Free A Mad, Wicked Folly by Sharon Biggs Waller Page B

Parliament!” I pried at
his fingers, but they were like iron. “You’re hurting me!”
He loosened his grip, and it was enough to jerk my arm
away and run. I heard him swear. I had a little head start
as he dealt with the umbrella, but then he was running
behind me. I sped up. There was a crowd standing outside
a pub underneath an awning just ahead. Maybe I could
lose myself in the clutch of people and then cut away. He
wouldn’t know which way I went, and then I could return
to Parliament.
But just as I reached the pub, a hand snaked out and
wrapped around my waist, nearly jerking me off my feet.
“Who you runnin’ from, treacle?” A tall, burly man
stared down at me, a cigarette clamped between his teeth.
A strong smell of unwashed body wafted from him. He
looked down the pavement and saw PC Fletcher. “Ah, a
copper, eh? You a pickpocket?” He looked me up and down.
“Dress nicely for a thief, I’ll give you that.”
“Just let me go!” I pulled away, but I had lost my head
start. PC Fletcher caught up and grabbed my wrist.
“Try that again and I will shackle you, right here in the
street, with everyone watching, and then haul you back to
the station.”
My eyes fell upon the manacles hanging from his belt.
I swallowed.
The burly man laughed. “Need some help, lad?”
PC Fletcher scowled at him. “You can move on!” The
man leered at me once more and then returned to his
friends. Fletcher returned his attention to me. “Do I have
your word, Miss Smith, that you won’t try to escape again?”
I wanted dearly to kick him in the shins and run, but I
knew I would not get far. So I kicked a rock instead, sending it winging across the street. “Very well! You have my
word.”
PC Fletcher released me with an exasperated sigh. Rain
poured in a stream off his helmet. “You are an impossible
girl,” he said.
“So I’m told.” I could feel the rain dripping off my nose.
“What’s at Parliament that’s so important?”
“The prime minister, a bunch of MPs, quite a lot of
lords.”
“Oh, ha-ha. It’s your sketch pad, isn’t it? I saw you
drawing.”
“Yes, and I asked you to pick it up for me. In that police
van. Did you not hear me?”
“I heard you. It’s not the business of the Metropolitan
Police to look after things for doers of crimes.”
“I’m not a . . . a doer of crime, and you know it!”
“Besides, I’m sure it’s long gone now, so you can forget
about it.” He seemed to take quite a lot of pleasure in saying this.
I noticed a bruise had begun to bloom on his chin where
my forehead had struck him. Good. I hoped it gave him a
blinding headache for days.
“Besides, what’s so important about it?”
“I don’t expect you to understand the value of art. It’s
not a subject dullards and buffoons would be interested
in,” I said.
“Now see, that’s where you’d be wrong. I find the illustrations on the Guinness beer adverts most inspiring.”
“That’s very funny,” I said, not finding his sarcasm
amusing in the least. “Why can’t you just be a gentleman
and take me to Parliament so I can find it?”
“Sorry, but no.”
PC Fletcher put his umbrella up again and we walked
the rest of the way to Pimlico in silence. I dearly hoped my
brother Freddy was home. He’d go along with my story. I
was sure PC Bumptious would insist on delivering me right
inside the door, and if Freddy’s wife, Rose, received us,
she’d tell him the truth about me and then some.
My hand fell against my empty satchel, slung across my
chest. Freddy would take me back to Parliament to search
for my sketchbook.
I couldn’t help but look at PC Fletcher sideways out of
the corner of my eyes as we walked. He was handsome in a
distracting way. Too handsome for his own good. Or mine.
I caught him looking at me the same way. He grinned at me
smugly and I flicked my gaze to the front.
I decided that my artistic senses had terrible taste in
muses.
    eight
Pimlico, residence of Frederick Darling,
12 Eccleston