that if they had wanted to procure his family’s turf, they were more than capable of doing it. The Costellos had the manpower and the money. He should have followed their example, but he had never bothered to look outside of his own front yard. Now it was too late.
Dicky had tried to take them on years before, and failed dismally. Declan Costello had hammered the fuck out of his brother, and there was no way he could have retaliated. Dicky had been in a pub in Woolwich, drunk as a skunk. He had eyeballed Declan in the same drinking establishment and, in a moment of utter fucking alcohol induced lunacy, had challenged him.
Jonny was well aware his brother Dicky could have a row – there was no doubt about that – but Declan Costello was another matter. Once riled he had no off button. However many times he was knocked down, he got back up, and kept coming. Not that he had ever been knocked down by a single man – it took a good few to achieve that. Declan could take on the entire British Lions rugby team, and still be the only one standing at the end of the fight. No one who knew Declan would ever be stupid enough to take him on. Even Roy ‘Pretty Boy’ Shaw, the bare-knuckle boxer and a seriously hard man, had joked that he would fight any man alive except Declan Costello.
Jonny had heard at the time that Declan had tried everything in his power to get out of having the fight, but Dicky, being Dicky, had been like a dog with a bone. Eventually, Declan had lost his cool. The rest was history.
Now Rob had seen fit to pick a fight with Michael Flynn, a man who everyone knew was destined for greatness, who always treated the people around him with the utmost respect, but who had proved himself on more than occasion as a vicious fucker if roused.
Jonny sighed in exasperation. This was not something he had expected. He had assumed that even a fucking moron like young Rob would have had enough sense to keep away from someone like Flynn. With relatives like his, who needed fucking enemies?
He had to take action so he’d called a family meeting. As usual his two brothers were late. It was a fucking farce. He might as well be pissing in the wind. Dicky would take Rob’s side, he was prepared for that. But he was going to make sure that his brothers were left in no doubt that, if they didn’t comply with his demands, he would personally take them out himself. He was the head of this family and he was fighting for the whole firm – for everything that they had worked for. They were not strong enough to take on the Costellos. So they were just going to have to use their powers of persuasion to try and defuse the situation before they found themselves in the middle of an all-out war.
Chapter Sixteen