Free The Hangman's Child by Francis Selwyn Page B

College Street, they were lost in the commercial bustle of Belvedere Road. Suzanne trailed well behind. Verity waited, hidden from her as she came under the stone quay and began to climb the steps. When she reached the top, he took her arm from behind and felt her start with shock.
    'A word with you, miss!' he said magisterially.
    She went limp in his grasp, winded and defeated. Alone among the thieves, she was carrying nothing.
    'You needn't be handcuffed, so long as you act sensible,' he said reassuringly. 'You ain't got nowhere to run from here.'
    She responded with a whimper of submission and despair.
    'I'm so 'ungry!' she sobbed.
    'Well,' he said encouragingly, 'if you was to be an evidence against the rest, you might have nothing to answer for.'
    She looked up into his face, wanting to believe in his goodness and his promise. She even drew a little closer as if to confide in him, and then spat with great accuracy into his eye. Half-blinded for an instant, he felt her bony knee come up sharply between his legs.
    'Stinking jack!'
    Then, as she twisted away, there was a rending of cheap cotton. Verity, wiping his eye, held nothing but a wet and slimy rag that had been the sleeve and shoulder of her ragged dress.
    He sprang after her. His hat had gone in the struggle, rolling on the edge of the stone stairs. He would find it later. Like many fugitives, Lambeth Sue underestimated his speed. He cornered her at a riverside wall of the Military Stores. In a pantomime dance, she made to dive past, first on one side, then on the other. Verity stepped left, guessing she would run for the alley on his right.
    She did as he expected. The alley was formed by five storeys of the Red Lion Brewery facing a high wall that protected the unfinished railway bridge. At the top of the brewery wall was a wooden hoist with iron chains dangling from it. This was a side route into Belvedere Road. But it was the dinner hour and there were no drays entering or leaving the brewery yard. Plate-iron gates had been locked across the alley, turning it into a cul-de-sac. His fugitive was trapped.
    For all her nimbleness, she was winded, hovering with the brick wall behind her, dodging from side to side. In a last trick of her trade, she bolted at him on one side, swerving at the last moment to the other. As she swerved she lost her footing and fell with Verity on top of her.
    That's enough!' he said furiously. 'Ain't you got more sense?'
    A fist hit him on the eyebrow. She panted, clutching at his hair, gathering spittle. He had one arm pinned, her other waving free. He snapped a metal cuff on the captive wrist. Then, to his dismay, the fugitive began to scream. He gripped the arm that was still flailing.
    'Dirty brute!' said a deep voice behind him.
    He did not dare to take his eyes off the captive.
    'Police officer,' he said breathlessly to whoever was standing over him. 'And if I should require your assistance, you'll be legally obliged to render same.'
    'Dirty brute!' said the voice again. Someone scuffed a boot on the ground beside him but he snapped the second cuff on his captive's other wrist and got to his feet.
    A large man in red plush waistcoat and knee breeches, his legs the size of balustrade pillars, stood behind him, feet planted astride and arms folded. A thin companion in a high battered hat was leaning against the brick wall, picking his teeth with a straw. The man in the waistcoat gestured at the kneeling girl.
    'Get those darbies off her, you poxy jack!'
    'You keep out of what don't concern you,' said Verity grimly, 'else there'll be another pair for you.'
    But he was the one now trapped in the alley. With a chill at his heart, he knew there was only one way out.
    'Right!' he said, facing the pair of them, 'oo's first?'
    The man with the straw straightened up from the wall, as if suddenly interested in the exchange. The large man in the waistcoat came forward, fencing for a grip. Verity side-stepped, caught his antagonist's right arm