Free The Hangman's Child by Francis Selwyn Page A

the crew. The barge rode high and empty, brown sail furled, its stern swinging heavily in the current. There were hundreds of these vessels, supervised by police boats and excise cutters. They acted as tenders to steamers or gaunt black colliers anchored down-river, bringing cargo cheaply to the heart of Westminster and Southwark.
    Only the master or watchman would be on board until the tide lifted the hull. At low water, it lay twenty feet from the tideline, where the mudlarks on the sleek brown flanks of river soil and in rivulets of sewage sifted the debris of kitchens and factories, slaughterhouses and gas-works.
    Concealed by the corner of a wall, Verity watched the developing drama. The older scavengers had taken to the water, forming a chain several feet apart, from the water's edge to the barge. A tall youth of fifteen or sixteen was chest-deep in the river under the lee of the vessel's side. The lighterman, asleep in his cabin at the stern, had no idea that they were there.
    A figure appeared from the iron hold of the barge, jumping up on the broad gunwale, moving deftly as an acrobat along it. Unlike the muddied imps, she had been rinsed clean by swimming round the far side and climbing up the mooring rope. Her dark hair, drawn back on either side of her forehead, lay in a well-soused tangle on her back. Yet the insolent sun-tanned profile, the sullen mouth and the agile limbs against which her tattered wet dress was plastered were unmistakable.
    Verity had last seen her at the close of petty sessions, the committal of offenders to the Tothill Fields House of Correction in Westminster. Baptist Babb had since identified her, masquerading as Jack Rann's 'Little Girl' in the prisoners' consulting-room of Newgate Gaol.
    'Why, Miss Suzanne!' said Verity softly. 'Though you don't know it yet, you and me shall stitch Mr Hawkins neat as Honiton lace!'
    The robbery of the barge was carried out with quiet professionalism. Lambeth Sue stood on the gunwale above the youth who was chest-deep in the river. She dropped a cloth bundle. He caught it, felt it, then tossed it to the next member of the chain several feet behind him. The bundle sailed and bobbed through the air, hand to hand, until it reached a growing pile of booty on the shore.
    Suzanne vanished, then reappeared, swaying nimbly along the high black side of the iron vessel. A paper package fell into the hands of the youth below. Next a small box, then a tin. Verity's eyes widened at the outrage. This was no scene of innocent mudlarks hungrily scavenging for a few scraps of coal or wood to warm their chilled bodies; these were experienced young thieves, looting the living-quarters of the barge, while its guardian slept.
    He was outnumbered by seven or eight to one. But the heroine of the robbery would be his lever under Bully Bragg. Once she took to the water, it was the easiest thing in the world to cut off her escape.
    At last there was a roar of fury from the barge. Suzanne scrambled on to the gunwale, teetering along its ledge, followed by a burly man in shirt and breeches. Some of his words were lost in the distance and tumult, but a shout of 'Thieving slut!' came clearly to shore. From his hand swung a doubled length of thin rope with which he thrashed the air behind the fugitive, never quite near enough to catch her.
    Though she was nimbler, the lighterman walked the gunwale as easily as the pavement of a street. She leant forward to dive. With a shout of frustration, he swung the rope at her backside. There was a cry and a floundering splash on the far side of the hull. The human chain plunged towards the shore, Suzanne dog-paddling in the rear. The lighterman shouted from the bows to anyone who might hear, as the thieves snatched up their loot from the tideline and ran for the stone stairs.
    She would be the last up the King's Head Stairs by ten or twenty yards, easily intercepted as the rest fled. They came in a rush, panting and laughing. Scattering down