She unbuttoned the front of the nightshirt to the waist. Now she was shaking again, so that she had to clasp her hands together and close her eyes, as if she were asking for the blessing of Heaven on what she was doing.
Then she pulled the nightshirt open. His flesh, so much of it, so still it was hardly human, lay in a pallid mass. She forced herself to look - and there it was, the little mark that had brought all this about, all this suffering -
A bullet hole just under his breast bone. A little puckered scar. A wound that she had made.
"Ah Ling," Sally whispered.
Her knees buckled, a great weakness spreading through all her limbs, as if all the blood in her body had drained out at once. She clutched the iron frame, and the two of them looked for a moment like a patient and his tender, solicitous nurse.
And still the monkey watched, and still the cigarette smoke drifted upwards. . .
Why didn't I see it before? His eyes - those half-Chinese eyes - those hands, huge and freckled and gold-haired - that voice - the opium and Mr Beech - I didn't want to, I couldn't bear it, didn't want to look -
"I thought you were dead," she said, her voice hardly audible, even to herself. "I thought I killed you. That night in the cab, by the East India Docks. . . You were alive all this time?"
"You call this alive, do you?" he said.
There was a roaring in her ears. "What happened?" she whispered.
"The bullet went through my spine. My men from the ship nearby carried me away at once. And from that day to this I have never moved, and never been free of pain. You should have killed me once and for all. Have you come to finish the job? I see you have a pistol in your pocket. There's nothing to stop you now, after all."
She fumbled for the heavy gun and dragged it out, tearing the edge of her pocket, and pulled back the hammer, but for the first time in her life her hands failed her. They shook and trembled with weakness, and she knew why, knew she wasn't going to shoot him, knew she couldn't; because his very helplessness protected him better than armour.
And beating through the hatred and the anger and the fear like a pulse in her head was a new knowledge - or rather an old hidden suspicion confirmed and clarified: as clear as a scarlet thread of blood, it was the sight of her own part in his suffocating imprisonment. She'd pitied him: well, she'd caused it.
She couldn't hold the gun. With a cry of anger and pain, she hurled it away from her with all her might. It crashed into a mirror and fell among shattered glass to the floor.
The door opened.
"You will find a pistol on the floor, Michelet," said Ah Ling. "Pick it up and shoot Miss Lockhart with it."
She looked up through the tears and saw the valet's face, blank with astonishment and then flooded with a hideous glee. She was too weak to move; she sank to her knees beside the bed as Michelet put down the tray with the decanter and glass and stooped to pick up the gun.
And turned his back on the monkey.
It moved almost too quickly to see. It sprang down to the bedside table, seized the burning cigarette, and then leapt just as he stood up - landed on his neck - seized his hair with one hand - and stabbed the cigarette into his eye.
An explosion as the gun went off. A scream from Michelet, as he staggered back against the frame of the bed, crashing into Sally and knocking her to the floor. She lay half-stunned; her head had struck something - she couldn't find the strength to get up -
Then Michelet tore the monkey loose and flung it with all his might against the wall. It fell like a rag doll, dead.
And the door opened, and there were the secretary Winterhalter and the doctor, in dressing-gowns, and a manservant - was it Alfred? - and Ah Ling's heavy, unmoved voice:
"This woman came into my room to try and kill me. Winterhalter, take a servant, escort her to the cellar, and lock her in. Doctor, see to Michelet."
Michelet was crying with pain, crouching on the floor beside her, blood leaking between his fingers. Hands seized Sally's arms and dragged her up and out of the door, and into the lift, and down, and down, and down. Whether it was the footman Alfred who was holding her she couldn't tell, because she was conscious of only two things in the world: that little puckered circle of flesh where she'd caused such a terrible wound, provoked such a long revenge; and the single page from the ledger, tucked into the top of her stocking.
They reached the bottom, threw her out, ascended again. Like Harriet, she was locked into the dark, alone.
Chapter Twenty-five
THE BATTLE OF TELEGRAPH ROAD
Daniel Goldberg stood in the little passage between two of the houses in Telegraph Road. He was sharing it with two dustbins, and the rain from the flooded gutter above fell like Niagara in front of him. There was a light burning behind the curtains in the front room of Parrish's house. The upstairs was dark, front and back. The houses backed on to the row behind, and Goldberg had reconnoitred along there already, moving silently along the wall between the backyards like a cat. They were mean, stunted little houses, hardly bigger than those in Whitechapel, and only distinguished from them by the bay-window and a bit of fancy moulding above the front door.
It was half-past one. Goldberg had just decided to give Bill another twenty minutes when there came a whisper behind him:
"All right, Mr G?"
He turned to see half a dozen shapes - maybe more - clustered behind Bill in the little passageway.
"Well done," he said. "How many?"
"There's ten of us," said a quiet, hard Irish voice from the darkness.
"This is Liam," said Bill. A hand came forward, and Goldberg shook it. "We got shivs and jemmies and knuckle-dusters."
Goldberg looked past Bill, and made out the form of a girl of sixteen or so.
"Is that the famous Bridie Sullivan?" he said.
She said nothing, but lifted her head dangerously.
"It's all right, Bridie," said Liam. "This feller's all right, don't you mind him."
"I've heard you're a good fighter," said Goldberg. "You'll need to be, too. It's that house over there with the light on. There's a small child inside, probably upstairs, and we've got to get her out unharmed."
He stood aside to let them peer past him out of the little entrance.
"Can you get into the backyard?" said Bill.
"There's a passage like this further down on the right. There's a privy or a coalshed against the house - like the one behind us now - and a window above that with the curtains drawn. You could reach it from the roof of the privy. What I don't know is how many men there are inside."
Bill and Liam went back to look over the wall into the backyard of the house beside them.
"Got a weapon, Bridie?" said Goldberg.
"I use a shiv," she said. Her voice was low and soft and musical - the voice of an Irish angel, velvet, peat-smoke. The weapon she mentioned consisted of the blade of a razor set in a wooden handle.
Bill appeared beside him. "Half a minute, that's all it'll take," he said.
"Right," said Goldberg. "Liam, who's your best man with horses?"
"Dermot," said Liam at once, shoving forward a skinny boy of twelve or so.
"Dermot, there's a jobmaster's stable at the south side of the Common. Take a couple of boys and pinch a four-wheeler and a decent nag, and get back here double-quick."
Three boys peeled off at once and slipped away down the road, and Goldberg beckoned the rest of them closer as he began to explain his plan.
The battle of Telegraph Road was celebrated for years afterwards by the Irish gangs in Lambeth. Those who'd taken part heard their names becoming legends; those who hadn't wished they had, and began to bend the legends in their own favour. . . There was nothing like it till the rise of the great Pat Hooligan himself, who gave his name to the species.
Goldberg divided the forces into three. Bill and Liam, as the most experienced cracksmen, were to get into the backyard, climb on to the roof of the privy, and wait till the others created a diversion befor
e getting in through the window.
But it was no good creating a diversion if they couldn't get the door open, because that was the way they'd have to take Harriet out; so Goldberg and Bridie would knock at the front door, and Bridie would pretend to faint on the step.
As soon as the door was open, Goldberg would shout - which would be the signal for two more boys at the back of the house to start hammering at the back door as loudly as they could. Under cover of that noise, Bill and Liam would get to work above them, while Goldberg and the three remaining boys would rush in from the front. Goldberg and Bridie would hold the hall clear, and the boys would rush the stairs and deal with anyone up there, distracting attention from the window where Bill and Liam were climbing in to look for Harriet.
Goldberg and Bridie and the boys who were going to take the front waited while the others ran across the road, swift dark shadows in the rain, and vanished through the passageway on the other side. A couple of minutes went by, and then Goldberg said, "All right. Time to go."
The boys ran over and crouched down behind the little wall of the garden. Goldberg and Bridie stood outside the front door.
"Ready?"
She nodded. He knocked on the door, and she leant against him as if she was about to faint.
The curtains in the bay-window stirred, and a face looked through. Goldberg made a gesture of helplessness, and Bridie slumped against him.
"Here he comes," Goldberg muttered, hearing a door open.
The curtain fell back into place as the front door opened.
Instantly Bridie fell across the threshold, and the man there stepped back quickly. Goldberg knelt beside her, keeping his head down, and pretended to be trying to lift her.
"My wife - she's been taken ill - help me get her inside, for God's sake," he said.
The man stood there doubtfully, looking back - and then Arthur Parrish came out of the front room, and his eyes met Goldberg's with a shock of recognition.
"Scream, girl," said Goldberg, and Bridie screamed like a banshee, and he yelled, "Go!"
And several things happened at once. Goldberg leapt forward, slamming the first man into the wall, and Bridie sprang after him, her knife flashing. A violent hammering came from somewhere at the back of the house, and then the two other boys were in through the front door like eels.
Another man came out of the front room behind Parrish, and the first boy ran for him, burying his head in the man's stomach with a whoosh of air that could have been heard across the street. Goldberg's fist met this man's chin, and the man collapsed across the umbrella-stand, unconscious.
"Upstairs!" Goldberg yelled to the other boy, and they sprang up the staircase three steps at a time, yelling with glee.
And Parrish had a gun in his hand.
He was standing very still, his back to the wall, watching Goldberg with a bright-eyed smugness that made Goldberg want to paste his face across the wallpaper. But the gun was cocked. Bridie was watching, narrow-eyed, waiting for a chance to get close enough. The man on the floor stirred; Goldberg took a step closer to the umbrella-stand, and casually kicked him.
"Oh, Mr Goldberg," said Parrish. "What a way to carry on. This won't do you any good with the extradition, I suppose you realize--"
Then there was a scream from upstairs - a child's cry of terror - and a light came into Goldberg's eyes, and he snatched a coat from the hook beside him and flung it over the gun before springing for the man like a tiger. Bridie leapt for him too, but the man on the floor grabbed at her skirt, and she came down in a tangle of wet cloth and fists.
There were shouts from upstairs - doors banging - and then an explosion from the gun. And everything stopped.
In the silence, Goldberg found himself on the floor, and he knew at once he'd been hit. Just like the time before - don't know where it's got me - hope I can stand -
His senses reassembled themselves shakily, and then he knew it had all gone wrong, the raid hadn't worked, because there was Liam coming down the stairs, and there was Bill behind him, and behind them was a man holding Harriet, and at her throat there was the point of a knife.
Bridie slowly got to her feet beside him. Parrish was covering them with his pistol, and the man on the floor was struggling up too. The noise from the back door had stopped. Goldberg tried to get up, and as he put his weight on his arm, he found out where he'd been hit, for his left shoulder screamed at him.
Not fatal. All right. Think. Move to the right a little way - give him room to come down - flick your eyes to the door - good, Bill's understood - so's Liam - now for the shiv.
He knew that there was only one chance: he had to disable the man's arm before it could jab upwards. Bridie was standing behind him, concealed from Parrish in the narrow hall. Pretending to look fainter than he felt, which wasn't hard, Goldberg put his good hand behind him and found Bridie's, with the shiv in it. She let him take it. The man holding Harriet came to the bottom step.
She was perfectly still in his arm, her tear-filled eyes wide with the understanding that something horrible was happening. Goldberg readied himself, but he was weakened by the shock, and his shoulder was beginning throb with agony.
Careful - let him turn - now!
His right hand slashed down into the crook of the man's arm. At the same instant, Bill on the other side snatched Harriet and threw her to Liam, who caught her and ran. Bridie swung her fist wildly at Parrish, but missed, because at that very second something hard and white and porcelain hurtled down from the landing and smashed into a thousand pieces on Parrish's head. He went down, to a whoop of glee from upstairs, and then the others came pelting down, kicking aside the man who'd been holding Harriet. He lay moaning in disbelief and trying to staunch the astonishing amount of blood coming out of his arm.
They dragged Bridie away and out of the door, and Goldberg followed in time to see a carriage pelting along the quiet road with two whooping little boys on the box. It drew up in a squeal of brakes and a clatter of hoofs, the horse whinnying with excitement as Bill raced for the door and tore it open.
Liam was first inside, with Harriet yelling in his arms, and then the others piled in after him -
But the pistol crashed again from behind them, and Bridie fell to the ground and lay still. Liam and another boy sprang out of the carriage at once and lifted her bodily inside. Goldberg felt his legs crumple under him as someone tackled him. He saw Bill hesitate, and yelled, "Go! Stay with the child! Move!"
The boy on the box cracked his whip, Bill leapt up beside him, and the carriage rolled away. Parrish's men ran out into the road, but they were too late to do more than watch the swaying four-wheeler disappearing around the corner.
Well, that's something anyway, thought Goldberg as he fainted.
Inside the crowded, swaying carriage, some of the boys were joshing and laughing and crowing over the fight, and already embroidering it with more details than there'd have been time for. Liam and another boy bent over Bridie.
"Here it is," said Liam. He lifted the thick wet hair to show a deep gash in Bridie's scalp. "If that's all it is, she'll be better in the morning. She's breathing like a trumpeter. There's nothing to worry about."
He lifted her up to make a little more room, and brushed the hair tenderly back from her still face. Harriet watched it all, sucking her thumb. These people were laughing and singing. They were happy, and she liked happy people. They were very noisy. But it was a nice noise, and then one of them pushed another and he fell on the floor. Harriet thought he would be hurt, but he laughed. They all laughed a lot, and then she saw how funny it was and laughed too. She had to take her thumb out of her mouth to laugh properly. Then they saw that, and laughed even more.
There was a banging on the front.
"What's the matter?" said someone. "That's Dermot."
One of the boys peered out. "There's a copper up ahead," he said. "Hush the noise, stow it away now, boys. . ."
They all crouched down low, whispering and giggling and shovi
ng, until the policeman had been passed and they could sit up again. But the laughter was over. They looked at Harriet.
"What are we going to do with her?"
"She's Bill's problem. This is his game."
"What about the gaffer back there?"
"He might have got away. . ."
"I saw him fall."
"Dead, eh? Be Jasus. . ."
"Bridie'll know what to do about the kid."
"Bridie?"
"She's a girl, ain't she? She's bound to know."
"But Bridie. . ."
"We can't look after her, and that's a fact."
"Who is she, anyway? Who's she belong to?"
"Damned if I know, Sean. She's a grand little girl though, isn't she?"
"Look at her sitting there like a lady. . ."
"She's wet herself."
"Devil, and don't all kids wet their bloody selves? There's you not out of diapers yerself more than a year -"
"What if Bridie doesn't wake up?"
Silence. They looked at her. She lay very still in the corner of the carriage.
"Is she done for?"
"Her that walloped the giblets out of Johnny Rodriguez the half-caste?" said Liam scornfully. "Done for? Never."
"But he shot her. . ."
"And didn't we crack him on the napper with a jordan, the dirty little devil!"
"If there'd been time, we'd have filled it first. . ."
"What are we going to do with the kid, though?"
A longer silence. Harriet watched them all, fascinated.
"The orphanage?" said one, uncertainly.
They turned on him.
"You bloody fool, Johnny Coughlan! We spring her out of one gaol and pack her off to another?"
"The nuns, then. . ."
"Talk with yer head, not yer backside."
"But we can't look after her. . ."
"And why not?"
"Well. . . They need food. . ."
"She's past the sucking stage; you won't have to offer your skinny chest, Sean Macarthy."
"Ah, shut yer foolishness!"
"So she can eat what we eat. Mashed potatoes, meat pie, jellied eels. A drop of stout won't do her any harm, neither."
"But her clothes and stuff. . ."
"And stuff? What stuff? When did you last change yer clothes? The year before last, by the hum coming off yer. She's got a fine set of duds; they'll do for now. Begob, ye're a fine bunch of pessimistical bastards, ain't ye, though? Come here, princess."