The Darkest Walk of Crime Read Free Page A

Street and the Haymarket. For
that reason, the Holy Land was a thieves’ paradise, a devil’s playground of the
downtrodden and the vicious, a Satan’s sanctuary for the pickpockets and
cockchafers, the coves, cracksmen and queer dealers who scraped a dishonest
living by robbing their betters.
    “Jesus!” Foster glanced over his
shoulder as somebody unleashed a laugh fit for bedlam. “Please God I live to
see my retirement and a pension.”
    The steps ended at a brick wall
pierced by a ragged hole through which a man might just be able to squeeze. A
draught edged aside a fraction of the stench.
    “Bastard’s escaped again!”
Foster kicked the wall with his iron-studded boot.
    “Lantern,” Restiaux ordered, and
Mendick bent forward, one hand holding his pot hat in place. The light probed
the hole and vanished into the unknown beyond.
    “After me, I think; this is my
parish.” Pushing him gently aside, Restiaux took a deep breath and thrust his
head and shoulders through the hole.
    The sound of the shot was very
loud in the confined space, and he yelled and fell back cursing.
    “Sergeant!” Mendick saw blood on
Restiaux’s face. “Are you all right?”
    Restiaux nodded but suddenly
paled and slid downward until he was sitting with his back to the wall.
    “Douse the glim,” he said, and
Mendick pulled the metal shutter across the lantern. The sudden darkness
pressed down on them, thick with menace.
    Another shot cracked out, the
bullet bouncing from the brick wall behind them and ricocheting dangerously
around their ears. Mendick swore, ducking down, as Restiaux flinched and
covered his head with his arm.
    “Tom!” Foster shouted, keeping
back from the hole in the wall. “It’s me, Foster of the Yard. I have other
police officers with me. Better come out quiet now.”
    “Bugger you, bluebottle
bastards! Did I kill Restie?” The voice was surprisingly high-pitched.
    “No,” Mendick said. “It’s not
the rope yet, Tom. You’ll just get a spell in limbo or maybe a free voyage
across the pond.”
    “Twenty-one years I’ll get,
Peeler, twenty-one years of transportation, slaving under the lash in Van
Diemen’s Land. Better the rope than that.” He fired again; the shot splintered
the bricks opposite the hole. Dust drifted over Restiaux, who coughed and wiped
away the blood that trickled down the line of his jaw.
    Keeping his head back from the
hole, Mendick eased open the shutter of his lantern to examine the residue left
by the bullet. “Half-inch calibre lead ball,” he said, “and judging by the gap
between the shots, he probably has a single-barrelled pistol.” He raised his
voice, taunting. “You’re trapped, Tom, there’s no escape.”
    “Then I’ll die game, Peeler!”
    The pistol cracked again; the
ball ripped past Mendick's face. Choking white smoke surged through the hole.
Mendick cocked his pistol and raised his eyebrows toward Restiaux.
    Standing flat against the wall,
Foster shook his head. “I want him alive,” he reminded. “I have a particular
task for Flash Tom, so a corpse is no use to me.”
    “We’ll try to keep Blake alive,”
Restiaux assured him. “There are forty seconds between each shot, Mendick, and
you’re about the most active officer in the force.” He jerked a thumb toward
the hole. “Could you do it?”
    Mendick’s shrug was genuine. “I
can try,” he said, “but not in this hat. Do I have your permission to discard
it, Sergeant?”
    Restiaux smiled weakly. “Just
make sure you protect your head.” He put a hand to his head. The blood now
covered the left side of his face and dripped onto his broad leather stock.
    The rabbit skin hat weighed
eighteen ounces and was intended as protection against an assailant’s cosh, but
in this confined space it was only an encumbrance. As an afterthought Mendick
shrugged off his swallowtail coat which would catch on every jagged brick.
Taking deep breaths, he crouched at the side of the hole as Foster hugged