It was seven in the morning, but the pub had already been open for a few hours and the atmosphere was thick enough to bottle. The Old Red Cow had stood in its corner of Smithfield since the Middle Ages or even before – no one quite knew how long. All the pubs around the market opened early in the morning to serve the butchers, wholesalers, buyers, sellers, delivery men, porters and other odd job men whose lives revolved around London’s ancient meat market. Jake Dobson knew Smithfield and the area surrounding it like the back of his hand as his family had had a wholesale stall there since the turn of the century. As the twenty-four-year-old black sheep of the Dobson family, he had nothing to do with the business, but still spent most of his spare time in and around the market. He kept his meagre belongings in a dosshouse just off St John Street and laid his head down there most days after an early morning session at the Cow. His nights he mostly spent on his new lucrative job with Billy. This job had prospects and he had high hopes of moving up in the world. Perhaps he could say goodbye to the world of smelly, damp, insect-ridden dosshouses forever. His older comrade Billy had a little more stability in his life – a small two-up two-down in Bethnal Green housed him, a crabby wife and two wild teenage boys, the older and nastier of whom Billy wanted to add to their little team.
“Did you speak to that smooth bugger with the ginger bonce then?”
“Yeah, Jakie boy. I got the geezer on the blower. He’s going to come over to the lock-up today.”
“When?”
“We’ve got to be there at four. You’ll have plenty of time for a nap.”
Jake blew his nose into the cuff of his jacket and spat on the floor. “Is he coming on his own?”
“Maybe with another geezer. ‘Someone to give an educated appraisal’, were the words he used.”
“So after that we get our bees and honey?”
Billy downed his pint of best and lit a cigarette. “That’s the general idea – they value it, then they pay for it.”
“Think we can trust him?”
“Came good with the dosh last time, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, I know, but this stuff’s better quality and there’s more of it. I don’t want to be short-changed on it.”
Billy laughed. “Get you! The man of business. For your whole life you haven’t had enough coppers to buy a pot to piss in. Now you’re worried about being short-changed. Don’t you worry. We’re not going to get stiffed on this. If they don’t come up with the goods, we can find someone else. There are plenty of other greedy buggers out there. Now finish your pint and go and have a rest. After we’ve seen these blokes, I think we’re in for another busy evening.”
They pushed through the pub doors into a drizzly morning. Across the road, one of the market towers teetered precariously. Some scaffolding had been put up on Monday after the market had taken a bit of a pounding from the bombers, but it didn’t look to Jake as if it would hold for much longer. “Best keep away from that, Billy. Someone’s going to get clobbered by it if they don’t pull it down.”
“Don’t you fear, Jakie boy. I’m off up here.”
Billy strode away up Snow Hill and waved while Jake went in the opposite direction, cutting through a few back lanes to avoid the market itself. “Jakie boy.” How he hated Billy speaking to him like he was a kid. He yawned then smiled, thinking of what he was going to do with the money he was about to get.
*