Big Ed

"I'm going to get Johnny Powers. South London and East London will be mine. Where's the world coming to when you've got kids running the rackets? I don't like kids. I don't like you, either, Diamond. That's why you've got to go."

- Big Ed sentences Nick to execution

Big Ed is one of two Bigger Bad antagonists of the Diamond Brothers thriller-comedy novel, Public Enemy Number Two. Because "Whitie", an inmate at Strangeday Hall prison, is his nephew, it is presumed his surname is White and his real name is Edward White. However, it is unconfirmed.

Origins
Big Ed came to power sometime before the novel began back when Johnny Powers was in his youth. Johnny got to know many criminal masterminds due to his mother's influence in the Underworld. However, Big Ed hated Powers and his mother, and wanted them removed from the scene. Big Ed was also very greedy, and wanted to rule London under a dystopian rule. He was completely sadistic, saying he delighted in torturing children for no reason other than it was apparently funny according to him.

Conflict with the Powers gang
"Big Ed taking over. Come home at once."

- The secret message Johnny Powers' mother sends him in a letter

Big Ed sent two of his men to Strangeday Hall prison outside London to kill Powers, because he knew he was incarcerated and with Johnny Powers out the way it'd be easier for Ed to take over London. Ed counted on his men using the Heathrow plane cover to drown out the execution, but didn't count on Nick Diamond befriending Johnny Powers, and knocking out the two assassins in Big Ed's employ. He drowned the bathroom, the scene of the execution, in boiling hot water, blinding and injuring the assassins, but also winning Powers' trust.

Nick Diamond
One night soon after, Big Ed's gang were roaming London in their cab looking for Nick Diamond or Johnny Powers. In Big Ed's words, it was "his luck" that Powers missed them. They captured Nick instead, knocking him out and dragging him into an abandoned train yard in Wapping. The gang were weird, because they were all transvestite thugs or speechless skinheads. Big Ed then had Nick bought into his carriage.

Big Ed appeared to be the only normal person in the gang, he was just an elderly white-haired man in an expensive shirt and dressing-gown, with a cravat, but even so he was extremely evil and sinister to Nick. He said he wanted Nick dead as vengeance for hurting his nephew, Whitie. Big Ed explained his goal to rule London and keep on killing kids for amusement. Big Ed then ordered his men to go out with Nick and tie him down to the train tracks, then wait for the Intercity to come rushing in, and slice Nick in half.

Death
Nick Diamond was tied down and waited for certain death, but unbeknowest to him, Chief Inspector Snape of New Scotland Yard had in fact survived his presumed death in the police chase out of Strangeday Hall, and so Snape arrived in time to cut Nick free because of a police tracking device in the sneakers Nick wore. Thus, Nick was free, and jumped out of the way just before the dreaded train arrived. Now free, Nick was extremely angry. He wanted to punish Big Ed. So he set oil all round Ed's train and he set a match to it. As he was watching the train burn, he told police he had Big Ed in his sights over the phone and he wanted them to come and get Ed. He said Ed was in a stockyard in Wapping, and when the police said there were lots of stockyards round there, Nick said it wouldn't be hard to find Big Ed's yard.

Nature
One of the most evil of the Diamond Brothers villains, Big Ed was unique in that he was one of two Bigger Bads in the story. The other Big Bad is, of course, The Fence.

Big Ed was quite a normal, good looking man, but was a cruel psyhopathic ruthless monster underneath. He was emotionless and valued money and power more than human life or his own.