Kimberley Chambers - The Feud

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd The News Building 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Preface Publishing 2010

Published by Arrow Books 2013

This edition published by Harper 2017

Copyright © Kimberley Chambers 2010

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers 2017 Cover photographs © Mohamad Itani/Arcangel Images (woman): Shutterstock.com(background).

Kimberley Chambers asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9781409050308

Ebook Edition © Jan 2017 ISBN: 9780008228668

Version: 2020-01-23

My daddy told me I never should

Play with the gypsies in the wood

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

Also by Kimberley Chambers

About the Publisher

AS EDDIE MITCHELL ran his fingers along the side of the baseball bat, he could feel the beads of sweat forming along his forehead. It was one of those muggy days, where flying ants appeared. It was far too hot to be suited and booted and stuck in the back of a Transit van.

Eddie listened intently as his father repeated his instructions. ‘We don’t want an all-out war, so nothing too heavy, boys. This is a little warning for ’em, and if they don’t get the message, then heavy’ll come later.’

As the rest of the family discussed the feud, Eddie sat in silence. In his eyes, the O’Haras had taken a fucking liberty and deserved more than a little warning. For as long as Ed could remember, his dad, Harry, had run the pub protection racket in the East End. No one messed with the Mitchells, no one dared, and then, like an unwanted disease, the O’Haras appeared on the scene and tried to muscle in on their patch. Eddie was the youngest member of the family firm. His dad ran the show, along with his uncle Reg. Then there were Paulie and Ronny, his two elder brothers.

‘You OK, son?’

Smiling with anticipation, Eddie nodded at his father. The O’Haras were a travelling family who had recently moved to the East End from Cambridgeshire. Eddie hated travellers. In his eyes, they were uncouth, lowlife, inbred scum. In particular, he hated Jimmy O’Hara. He was the strongest of the sons, the loudest, and flash didn’t even begin to describe him.

‘I wanna be the one to take out Jimmy, Dad.’

Harry eyed his son proudly. Even from an early age, Eddie was the one full of promise, and Harry knew without a doubt that one day his youngest child would be head of the family business.

As the Transit van pulled up outside the pub, the Mitchells clutched their weapons.

‘Right, let’s do it,’ Harry said as he sprang from the van.

Barging his brothers and uncle out of the way, Ed followed his father into the boozer. ‘See you? You’re dead, you piss-taking pikey cunt,’ he screamed as he spotted Jimmy O’Hara and lunged towards him.

As the pub erupted into full-scale mayhem, Eddie was grabbed around the neck from behind.

‘Do him, Jimmy, fucking do him!’ he heard a voice shout.

As the knife slid down the left-hand side of his face, Eddie felt anger, not pain. With blood spewing from his face, he went for O’Hara like a rabid Rottweiler.

‘You inbred pikey piece of shit!’ he screamed, as he threw off the geezer behind him and repeatedly thrust the baseball bat against Jimmy O’Hara’s head.

In that moment, Eddie completely lost it, and if his family hadn’t dragged him away, Ed swore he would have committed murder.

Harry, Reg, Paulie and Ronny managed to clump and scare the rest of the O’Haras and, aware that Eddie’s face was almost sliced in two, they quickly bundled him into the back of the Transit van.