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large man, as was demonstrated regularly at the Tyburn gallows, and sometimes difficult to puncture if you didn’t get the place right. But what it was vulnerable to was, of course, the slice.
The unseen man had stopped talking; if it hadn’t been for the sensation of his breath close to Dodger’s ear, he almost wouldn’t have known somebody was there. All this went through the brain of Dodger at speed. The man was enjoying the fact that Dodger was helpless and totally in his power; you got that sort sometimes, and the man would never become a geezer. If a real geezer wanted you dead he’d have done it straight away.
Now the man apparently decided that it was time for more tormenting of his victim. ‘I like to see a man take his time,’ he said, ‘so by now I reckon you’ve worked out you can’t break my grip and I could do very nasty things to your neck before your doggie got to me. Of course, there would be a wee little set-to between him and me, but dogs is not too difficult if you have the knowing of it and take care what clothing you wear. Oh, I didn’t spend years in the ring without knowing how to take care of myself in any fight you could mention! And I knows you can’t get to your knuckles right now, nor that little bar you like to carry – not like the last time we met.’ The man chortled. ‘I’m going to enjoy this after the way you came at us in that storm. You might have ’eard tell that someone has taken measures since then so as my associate of that night is now no longer in the land of the living – and you’re going to be joining ’im pretty sharpish, I reckon. Now if I don’t want to be amongst that happy crowd, I needs that information. Now.’
Dodger gasped. So this was one of the men who had been beating Simplicity! And Sharp Bob was behind it! He had heard tell of the man – a legal cove, of sorts, widely respected by the unrespectable. Was he the geezer who had been talking to Marie Jo?
Anger rose in him, a terrible anger that coalesced into one glittering shining certainty as the man’s blade gently stroked across his neck. It whispered, ‘This man is not going to walk out of here.’
Nobody was nearby. There was the occasional scream, shout or mysterious sigh – the music of the night in the tenements – but for now Dodger and the unseen man were alone. Dodger said, ‘It sounds like I am in the hands of a professional, then?’
The voice behind him said, ‘Oh yes, I guess you could say that.’
‘Good,’ said Dodger, and threw his head back so hard that he heard the reassuring noise of something breaking, and then spun round and kicked. It didn’t matter very much what he kicked, or indeed on what he stamped, but he found a multitude of choices, and in his rage he kicked and stamped on practically everything. When it came to it, the only sensible thing to do was stay alive, and the chances of staying alive with a man threatening you with a knife were reasonably small. Better him with a bloody nose and a great big bruise than you being nothing but a memory. And goodness, the bloke had been drinking before coming out – never a good idea if you wanted to be really quick. But this was one of the men who had been beating Simplicity, and no kicking now could be thorough enough for that.
The knife had been dropped, and he picked it up, looked down at the man who was lying in the gutter and said, ‘Good news is that in a couple of months you will hardly remember this; the bad news is, that after about two weeks you will need to get somebody to break that nose proper for you again so’s you look like your old ’andsome self.’
The man snuffled, and by the sight of him in the gloom, the way his face looked now was quite probably better than it had been before: it was all scars. People thought that a ragged face was a sign of a professional boxer, but it wasn’t – it was a sign of an amateur boxer. Good boxers liked to be pretty; it put the contenders off their guard.
Dodger kicked the recumbent man in