Читать книгу Sharpe’s Prey - Bernard Cornwell - Страница 9

The tavern displayed no name. There was not even a painted sign hanging outside, nothing, indeed, to distinguish it from the neighbouring houses except, perhaps, a slight air of prosperity that stood out in Vinegar Street like a duchess in a whorehouse. Some folk called it Malone’s Tavern because Beaky Malone had owned and run it, though Beaky had to be dead by now, and others called it the Vinegar Alehouse because it was in Vinegar Street, while some knew the house simply as the Master’s because Jem Hocking did so much of his business in its taproom.

‘I have interests,’ Jem Hocking said grandly, ‘beyond those of the mere parish. I am a man of parts, Major.’

Meaning, Sharpe thought, that Hocking persecuted more than the workhouse inmates. He had become rich over the years, rich enough to own scores of houses in Wapping, and Friday night was when the tenants brought him the rent. Pennies only, but pennies added up, and Hocking received them in the taproom where they vanished into a leather bag while a cowed white-haired clerk made notes in a ledger. Two young men, both tall, strongly built and armed with cudgels, were the taproom’s only other customers and they watched every transaction. ‘My mastiffs,’ Hocking had explained the two young men.

‘A man of responsibility needs protection,’ Sharpe had said, using two of his three shillings to buy a flagon of ale. The girl brought four tankards. The clerk, it seemed, was not to be treated to Major Dunnett’s largesse. Only Sharpe, Hocking and the two mastiffs were to drink.

‘It takes a man of authority to recognize responsibility,’ Hocking said, then buried his face in the tankard for a few seconds. ‘What you are seeing, Major, is private business.’ He watched a thin woman offer some coppers to the clerk. ‘But in my parish duties,’ Hocking went on, watching the clerk count the coins, ‘I have responsibility for the disbursement of public funds and for the care of immortal souls. I take neither duty lightly, Major.’ The public funds were fourpence three farthing a day for each pauper out of which Jem Hocking managed to purloin twopence, while the rest was grudgingly spent on stale bread, onions, barley and oatmeal. The care of souls yielded no profit, but did not require any outlay either.

‘You have overseers?’ Sharpe asked, pouring himself and Hocking more ale.

‘I have a Board of Visitors,’ Hocking agreed. He watched the ale being poured. ‘The law says we must. So we do.’

‘So where is the responsibility?’ Sharpe asked. ‘With you? Or the Board?’ He saw the question had offended Hocking. ‘I assume it is you, Master, but I have to be sure.’

‘With me,’ Hocking said grandly. ‘With me, Major. The Board is appointed by the parish and the parish, Major, is infested with bleeding orphans. And not just our own! Some even gets stranded here by the ships. Only last week the mudlarks found a girl child, if you can imagine such a thing.’ He shook his head and dipped his nose into the ale’s froth while Sharpe imagined the mudlarks, men and women who combed the Thames foreshore at low tide in search of scraps fallen overboard, bringing a child to Brewhouse Lane. Poor child, to end with Hocking as a guardian. ‘The Board, Major,’ Hocking went on, ‘cannot cope with so many children. They confine themselves to a quarterly examination of the accounts which, you may be sure, add up to the exact penny, and the Board votes me an annual motion of thanks at Christmas time, but otherwise the Board ignores me. I am a man of business, Major, and I spare the parish the trouble of dealing with orphans. I have two score and sixteen of the little bastards in the house now, and what will the Board of Visitors do without me and Mrs Hocking? We are a godsend to the parish.’ He held up a hand to check anything Sharpe might say. This was not to deflect a compliment, but rather because a thin young man had come from the tavern’s back door to whisper in his ear. A raucous cheer sounded from behind the door. The cheers had been sounding ever since Sharpe had arrived in the tavern and he had pretended not to hear them. Now he ignored the young man who tipped a stream of coins into the clerk’s leather bag, then gave Hocking a pile of grubby paper slips that vanished into the big man’s pocket. ‘Business,’ Hocking said gruffly.

‘In Lewes,’ Sharpe said, ‘the parish offers three pounds to anyone who will take an orphan out of the workhouse.’

‘If I had such cash, Major, I could strip Brewhouse Lane of the little bastards in five minutes.’ Hocking chuckled. ‘For a pound apiece! A pound! But we ain’t a rich parish. We ain’t Lewes. We ain’t got the funds to palm the little bastards off onto others. No, we relies on others paying us!’ He sank half the ale, then gave Sharpe a suspicious look. ‘So what does you want, Major?’

‘Drummer boys,’ Sharpe said. The 95th did not employ drummer boys, but he doubted Jem Hocking understood that.

‘Drummer boys,’ Hocking said. ‘I’ve got lads that could beat a drum. They ain’t much good for anything, but they can beat a drum. But why come to me for them, Major? Why not go to Lewes? Why not get three pounds with every lad?’

‘Because the Lewes Board of Visitors won’t let the boys go to be soldiers.’

‘They won’t?’ Hocking could not hide his astonishment.

‘There are women on the Board,’ Sharpe said.

‘Ah, women!’ Hocking exclaimed. He shook his head in exasperation and despair. ‘They’ll be the end of common sense, women will. There are none on our Board, I warrant you that. Women!’

‘And the Canterbury Board insists the boys go before a magistrate,’ Sharpe said.

‘Canterbury?’ Hocking was confused.

‘We have a second battalion at Canterbury,’ Sharpe explained, ‘and we could get the boys from there, only the magistrates interfere.’

Hocking was still confused. ‘Why wouldn’t the bloody magistrates want boys to be soldiers?’

‘The boys die,’ Sharpe said, ‘they die like bloody flies. You have to understand, Mister Hocking, that the Rifles are the troops nearest the enemy. Under their noses, we are, and the boys have to serve as cartridge carriers when they ain’t drumming. Back and forth, they are, and somehow they seem to be targets. Bang, bang. Always killing boys, we are. Mind you, if they live, it’s a fine life. They can become Chosen Men!’

‘A rare opportunity,’ Hocking said, believing every word of Sharpe’s nonsense. ‘And I can assure you, Major, there’ll be no interference from Boards or magistrates here. None! You can take my word for it.’ He poured himself more ale. ‘So what are we talking about here?’

Sharpe leaned back, pretending to think. ‘Two battalions?’ he suggested. ‘Twenty companies? Say we lose four boys a year to the enemy and another six die of fever or manage to grow up? Ten lads a year? They have to be eleven years old, or near enough to pass.’

‘Ten boys a year?’ Hocking managed to hide his enthusiasm. ‘And you’d pay?’

‘The army will pay, Mister Hocking.’

‘Aye, but how much? How much?’

‘Two pounds apiece,’ Sharpe said. He was amazed at his own glibness. He had dreamed of this revenge, plotting it in his imagination without ever thinking he would actually work it, yet now the lines were slipping off his tongue with convincing ease.

Hocking stuffed a clay pipe with tobacco as he considered the offer. Twenty pounds a year was a fine sum, but a little too obvious. A little too tidy. He drew a candle towards him and lit the pipe. ‘The magistrates will want paying,’ he observed.

‘You said there’d be no trouble from magistrates,’ Sharpe objected.

‘That’s because they’ll be paid,’ Hocking pointed out, ‘and there’ll be other costs, Major, other costs. Always are other costs.’ He blew a stream of smoke at the ceiling. ‘Have you talked to your Colonel about this?’

‘I wouldn’t be here otherwise.’

Hocking nodded. Which meant Sharpe had negotiated a price with the Colonel and Hocking was damned sure it was not two pounds a boy. Five pounds, more like, with the Colonel creaming a pair off the top and Sharpe taking a single. ‘Four pounds,’ Hocking said.

‘Four!’

‘I don’t need you, Major,’ Hocking said. ‘I’ve got chimney sweeps who like my lads, and those that don’t sweep chimneys can shovel up the pure.’ He meant they could collect dog turds that they delivered to the city’s tanners who used the faeces to cure leather. ‘Some boys go to sea,’ Hocking said grandly, ‘some sweep chimneys, some scoop shit, some dies, and the rest go to the gallows. They’re all scum, Major, but they’re my scum, and if you wants them then you pays my price. And you will, you will.’

‘I will, why?’

‘Because, Major, you don’t need to come to Wapping to get boys. You can find lads anywhere, magistrates or no magistrates.’ Hocking turned his shrewd eyes on Sharpe. ‘No, Major, you came to me on purpose.’

‘I came to you for drummer boys,’ Sharpe said, ‘and no awkward magistrates and no one caring that so many die.’

Hocking still stared at him. ‘Go on,’ he said.

Sharpe hesitated, then seemed to make up his mind. ‘And girls,’ he said.

‘Ah.’ Hocking half smiled. He understood weakness and greed and Sharpe, at last, was making sense.

‘We hear –’ Sharpe began.

‘Who’s we?’

‘The Colonel and me.’

‘And who told you?’ Hocking asked fiercely.

‘No one told me,’ Sharpe said, ‘but someone told the Colonel. He sent me.’

Hocking leaned back and pulled at his bushy side whiskers as he considered the answer. He found it plausible and nodded. ‘Your Colonel likes ’em young, eh?’

‘We both do,’ Sharpe said, ‘young and untouched.’

Hocking nodded again. ‘The boys will be four pounds apiece and the girls ten a time.’

Sharpe pretended to consider the price, then shrugged. ‘I want a taste tonight.’

‘Girl or boy?’ Hocking leered.

‘Girl,’ Sharpe said.

‘You’ve got the money?’

Sharpe patted his pack which stood on the sawdust-strewn floor. ‘Guineas,’ he said.

Another cheer sounded behind the back door and Hocking jerked his head in that direction. ‘I’ve got business in there, Major, and it’ll take me an hour or two to settle it. I’ll have the girl cleaned up while you wait. But I want five pounds now.’

Sharpe shook his head. ‘You’ll see my money when I see the girl.’

‘Getting particular, are we?’ Hocking sneered, though he did not insist on receiving any deposit. ‘What do you want, Major? A redhead? A blackbird? Fat? Skinny?’

‘Just young,’ Sharpe said. He felt dirty even though he was merely pretending.

‘She’ll be young, Major,’ Hocking said and held out his hand to seal the bargain. Sharpe took the hand and suppressed a shudder when Hocking held on to it. Hocking gripped hard, frowning. ‘It’s strange,’ he said, ‘but you do look familiar.’

‘I was raised in Yorkshire,’ Sharpe lied. ‘Maybe you were up there once?’

‘I don’t travel to foreign places.’ Hocking let go of Sharpe’s hand and stood. ‘Joe here will show you where to wait, but if I was you, Major, I’d watch the dogs for a while.’

Joe was one of the two young men and he jerked his head to show that Sharpe should follow him through the tavern’s back door. Sharpe knew what to expect there, for when Beaky Malone had been alive Sharpe had helped in that back room which was little more than a long and gloomy shed raised above the yards of three houses. It stank of animals. There were storerooms at either end of the shed, but most of the space had been converted into a makeshift arena of banked wooden benches that enclosed a pit twelve feet in diameter. The pit’s floor was sand and was surrounded by a barrier of planks.

‘It’s in there,’ Joe said, indicating one of the storerooms. ‘It ain’t luxury, but there’s a bed.’

‘I’ll wait out here,’ Sharpe said.

‘When the dogs are done,’ Joe explained, ‘wait in the room.’

Sharpe climbed to the topmost bench where he sat close under the roof beams. Six oil lamps hung above the pit, which was spattered with blood. The shed stank of it, and of gin, tobacco and meat pies. There must have been a hundred men on the benches and a handful of women. Some of the spectators watched Sharpe as he climbed the steps. He did not fit in here and the silver buttons of his uniform coat made them nervous. All uniforms unsettled these folk, and spectators made room for him on the bench just as a tall man with a hooked nose climbed over the plank barrier. ‘The next bout, ladies and gentlemen,’ the man bellowed, ‘is between Priscilla, a two-year-old bitch, and Nobleman, a dog of three years. Priscilla is by way of being the property of Mister Philip Machin’ – the name provoked a huge cheer – ‘while Nobleman,’ the man went on when there was silence, ‘was bred by Mister Roger Collis. You may place your wagers, gentlemen and ladies, and I do bid you all good fortune.’

A boy climbed to Sharpe’s bench, wanting to take his money, but Sharpe waved the lad away. Jem Hocking had appeared on a lower bench now and the wagers were being carried to his clerk. Another man, as thin as the ringmaster, threaded his way up the crowded benches to sit beside Sharpe. He looked about thirty, had hooded eyes, long hair and a flamboyant red handkerchief knotted about his skinny neck. He slid a knife from inside a boot and began cleaning his fingernails. ‘Lumpy wants to know who the hell you are, Colonel,’ he said.

‘Who’s Lumpy?’ Sharpe asked.

‘Him.’ The thin man nodded at the ringmaster.

‘Beaky’s son?’

The man gave Sharpe a very suspicious look. ‘How would you know that, Colonel?’

‘Because he looks like Beaky,’ Sharpe said, ‘and you’re Dan Pierce. Your mother lived in Shadwell and she only had one leg, but that never stopped her whoring, did it?’ The knife was suddenly just beneath Sharpe’s ribs, its point pricking his skin. Sharpe turned and looked at Pierce. ‘You’d kill an old friend, Dan?’

Pierce stared at Sharpe. ‘You’re not …’ he began, then checked. The knife was still in Sharpe’s side. ‘No,’ Pierce said, not trusting his suspicions.

Sharpe grinned. ‘You and me, Dan? We used to run errands for Beaky.’ He turned and looked at the ring where the dog and the bitch were being paraded. The bitch was excited, straining at the leash as she was led about the ring. ‘She looks lively,’ Sharpe said.

‘A lovely little killer,’ Pierce declared, ‘quick as a fish, she is.’

‘But too lively,’ Sharpe said. ‘She’ll waste effort.’

‘You’re Dick Sharpe, aren’t you?’ The knife vanished.

‘Jem doesn’t know who I am,’ Sharpe said, ‘and I want it to stay that way.’

‘I’ll not tell the bastard. Is it really you?’

Sharpe nodded.

‘An officer?’

Sharpe nodded again.

Pierce laughed. ‘Bloody hell. England’s run out of gentlemen?’

Sharpe smiled. ‘That’s about it, Dan. Have you got money on the bitch?’

‘The dog,’ Pierce said. ‘He’s good and steady.’ He stared at Sharpe. ‘You really are Dick Sharpe.’

‘I really am,’ Sharpe said, though it had been twenty years since he had last been in this rat pit. Beaky Malone had always prophesied that Sharpe would end up on the gallows, but somehow he had survived. He had run from London, gone to Yorkshire, murdered, joined the army to escape the law and there found a home. He had been promoted until, one hot day on a dusty battlefield in India, he had become an officer. Sharpe had come from this gutter and earned the King’s commission and now he was going back. The army did not want him, so he would say goodbye to the army, but first he needed money.

He watched as the timekeeper held up a great turnip watch. A coin had been tossed and the bitch was to fight first. The dog was lifted out of the ring and two cages were handed across the planks. A small boy unlatched the cages, tipped them, then vaulted the planks.

Thirty-six rats scuttled about the sand.

‘Are you up and ready?’ the ringmaster shouted. The crowd cheered.

‘Five seconds!’ the timekeeper, a drunken schoolmaster, called, then peered at his watch. ‘Now!’

The bitch was released and Sharpe and Pierce leaned forward. The bitch was good. The first two rats died before the others even realized a predator was among them. She nipped them by the neck, shook them vigorously and dropped them promptly, but then her excitement overtook her and she wasted valuable seconds snapping at three or four rats in turn. ‘Shake them!’ her owner bawled, his voice lost in the crowd’s cheers. She ran into a knot of the rats and started working again, ignoring the beasts that attacked her, but then she would not let go of a big black victim. ‘Drop it! Dead ‘un!’ her owner screamed. ‘Drop it! Drop it, you bastard bitch! It’s a dead ’un!’

‘She’s too young,’ Pierce said. ‘I told Phil to give her another six months. Let her practise, I said, but he wouldn’t listen. Cloth ears, that’s his problem.’ He stared at Sharpe. ‘I can’t believe it. Dick Sharpe a bloody jack pudding.’ He meant officer, for a jack pudding was a motley fool from the fairground, a clown dressed in fake finery and with donkey’s ears pinned to his hair. ‘Hocking didn’t recognize you?’

‘I don’t want him to either.’

‘I won’t tell the bastard,’ Pierce said, then settled back to watch the bitch hunt the last few rats. The sand was speckled with fresh blood. A few of the rats were merely crippled and those who had wagered on the bitch were shouting at her to finish them off. ‘I thought when I first saw her,’ Pierce said, ‘that she’d hunt like her mother did. Christ, but that bitch was a cold-hearted killer. But this one’s too young. She’ll get better.’ He watched her kill a rat that had been particularly elusive. She shook it hard, spraying blood onto the customers closest to the barrier. ‘It ain’t the teeth that kills ’em,’ Pierce said, ‘but the shaking.’

‘I know.’

‘’Course you do, ’course you do.’ Pierce watched as the boy climbed into the ring and shoved the bloodied rats into a sack. ‘Lumpy’s still trying to sell the corpses,’ he said. ‘You’d think someone would want to eat them. Nothing wrong with rat pie, especially if you don’t know what it is. But he can’t sell ’em.’ He looked down at Jem Hocking. ‘Is there to be trouble?’

‘Would you mind?’

Pierce picked at a tooth with a long fingernail. ‘No,’ he said curtly, ‘and Lumpy will be pleased. He wants to run the book here, but Hocking won’t let him.’

‘Won’t let him?’

‘Hocking owns the place now,’ Pierce said. ‘He owns every house in the street, the bastard.’ Two more cages had been tipped into the arena and the new rats, black and slick, scampered about the ring as a roar from the crowd greeted the dog. It was held above the skittering sand for a second, then dropped and began to fight. It went about its business efficiently and Pierce grinned. ‘Jem’s going to lose his shirt on this one.’

The bitch had been good and quick, but the dog was old and experienced. It killed swiftly and the crowd’s cheers got louder. Most, it seemed, had bet on the dog and the pleasure of winning was doubled by the knowledge that Jem Hocking was about to lose. Except that Jem Hocking was not a man to lose. The dog had killed about twenty of the rats when suddenly a spectator on the front bench leaned forward and vomited over the barrier and the dog immediately ran to gobble up the half-digested meat pie. The owner screamed at it, the crowd jeered and Hocking’s face showed nothing.

‘Bastard,’ Pierce said.

‘Old trick that,’ Sharpe said, leaning back. He fingered his sabre’s hilt. He did not like the weapon’s curved blade which was too light to do real damage, but it was the official weapon of Rifle officers. He would have preferred one of the basket-hilted broadswords that the Scots carried into battle, but regulations were regulations and the greenjackets had insisted he equip himself properly. A sword or sabre, they said, was merely decorative and an officer who was forced to use one in battle had already failed so it did not matter that the light cavalry sabre was unhandy, but Sharpe had used enough swords in battle and he had never failed. Go into a breach, he had told Colonel Beckwith, and you’ll be glad enough of a butchering sword, but the Colonel had shaken his head. ‘It is not the business of Rifle officers to be in the breach,’ he had said. ‘Our job is to be outside, killing from a distance. That is why we have rifles, not muskets.’ Not that any of it mattered to Sharpe now. He would make his money, resign his commission, sell the sabre and forget the Rifles.

Lumpy closed the entertainment by announcing that the next evening would be a mixture of cockfighting and badger-baiting. They would be Essex badgers, he boasted, as though Essex gave the animals special fighting skills, though in truth it was simply the closest source to Wapping. The crowd streamed out and Sharpe went back to the storeroom. Dan Pierce went with him. ‘I wouldn’t stay, Dan,’ Sharpe said. ‘Likely to be trouble.’

‘Trouble for you, Dick,’ Pierce tried to warn his old friend. ‘He’s never on his own.’

‘I’ll be all right. You can buy me an ale afterwards.’

Pierce left and Sharpe went into the stinking room. The badgers were all in wire cages stacked against one wall while the rest of the room was occupied by a table on which a dim oil lamp burned, and by an incongruous bed that was plump with sheets, blankets and pillows. Lumpy’s girls, the ones who sold gin and hot pies, used the room for their other business, but it would suit Sharpe perfectly. He put his pack and greatcoat on the table, then unsheathed the sabre which he placed on the badger cages with the hilt towards him. The beasts, pungent and sullen, stirred behind their wire.

He waited, listening to the sounds fading in the shed. A year ago he had been living in a house with eight rooms that he and Grace had rented close to Shorncliffe. He had fitted in with the battalion well enough then, for Grace had charmed the other officers, but why should he have ever thought it could last? It had been like a dream. Except Grace’s brothers and their lawyers kept intruding on the dream, demanding she leave Sharpe, even offering her money if she did the decent thing, and other lawyers had tied up her dead husband’s will in a tangle of words, delay and obfuscation. Get her out of your head, he told himself, but she would not leave and when the footsteps sounded outside the storeroom Sharpe’s sight was blurred with tears. He brushed his eyes as the door opened.

Jem Hocking came in with the girl, leaving the door ajar with the two young men just outside. The child was thin, frightened, red-haired and pale. She glanced at Sharpe then began to cry silently. ‘This is Emily,’ Jem Hocking said, tugging the girl’s hand. ‘The nice man wants to play games with you, ain’t that right, Major?’

Sharpe nodded. The anger he was feeling was so huge that he did not trust himself to speak.

‘I don’t want her hurt bad,’ Hocking said. He had a face the colour of beefsteak and a nose erupting with broken veins. ‘I want her back in one piece. Now, Major, the money?’ He patted the satchel that was hanging from his shoulder. ‘Ten pounds.’

‘In the pack,’ Sharpe said, nodding at the table, ‘just open the top flap.’ Hocking turned to the table and Sharpe edged the door closed with his shoulder as he moved to Emily’s side. He picked her up and placed her on the bed, then whipped the blanket up over her head. She cried aloud as she was smothered in woollen darkness and Hocking turned as Sharpe pulled the sabre off the cage tops. Hocking opened his mouth, but the blade was already against his throat. ‘Not a word,’ Sharpe said. He shot the door bolt. ‘All your money, Jem. Put the satchel on the table and empty your pockets into it.’

Jem Hocking, despite the sabre at his throat, did not look alarmed. ‘You’re mad,’ he said calmly.

‘Money, Jem, on the table.’

Jem Hocking shook his head in puzzlement. This was his kingdom and it did not seem possible that anyone would dare challenge him. He took a deep breath, plainly intending to call for help, but the sabre’s tip was suddenly hard in the flesh of his neck, drawing a trickle of blood.

‘On the table, Jem,’ Sharpe said, the softness of his voice belying the anger in his soul.

Hocking still did not obey. He frowned instead. ‘Do I know you?’

‘No,’ Sharpe said.

‘You ain’t getting a penny of mine, son,’ Hocking said.

Sharpe twisted the blade. Hocking stepped back, but Sharpe kept the sabre in his neck. He had only broken Hocking’s skin, nothing more, but he pushed a little harder and twisted again. ‘Money,’ he said, ‘on the table.’

‘Daft as a pudding, boy,’ Hocking said. ‘You ain’t going anywhere, not now. I’ve got lads out there and they’ll cut you into tatters.’

‘Money,’ Sharpe said, and reinforced the demand by whipping the sabre’s tip twice across Hocking’s face to leave long thin cuts in his cheeks and nose. Hocking looked astonished. He touched a finger to his cheek and seemed not to believe the blood he saw.

There was a knock on the door. ‘Mister Hocking?’ a voice called.

‘We’re just settling the money,’ Sharpe shouted, ‘aren’t we, Jem? On the table or I’ll bloody fillet you.’

‘You ain’t an officer, are you? You dress up, don’t you, but you picked the wrong man this time, son.’

‘I’m an officer,’ Sharpe said, and drew blood from Hocking’s neck. ‘A real officer,’ he added. ‘Now empty your pockets.’

Hocking dropped the satchel on the table, then thrust a hand into his greatcoat pocket. Sharpe waited to hear the chink of coins, but there was no such sound and so, as Hocking brought his hand out of the pocket, Sharpe slashed down hard with the sabre. He slit the ball of Hocking’s thumb, then slashed the blade again and Hocking, who had been drawing a small pistol from his coat pocket, let the weapon go to clutch at his wounded fingers. The pistol fell to the floor.

‘Empty your damned pockets,’ Sharpe said.

Hocking hesitated, wondering whether to call for help, but there was an implacability about Sharpe that suggested he had best humour him. He flinched as he used his wounded right hand to pull coins from his pocket. The door rattled as someone tried the latch. ‘Wait!’ Sharpe called. He saw gold coins among the silver and copper. ‘Keep going, Jem,’ he said.

‘You’re a dead man,’ Hocking grumbled, but found more cash that he piled on the table. ‘That’s all,’ he said.

‘Back against the cages, you bastard,’ Sharpe said and prodded Hocking towards the badgers. Then, still holding the sabre in his right hand, Sharpe forced handfuls of the coins into the satchel. He could not look closely at the money, for he needed to watch Hocking, but he reckoned there was at least eighteen or nineteen pounds there.

The click saved Sharpe. It came from behind him and he recognized the sound of a pistol being cocked and he stepped to one side and risked a quick glance to see that there was a hole in the wooden wall. Lumpy’s peephole, no doubt, and one of the young men outside must have seen what was happening and Sharpe stepped to the bed just as a pistol flamed through the hole to mist the room with smoke. Emily screamed from beneath her blanket and Jem Hocking snatched a badger cage and hurled it at Sharpe.

The cage bounced heavily off Sharpe’s shoulder. Hocking was scrabbling for the pistol when Sharpe kicked him in the face, then slashed the sabre across his head. Hocking sprawled by the table. Sharpe snatched up the small pistol and fired it at the wall beside the peephole. The timber splintered, but no shout sounded on the far side. Then he knelt on Hocking’s belly and held the sabre against the big man’s throat. ‘You do know me,’ Sharpe said. ‘You bloody do know me.’

He had not intended to reveal his name. He had told himself he would rob Hocking, but now, smelling the gun smoke, he knew he had always wanted to kill the bastard. No, he had wanted more. He had wanted to see Hocking’s face when the man learned that one of his children had come back, but come back as a jack pudding. Sharpe smiled, and for the first time there was fear on Hocking’s face. ‘I really am an officer, Jem, and my name’s Sharpe. Dick Sharpe.’ He saw the disbelief on Hocking’s face. Disbelief, astonishment and fear. That was reward enough. Hocking stared, wide-eyed, recognizing Sharpe and, at the same time, unable to comprehend that one of his boys was now an officer. Then the incomprehension turned to terror for he understood that the boy wanted revenge. ‘You bastard,’ Sharpe said, ‘you goddamned piece of shit.’ The anger was livid now. ‘Remember whipping me?’ he asked. ‘Whipping me till the blood ran? I remember, Jem. That’s why I came back.’

‘Listen, lad.’

‘Don’t you bloody lad me,’ Sharpe said. ‘I’m grown now, Jem. I’m a soldier, Jem, an officer, and I’ve learned to kill.’

‘No!’

‘Yes,’ Sharpe said, and the bitterness was unassuageable now, drenching him, consuming him, and the years of pain and misery were driving his right arm as he sawed the blade hard and fast across Hocking’s throat. Hocking’s last shout was abruptly cut short as a fountain of blood sprang up. The big man heaved, but Sharpe was snarling and still slicing down with the blade, cutting through muscle and gullet and a flood of blood until the steel juddered against the bone. Hocking’s breath bubbled at his opened neck as Sharpe stood and stabbed the sabre down so hard that the blade flexed as its tip drove into the back of Hocking’s skull. ‘One in the eye, Jem,’ Sharpe snarled, ‘you bastard.’ The door shook as the men outside tried to force the bolt from its seating. Sharpe kicked the door. ‘We ain’t done,’ he shouted.

There was a sudden silence outside. But how many men were out there? And the two pistol shots would have been heard. Men would be watching the rat shed, knowing that there would be pickings to be had from the violence. Bloody fool, Sharpe told himself. Grace had forever told him he had to think before he let his anger rule his actions, and he had not really meant to kill Hocking, only to rob him. No, that was not true, he had wanted to kill Hocking for years, but he had done it clumsily, angrily, and now he was trapped. There were still some coins on the table, one of them a guinea, and he threw them onto the bed. ‘Emily?’

‘Sir?’ a small voice whimpered.

‘That money’s for you. Hide it. And stay hidden yourself now. Lie down.’

Still silence outside, but that meant nothing. Sharpe blew out the oil lamp, then pulled on his coat and pack. He hung the satchel across his chest, dragged the sabre free of Hocking’s face, then went to the door and slid the bolt back as silently as he could. He lifted the latch and eased the door ajar. He reckoned the two men only had one pistol between them, but both would have knives and cudgels and he half expected them to charge when they saw the door crack open, but instead they waited. They knew Sharpe had to come out eventually and so they were waiting for him. He crouched and felt for the badger cage that had been thrown at him. He placed the cage beside the door and slid its hinged flap open.

A small light came from the shed’s far end, just enough to reveal a heavy dark shadow that crept out of the cage and snuffled its way forward. It was a big beast that tried to turn back into the storeroom’s darkness, but Sharpe nudged it with his sabre tip and the animal lumbered out into the larger space.

The pistol banged, flashing the dark with searing light. The badger squealed, then a club broke its spine. Sharpe had pulled the door open and was through it before the men outside realized they were wasting effort on an animal. The sabre hissed and one man yelped, then Sharpe scythed the blade back at the second man who ducked away. Sharpe did not wait, but ran to the back of the shed where he remembered an alley that led to a noxious ditch up which small lighters could be dragged from the Thames. One of the two men was following him, blundering in the shed’s darkness. Sharpe shouldered the door open and ran down the alley. Two men were there, but both stepped aside when they saw the sabre. Sharpe twisted right and ran towards the big warehouse where tobacco was stored and where, in his childhood, a gang of counterfeiters had forged their coins.

‘Catch him!’ a voice shouted and Sharpe heard a rush of feet.

He twisted into another alley. The shouting was loud now. Men were pursuing him, not to avenge Hocking whom they did not even know was dead, but because Sharpe was a stranger in their gutters. The wolves had found their courage and Sharpe ran, the sabre in his hand, as the hue and cry filled the dark behind. The pack, greatcoat and satchel were heavy, the lanes were foot-clogging with mud and dung, and he knew he must find a lair soon, so he twisted into a narrow passage that ran past the Mint’s great wall, twisted left, right, left again and at last saw a dark doorway where he could crouch and catch his breath. He listened as men pounded past the alley’s entrance, then leaned back as the noise of the hunt faded northwards.

He grimaced when he realized his jacket was soaked in blood. That must wait. For now he sheathed the sabre, hid the scabbard beneath his greatcoat and then, with the pack in his hand, he went westwards through alleys and lanes he half remembered from childhood. He felt safer as he passed the Tower where yellow lights flared through high narrow windows, but he constantly looked behind in case anyone followed. Most of his pursuers had stayed as a pack, but some cleverer ones might have stalked him more silently. By now they knew he was worth killing, not just for the value of his sabre and his coat’s silver buttons, but for the coins he had thieved from Hocking. He was any man’s prey. The city streets were empty and twice he thought he heard footsteps behind him, but he saw no one. He went on west.

The streets became busier once he passed Temple Bar and he reckoned he was safer now, though he still looked back. He hurried along Fleet Street, then turned north into a confusing tangle of narrow alleys. It had begun to rain, he was tired. A crowd of men streamed from a tavern and Sharpe instinctively turned away from them, going into a wider street he recognized as High Holborn. He stopped there to catch his breath. Had he been followed?

Yellow light streamed from windows across the street. Go to Seven Dials, he thought, and find Maggie Joyce. The rain was coming down harder now, drumming on the roof of a parked carriage. Another carriage splashed by and its dim lamps showed a green-and-yellow painted board on the building with the glowing windows. Two watchmen, buttons shining on blue coats and with long staves in their hands, walked slowly past. Had the watch heard the hue and cry? They would be looking for a bloodstained army officer if they had and Sharpe decided he should go to earth. The carriage lamps had revealed that the tavern was the French Horn. The place had once been popular with the musicians from the theatre in nearby Drury Lane, but more recently it had been bought by an old soldier who was partial to any officer who happened to be in town, and throughout the army it was now known as the Frog Prick.

Beefsteak, Sharpe thought. Steak and ale, a bed and a warm fire. He had wanted to leave the army, but he was still an officer, so the Frog Prick would welcome him. He hefted the pack, crossed the street and climbed the steps.

No one took any notice of him. Perhaps half the patrons in the half-filled taproom were officers, though many of those in civilian clothes might also have been in the army. Sharpe knew none of them. He found an empty table in a shadowed spot by the wall and dropped his pack and took off his rain-soaked coat. A red-haired woman whose apron straps were decorated with the shako plates of a dozen regiments acknowledged that the tavern had a bed to spare for the night. ‘But you’ll have to share it,’ she went on, ‘and I’ll thank you not to wake the gentleman when you go up there. He went to bed early.’ She suddenly grimaced as she realized there was blood on Sharpe’s green jacket.

‘A thief tried to take this,’ Sharpe explained, patting the satchel. ‘You can give me a pail of cold water?’

‘You’ll want something to clean your boots too?’ she asked.

‘And a pot of ale,’ Sharpe said, ‘and a steak. A thick one.’

‘Haven’t seen many riflemen lately,’ the woman said. ‘I hear they’re going abroad.’

‘I hear the same.’

‘Where to?’ she asked.

‘No one knows,’ he said.

She leaned close to him. ‘Copenhagen, sweetheart,’ she whispered, ‘and just make sure you come home in one piece.’

‘Copen—’ Sharpe began.

‘Shh.’ She put a finger to her lips. ‘You ever got a question about the army, darling, you come to the Frog Prick. We know the answers two days before the Horse Guards ask the questions.’ She grinned and walked away.

Sharpe opened the satchel and tried to guess how much cash was inside. At least twenty pounds, he reckoned. So crime does pay, he told himself, and shifted his chair so that his back was to the room. Twenty pounds. A man could make a good start in a new life with twenty pounds.

Twenty pounds! A decent night’s work, he thought, though he was angry at himself for having botched the killing. He had been lucky to escape unscathed. He doubted he would be in trouble with the law, for Wapping folk were reluctant to call in the constables. Plenty of men had seen that it was a Rifle officer who had been with Hocking and who, presumably, had done the murder in the back of Beaky Malone’s Tavern, but Sharpe doubted the law would care or even know. Hocking’s body would be carried to the river and dumped on the ebbing tide to drift ashore at Dartford or Tilbury. Gulls would screech over his guts and peck out his remaining eye. No one would hang for Jem Hocking.

At least Sharpe hoped no one would hang for Jem Hocking.

But he was still a wanted man. He had run out of Wapping with a small fortune and there were plenty of men who would like to find him and take that fortune away. Hocking’s mastiffs for a start, and they would look for him in just such a tavern as the Frog Prick. So stay here one night, he told himself, then get out of London for a while. Just as he made that decision there was a sudden commotion at the tavern door that made him fear his pursuers had already come for him, but it was only a boisterous group of men and women hurrying out of the rain. The men shook water from umbrellas and plucked cloaks from the women’s shoulders. Sharpe suspected they had come from the nearby theatre, for the women wore scandalously low-cut dresses and had heavily made-up faces. They were actresses, probably, while the men were all army officers, gaudy in scarlet coats, gold braid and red sashes, and Sharpe looked away before any could catch his eye. ‘Good liquor, I stoutly maintain,’ one of the red-coated officers called, ‘gives genius a better discerning!’ That odd statement provoked a cheer. Tables and chairs were shifted to make room for the party which was evidently known to a score of men in the room. ‘You look in the pink of perfection, my dear,’ the officer told one of the women, and was mocked for his gallantry by his fellows.

Sharpe scowled at his ale. Grace had loved the theatre, but it was not his world, not any more, so damn it, he thought. He would not be an officer much longer. He had money now, so he could go into the world and start again. He drank the ale, gulping it down, suddenly aware of how thirsty he was. He needed a wash. He needed to soak his jacket in cold water. All in good time, he thought. Bed first, sleep or try to sleep. Try to sleep instead of thinking about Grace, and in the morning think what to do with the rest of his life.

Then a heavy hand dropped on his shoulder. ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ a harsh voice said, ‘and here you are.’

And Sharpe, trapped, could not move.