Mrs. Price's shepherd's pie was, predictably, cold by the time Jimmy reached the boarding house. She reheated it without comment, though her pressed lips said everything her words didn't.
Jimmy ate mechanically, tasting nothing, his mind already three steps ahead into Inspector Davies's office, into locked safes and police corruption, into the maze of leverage and blackmail that was his stock in trade.
"You're going to do it," Mrs. Price said quietly, setting a cup of tea beside his plate. Not a question.
"I don't have a choice."
"Everyone has a choice, cariad. But I can see you've already made yours." She sat across from him, her weathered hands folded on the checked tablecloth. "What did he offer you?"
"Information." Jimmy pushed the shepherd's pie around his plate. "About Mary."
Mrs. Price's expression softened with understanding and sadness. She'd known Mary, had treated her like the daughter she'd lost.
When Mary died, Mrs. Price had been the one who held Jimmy while he tried not to break, who'd made the funeral arrangements when he couldn't function, who'd kept him alive in those first terrible months.
"Oh, love," she said softly. "That's the one thing you can't refuse, and they knew it."
"Probably." Jimmy set down his fork. "But if there's even a chance Tommy Shelby knows something I don't, something that could tell me who really killed her—"
He stopped, the old anger rising. Five years hadn't dulled it. Five years of hitting dead ends and bureaucratic walls, of witnesses who couldn't or wouldn't remember, of files that disappeared and policemen who suddenly developed amnesia when pressed about a factory girl's convenient death.
"Then you have to try," Mrs. Price finished. "I know. I'd do the same in your place." She reached across the table and squeezed his hand.
"Just be careful. The Shelbys aren't the worst people in Birmingham, but they're not the best either. Once you're in their world, getting out again is like trying to climb out of quicksand."
"I'm not getting in," Jimmy protested. "It's one job. Save Arthur Shelby, get my information, done."
Mrs. Price gave him a look that said she knew exactly how naive that sounded, but she didn't argue. Instead, she stood and began clearing the table.
"You'll need to work tonight, I suppose. I'll bring you tea at midnight."
"You don't have to—"
"I know I don't have to. I'm going to anyway." She paused at the kitchen doorway. "Your father would be proud of you, you know. The way you've survived, the way you use that brilliant mind of yours. Though he'd probably worry, same as I do."
After she left, Jimmy sat in the warm kitchen for a few more minutes, letting the familiar sounds of the boarding house settle around him.
Water running through pipes as someone drew a bath upstairs. The Welsh clock ticking on the mantel. The distant sound of a gramophone playing jazz from the boarding house across the street.
Normal sounds. Safe sounds. The life he was about to gamble away for seventy-two hours and a ghost.
---
By seven o'clock, he was back in his office with every light burning and a pot of strong tea at his elbow. The Castellano papers were finished and filed away—he'd deliver them tomorrow morning, neutral business as usual, one last act before he stepped off the cliff.
Now he spread fresh paper across his desk and began what he did best: research, analysis, planning.
Subject: Inspector Howell Davies
Jimmy started with what he knew, which was considerable. Three years of working Birmingham's underworld had taught him that information was the only currency that mattered.
He kept files on every policeman, politician, and gangster in the city, updating them constantly with gossip, observation, and the occasional well-placed bribe.
Inspector Davies. Age forty-eight. Welsh, like Mrs. Price, though from the mining valleys where the coal companies worked men to death and called it employment.
Came to Birmingham in 1910, joined the police force in 1912, worked his way up through a combination of competence and flexible ethics.
Married to Agnes Davies, one daughter named Eleanor, age nineteen. Lived in a semi-detached house in Erdington, the sort of neighborhood where policemen could afford to live if they supplemented their official salary with unofficial income.
And Davies absolutely supplemented his income. Jimmy had documentation of at least a dozen instances where Davies had looked the other way, lost evidence, or arrested convenient scapegoats for crimes he knew they hadn't committed.
The question was: who was paying him to frame Arthur Shelby, and why?
That question could wait. The immediate problem was simpler: how to make Davies destroy evidence, or at least make it inadmissible in court.
Jimmy lit a cigarette and stared at his notes, letting his mind work through possibilities.
Option One: Bribery
Pros: Simple, direct, Davies already corrupt
Cons: Expensive, unreliable (whoever paid him to frame Arthur could pay more), leaves trail, Davies might take money and proceed anyway
Verdict: Too risky
Option Two: Theft
Pros: Evidence simply disappears, problem solved
Cons: Police station security, safe in Davies's office, high chance of failure, if caught would mean prison or death
Verdict: Last resort only
Option Three: Blackmail
Pros: Elegant, forces Davies to destroy evidence himself, no direct connection to Shelbys
Cons: Need leverage, need to find Davies's pressure point
Verdict: Most promising if leverage can be found
The problem with blackmail was that it required knowing someone's secrets, and Davies was careful.
Jimmy had files on him, yes, but nothing catastrophic. Small corruptions, petty graft—nothing that would force him to risk his career by destroying evidence in a murder case.
Jimmy stood and moved to his filing cabinets, pulling Davies's folder. He'd compiled it over two years, adding notes whenever Davies's name came up in conversation or investigation.
Everything filed chronologically, cross-referenced, annotated in Jimmy's precise shorthand.
He read through it again, more carefully this time, looking for the crack in the armor.
1920: Davies promoted to Detective Sergeant. Payoff from Kimber's bookmakers (confirmed via witness). Amount: £50.
1921: Davies arrested wrong man for warehouse theft. Real culprit (John Morrison, no relation to the butcher) paid £20 for the convenience. Innocent man served six months.
1921: Davies visited Chinese quarter three times in two weeks. Purpose unknown. Paid informant (Walter Chen) suggested opium investigation, but no arrests made. Possible payoff?
1922: Davies daughter Eleanor enrolled at Birmingham Central Library adult education program. Philosophy and literature. Mentioned by librarian colleague (overheard, not confirmed).
Jimmy stopped, his finger on that last entry. Eleanor Davies. Nineteen years old. Birmingham Central Library adult education program.
Philosophy and literature.
He remembered something Mrs. Price had mentioned months ago, some gossip from her network about a policeman's daughter getting involved with "dangerous ideas."
At the time, Jimmy had filed it away as unimportant. Now he pulled out his notebook and flipped through pages of accumulated intelligence, looking for the reference.
There. March 1922. Mrs. Price's note in his handwriting: "Annie Morgan (washerwoman, Davies household) says Eleanor Davies attending secret meetings, reading Marx and other socialists. Parents don't know. Annie worried girl will get in trouble."
Jimmy sat back slowly, his mind already racing ahead.
Secret meetings. Marx. Socialists.
In 1922, with the British Communist Party barely a year old and the government seeing Bolshevik plots everywhere, association with communist reading groups was dangerous.
For the daughter of a police detective, it could be catastrophic. If it became known that Inspector Davies's daughter was attending socialist meetings, reading revolutionary literature, possibly even associating with known communists—
Davies would be ruined. Not arrested, probably, but his career would be over. The police force was already paranoid about left-wing infiltration.
A detective whose own daughter was reading Marx? He'd be lucky to keep his job as a constable, let alone his position and his comfortable supplemental income.
It was perfect. Elegant. Vicious in its efficiency.
And it required confirmation.
Jimmy checked his watch. Quarter past eight. The library would be closed, but he knew someone who worked there.
Someone who might know about Eleanor Davies and her dangerous reading habits.
He pulled on his overcoat, locked the office, and headed out into the January night.
---
Birmingham Central Library stood like a temple to knowledge in the heart of the city, all Victorian grandeur and municipal pride.
By day, it was filled with students, scholars, and the sort of respectable middle-class people who believed in self-improvement through reading. By night, it was locked and dark, save for a single light in the staff entrance.
Jimmy knocked three times, waited, then knocked twice more. The signal he'd arranged months ago with Nell Morrison, back when he'd needed to research legal precedents at odd hours and discovered that librarians were remarkably useful contacts.
The door opened a crack, and Nell's face appeared, backlit by warm gaslight. "Mr. Cartwright. It's rather late for research, isn't it?"
"I'm afraid I need a different sort of help tonight, Miss Morrison." Jimmy kept his voice low and respectful.
Nell was one of the few people in Birmingham who still made him feel like he should be better than he was. "May I come in?"
She hesitated, then opened the door wider. "Five minutes. I'm cataloguing new acquisitions, and if the head librarian knew I'd let someone in after hours—"
"He'll never know. I'm invisible when I need to be."
They walked through darkened corridors lined with books, their footsteps echoing on marble floors.
The library always smelled of old paper, furniture polish, and the accumulated knowledge of centuries. It reminded Jimmy of why he'd wanted to be a solicitor once, before the war and Mary's death and the gradual erosion of his principles.
Nell's office was small but meticulously organized, much like Jimmy's own workspace. Books stacked in precise piles, a desk covered with catalog cards, an electric lamp casting warm light over everything.
She was twenty-eight, auburn-haired, with the sort of quiet intelligence that made her simultaneously attractive and untouchable.
Jimmy had considered asking her to dinner half a dozen times and rejected the idea every time. A woman like Nell Morrison deserved better than a disbarred clerk who forged documents for criminals.
"So," she said, settling behind her desk and gesturing him to a chair. "What sort of help does Birmingham's most mysterious problem-solver need from a librarian?"
"Information about one of your adult education students. Eleanor Davies."
Nell's expression shifted, wariness replacing curiosity. "That's rather specific. May I ask why?"
"I'm working on a case that touches on her family. Nothing about Eleanor herself, I promise. I just need to understand—" He chose his words carefully. "—what sort of person she is. What her interests are. Who her friends might be."
"You mean you need leverage on her father," Nell said bluntly. "Don't lie to me, Mr. Cartwright. I'm not a fool, and I know what you do for a living."
Jimmy met her gaze steadily. "I won't insult your intelligence by denying it. Yes, I need information that could be used as leverage. But I give you my word—my actual word, Miss Morrison, not my professional one—that Eleanor herself won't be harmed. This is about preventing a miscarriage of justice, not hurting an innocent girl."
"A miscarriage of justice," Nell repeated, her tone skeptical. "That's what you call it when you blackmail a police inspector?"
"When that police inspector is about to hang an innocent man based on fabricated evidence, yes." Jimmy leaned forward.
"I don't expect you to approve of my methods, Miss Morrison. I don't always approve of them myself. But sometimes the choice isn't between good and bad. It's between bad and worse."
Nell was quiet for a long moment, her green eyes searching his face. Finally, she sighed.
"Eleanor Davies is a student in our political philosophy discussion group. We meet twice a week to discuss texts—Mill, Marx, Morris, the Webbs. It's perfectly legal and perfectly respectable, though some people might not see it that way."
"Does she attend regularly?"
"Every session. She's bright, engaged, asks excellent questions." Nell's voice held a note of protective warmth.
"She's trying to understand the world, Mr. Cartwright. To figure out why there's so much inequality, why good people suffer while terrible people prosper. That's not a crime."
"No," Jimmy agreed. "But in 1922, reading Marx can be made to look like one. Especially if you're a police detective's daughter."
"Which is why I'm hesitating to tell you this." Nell folded her hands on her desk.
"Eleanor isn't just reading Marx, Mr. Cartwright. She's been attending meetings of the Birmingham branch of the Independent Labour Party. Not the Communist Party, mind you—perfectly legal, perfectly legitimate. But her father doesn't know, and if he found out—"
"His career would be compromised," Jimmy finished. "A detective with a daughter attending socialist meetings? The police force would see it as a liability."
"Exactly." Nell stood and moved to the window, looking out at the darkened city.
"So now you have what you need. You can threaten Inspector Davies, force him to do whatever it is you need him to do, and Eleanor gets caught in the crossfire. Her relationship with her father destroyed, her education interrupted, possibly her entire future compromised because her crime was caring about justice."
The accusation stung because it was accurate. This was what Jimmy did—found people's pressure points and squeezed until they broke.
He told himself it was for the greater good, that his victims were corrupt policemen and guilty criminals, but Nell was right. Eleanor Davies was innocent. Using her as leverage against her father was cruel.
It was also necessary.
"I'll be as careful as I can," Jimmy said quietly. "I won't expose Eleanor publicly. I won't ruin her life. But I need her father to destroy evidence, and this is the only leverage that will make him do it."
"The only leverage you've found," Nell corrected. "Perhaps if you spent more time looking for alternatives instead of the easiest path—"
"I have seventy-two hours," Jimmy interrupted. "Less than that now. I don't have time for alternatives."
Nell turned from the window, and in the lamplight, he could see disappointment in her face. It hurt more than anger would have.
"That's always the excuse, isn't it? Not enough time. Too important. The ends justify the means. But at what point do you stop and ask yourself if you've become exactly what you claim to oppose?"
"When I start killing people," Jimmy said flatly. "That's my line, Miss Morrison. I don't kill. Everything else is negotiable."
"Is it?" She moved back to her desk but didn't sit. "Or is it just that killing is too direct, too honest? What you do is slower. More subtle. But in the end, don't you destroy people just as thoroughly?"
Jimmy stood, adjusting his spectacles—a nervous habit he'd never quite broken.
"I'm not asking for your approval. I'm barely able to maintain my own. But I am asking for information that could save a man's life. If you can't give it to me in good conscience, I'll understand."
For a long moment, Nell didn't speak. Then she moved to a filing cabinet and pulled out a folder.
"Eleanor Davies attends meetings every Tuesday and Thursday evening at the Ruskin Hall. She's been documented at six Independent Labour Party gatherings in the past two months. She's checked out Das Kapital, The Communist Manifesto, and Looking Backward from this library using her own card."
She set the folder on the desk but didn't push it toward him. "If you use this information, Mr. Cartwright, use it carefully. Eleanor is a good person trying to make sense of a world that doesn't make sense. Don't punish her for that."
Jimmy took the folder, feeling its weight like a physical burden. "I'll do my best."
"I don't think your best is good enough," Nell said quietly. "But I suppose it's all we have."
He left through the same door he'd entered, stepping out into the cold January night with the folder tucked inside his coat.
Behind him, he heard the lock turn with a finality that felt like more than just securing a building.
---
By midnight, Jimmy was back in his office with a plan.
The coal stove had gone out, and he hadn't bothered relighting it. The cold helped him think, kept him sharp.
He sat at his desk with a fresh pot of tea (delivered exactly at midnight by Mrs. Price, bless her) and began creating the documents he'd need.
First: a letter, supposedly from an anonymous concerned citizen, detailing Eleanor Davies's attendance at socialist meetings and suggesting that Inspector Davies might be compromised by his daughter's political activities.
The letter would reference specific dates, specific meetings—everything Nell had provided. It would be typed on cheap paper that could have come from anywhere, sealed in an envelope that couldn't be traced.
Second: a photograph. Jimmy didn't have one of Eleanor at a political meeting, but he had something almost as good—a copy of her library card showing the books she'd checked out.
He'd "obtained" it from the library's records months ago while researching something else, pure chance that it now proved useful. A careful photograph of the card, slightly blurred to hide the source, would be damning enough alongside the letter.
Third: another letter, this one offering a solution. Anonymous, of course, but with just enough detail to make clear that the sender knew about Arthur Shelby's case.
Destroy the evidence against Arthur, and the information about Eleanor would disappear. Keep the evidence, and Davies's superiors would receive a very detailed report about his daughter's dangerous political activities.
It was blackmail, pure and simple. Elegant, untraceable, and utterly ruthless.
Jimmy spent three hours getting every detail perfect. The typing had to look like it came from someone educated but not professional—a concerned citizen, not a forger.
The photograph had to be clear enough to be damning but not so clear that Davies could identify the library as the source. The second letter had to be threatening without being specific enough to prove anything.
By three in the morning, he was finished. The letters sat on his desk, ready to be delivered.
Davies would receive the first one at his home address tomorrow morning. The second would arrive at his office in the afternoon, giving him just enough time to panic before being offered a way out.
Jimmy should have felt satisfied. This was good work, the kind of elegant solution that proved intelligence was superior to violence.
Instead, he felt tired and vaguely nauseated, Nell Morrison's words echoing in his mind.
At what point do you stop and ask yourself if you've become exactly what you claim to oppose?
He hadn't killed anyone. That was the line he wouldn't cross. But Nell was right that what he did was its own form of violence.
Slower. More subtle. But destructive nonetheless.
Jimmy pushed the thought away and began drafting his report to Tommy Shelby. Brief, professional, containing no details that could be traced back to him.
Just the essentials: Inspector Davies will destroy the evidence against your brother by Friday morning. Payment due upon completion. Information about Mary Cartwright required as previously discussed.
He'd deliver it to the Garrison tomorrow, to whatever Shelby man was on duty. And then he'd wait.
---
Thursday morning arrived grey and cold, with a drizzle that turned Birmingham's smoke into a toxic soup.
Jimmy delivered the Castellano papers first, met the family at their small flat in the Italian quarter. Mrs. Castellano cried and tried to kiss his hands, which he prevented with firm but gentle insistence.
Giuseppe paid him in carefully counted pound notes and offered him dinner anytime, forever, for the rest of his life.
"Just stay safe," Jimmy told them, packing the money away. "And if anyone asks where you got these documents, you found them in your grandmother's trunk. You've had them all along."
"We understand," Giuseppe said, gripping Jimmy's hand. "You are a good man, Mr. Cartwright."
Jimmy left before he could explain that good men didn't do what he did for a living.
The letter to Inspector Davies was delivered by a street boy Jimmy paid sixpence to drop it at the house and run. Untraceable, anonymous, perfectly timed to arrive during morning post.
Davies would read it over breakfast, probably while his daughter was still sleeping upstairs, and his entire world would tilt sideways.
The second letter would arrive at the police station at two o'clock. By then, Davies would be desperate, terrified, looking for any way out. The offer would seem like salvation.
Jimmy spent the morning in his office, trying to focus on other work—a shopkeeper needed documents proving his competitor had violated building codes, simple stuff—but his mind kept returning to Eleanor Davies.
Nineteen years old. Bright, engaged, caring about justice in an unjust world. About to have her relationship with her father destroyed because Jimmy needed leverage.
Don't punish her for that.
He wouldn't. Or he'd try not to. The blackmail was aimed at Davies, not Eleanor.
If the inspector destroyed the evidence as directed, no one would ever know about his daughter's political activities. The letters would disappear, Jimmy's knowledge would remain private, and Eleanor could continue her education and her quest to understand the world.
That was the theory, anyway.
At one o'clock, Mrs. Price brought lunch—cold meat pie and tea—and news from her network.
"Word is that Inspector Davies was seen leaving his house this morning in a state. White as milk, according to the postman. Went to work two hours early."
"Did he," Jimmy said neutrally.
"And there's talk that Arthur Shelby's been lying low. Not at the Garrison, not at the betting shop. Tommy's keeping him somewhere safe." She gave Jimmy a significant look. "In case your plan doesn't work."
"It'll work."
"You sound certain."
"I am certain." Jimmy pushed the pie around his plate, appetite absent. "Davies has too much to lose. He'll do what's necessary to protect his daughter."
"And if he doesn't? If he decides to call your bluff?"
"It's not a bluff, Mrs. Price. I have the evidence. I'll use it if I have to."
She was quiet for a moment, then sighed. "I suppose you will. You've never made empty threats, I'll give you that. Though sometimes I wish you would. It might make you more human."
After she left, Jimmy sat alone in his office and tried to remember what being human felt like. Before the war. Before Mary's death. Before he'd turned his brilliant mind into a weapon and called it justice.
At two o'clock exactly, the second letter was delivered to Davies's office. Jimmy knew because he was watching from across the street, standing in a doorway with a cigarette and a newspaper, just another man waiting for someone.
He saw the messenger boy enter the station. Saw him leave five minutes later. And twenty minutes after that, saw Inspector Davies emerge, walking quickly, his face pale and set.
Davies didn't go home. He went to a pub three streets away, ordered a whiskey, and sat alone in a corner booth.
Jimmy followed at a discrete distance and took a seat where he could observe without being obvious.
For an hour, Davies sat and drank and thought. Jimmy watched him war with himself, watched the calculation happen.
Destroy evidence and save his daughter's future, or keep the evidence and see her ruined. Career vs. family. Corruption vs. love.
It wasn't really a choice at all.
Finally, Davies stood, left money on the table, and headed back to the police station. He walked like a man going to his own execution.
Jimmy waited another hour, then sent a message to Tommy Shelby via a boy from the Garrison: Check with your police sources Friday morning. The problem will be resolved.
---
Friday morning, Jimmy woke to a knock on his boarding house door. Mrs. Price's voice, urgent: "Mr. Cartwright, there's someone here to see you."
He dressed quickly and found Tommy Shelby in Mrs. Price's kitchen, drinking tea and looking like he owned the place. Arthur was absent, but that was probably strategic. No point bringing the wanted man to a public location.
"Good morning, Mr. Cartwright," Tommy said pleasantly. "I thought you'd like to know that Inspector Davies filed a report this morning stating that crucial evidence in Arthur Shelby's case had been destroyed in a fire at his office. Faulty wiring, terrible tragedy, completely accidental."
Jimmy poured himself tea, his hands steady despite the adrenaline. "How unfortunate for the investigation."
"Quite. The magistrate is very disappointed. But without physical evidence, the witness testimony isn't enough to proceed. The case is being dropped."
Tommy set down his teacup with deliberate care. "Arthur is, as of an hour ago, a free man."
"Congratulations."
"I'm curious," Tommy continued, his blue eyes sharp. "How did you do it? Davies is known for being incorruptible. Stubborn. Yet he destroyed evidence in a murder case and filed a report that will end his career if anyone looks too closely at it."
"I found leverage," Jimmy said simply. "That's what you paid me to do."
"Yes, but what leverage?" Tommy leaned forward. "I've been trying to find something on Davies for two years. What did you discover in two days that I couldn't find in two years?"
Jimmy met his gaze steadily. "That's my trade secret, Mr. Shelby. You hired me for results, not methodology."
For a moment, he thought Tommy would press the issue. Then the gangster smiled, and it was like watching ice crack.
"Fair enough. A man's entitled to his secrets." He stood, adjusting his coat. "Which brings us to our next conversation. The one about permanent employment and information regarding your sister."
"I did one job," Jimmy said. "As agreed. That doesn't obligate me to—"
"Come to the office this afternoon," Tommy interrupted. "Four o'clock. We'll discuss terms. And Mr. Cartwright?"
He paused at the kitchen door. "You're already in this, whether you admit it or not. The only question now is whether you're in it with protection or without it."
He left, and Jimmy sat in Mrs. Price's warm kitchen, drinking tea and contemplating the slow destruction of his carefully maintained neutrality.
"You're going to go," Mrs. Price said, not a question.
"Yes."
"And you're going to take whatever deal he offers."
"Probably."
She refilled his teacup. "Then I suppose we'd better make sure you eat a proper lunch first. Can't negotiate with gangsters on an empty stomach."
Jimmy almost laughed. Almost. But the weight of what he'd done—what he was about to do—pressed too heavily for laughter.
Eleanor Davies would wake up this morning not knowing how close she'd come to having her life destroyed. Inspector Davies would spend the rest of his career looking over his shoulder, terrified that his daughter's secret would be exposed.
And Arthur Shelby walked free because Jimmy had been willing to hold an innocent girl's future hostage.
It wasn't murder. It wasn't violence. But Nell Morrison had been right.
It was destructive nonetheless.
And he was about to commit to doing it full-time.
Jimmy finished his tea, thanked Mrs. Price for breakfast, and headed back to his office. He had eight hours before the meeting with Tommy Shelby.
Eight hours to convince himself that he was making the right choice.
Eight hours to fail at that task completely.
By four o'clock, when he walked through the doors of Shelby Company Limited, James Cartwright's neutrality was dead and buried.
The question now was what would replace it.
The answer, he suspected, would be written in other people's blood and his own carefully forged documents.
Welcome to the Peaky Blinders, indeed.