No Place for a Dame (23 page)

“He,” presumably, was the apish man with the bulbous nose. Giles stared down at the young, dirty face, sickened.

“Listen, mister. Yer rich enough to gimme a couple shillings to fetch a note, you kin pays a couple quid fer her. She’s a good dog.
Please
.”

“Please” wasn’t a word that came easily to the wiry, hard-faced boy. Nor were the tears pooling in his lower lids. Sentiment was a liability in these slums and hard streets. Yet somehow he’d managed to find
something to love here. Something he cared enough for to risk exposing his vulnerability.

“Listen, lad. I’ll give you a crown to buy your dog then—”

“No! He’ll only take her away agin.”

He looked about. The dog’s owner was shouting at one of his mates. The spotted dog had crawled beneath the bench. “Isn’t there some place you can go with her?”

“Where?” the boy asked, his face contorted in impotent fury and misery. “He’s me
dad
.”

Of course. Disgust and pity filled Giles. He had no need for an old, half-feral ratter. But then he had no need for a prickly astronomical genius with a smile that made his breath catch and lips like velvet, either.

“Fetch her.”

What the hell was happening to him?

Chapter Twenty-Three

G
iles quit the building just as the first dog was dropped into the rat-filled pit amidst a roar of approval from the spectators. The white-and-tan terrier he’d become the unwilling owner of alternately slunk along and fought the rope the lad had tied around her neck. He had no idea what he was going to do with her but right now she was coming with him.

As he headed deeper into the city, away from the docks, a squat, hairy man detached himself from the shadows and followed Giles into a twisting lane. Little light penetrated its narrow confines, the cobbles buckling under his feet. At his side, the terrier bitch emitted a low, throaty growl. Giles stepped back, pulling her with him behind the skeletal remnants of a long abandoned, wheelless cart, and waited. A moment later, the hulking shadow passed him. Giles stepped out behind him.

“Why are you following me?”

The man jumped and spun, peering into the gloom. Giles recognized him as the boy’s father and former owner of the dog at his feet. She’d drawn her lips back in a silent snarl.

“Bloody ’ell. You gimme a start lurking back there.”

“Again, why are you following me?”

He was as stupid as he was brutish. His gaze darted around until he spied the dog at Strand’s feet. “Come to get me dog, that’s all. Will said as how you’d pay a crown fer ’er, but I didn’t see no crown. Next thing I knows, Will’s grabbed me dog and I see you leavin wid ’er.”

Giles almost laughed. Having seen the color of Giles’s gold, the bastard had set out to rob him and, gauging by the glint of the wicked-looking skiver he’d palmed and tucked in his sleeve, perhaps worse.

“I saw the boy give you the money,” Giles said.

Indecision warred across the man’s coarse features. He could withdraw, by far the most sensible action, or try his luck.

The fool decided to try his luck.

With a roar, the hand clasping the knife punched out of the end of his coat sleeve. He launched himself at Giles, his arm raised to strike down with the skiver. Giles could have easily sidestepped the attack but the terrier bitch suddenly pulled free of his hand and leapt between them, tripping Giles. He fell sideways, the hot stab of the knife slicing though his upper arm, hitting the icy ground with bone jarring force, fully expecting to be stabbed again. Instead, he heard a yowl of pain and rage.

In one liquid movement, Strand was back on his feet, facing his adversary. The terrier bitch had sunk her teeth into the man’s calf and clung like wet on water, shaking her head like she was killing a rat. The man swore viciously, twisting to plunge his knife into the dog.

Giles caught his wrist inches before he sank his blade into the bitch, locking his fingers backward and yanking until he heard the bones snap. The man screamed, the blade clattering to the street. Strand kicked the skiver away, sending it skittering into the darkness as the man fell to his knees and wrenched the dog from him, flinging it against the alley wall. She hit the wall and crumpled silently to its base.

The man grinned up at Strand. “Well. Now it looks like we’re both out a dog.”

With a muttered oath, Strand grabbed the man by his coat collar and yanked him to his feet. Too late, he realized his mistake and twisted. The man kneed him savagely, just missing his groin. Pain lanced through him as he doubled over and the man’s unbroken fist slammed down on the back of his head. Light-spackled darkness exploded across his vision.

The man leaned over, wrapping his beefy arm around Giles’s throat, intent on choking the life from him. Giles hooked his foot behind the man’s leg and jerked backward, sending them both toppling to the street. The man landed on his back, refusing to release his chokehold even when Giles landed heavily atop him.

Giles’s throat ached, his lungs burning for air. But now he had a slight advantage. He lifted himself, then slammed back, knocking the man’s head against the stone cobbles. Again and again he did so, his heels scrabbling for purchase against the icy pavement as the man choked him with tenacity born of desperation.

Giles fought against losing consciousness, his thoughts clouding, the blood roaring in his ears. Just in time, the arm around his throat loosened. He rolled sideways, free of the deadly embrace, and rose to his hands and knees, gasping for breath. The other man moaned. Lurching to his feet, Giles snatched up the skiver and staggered over to where the man lay.

“Whatcha gonna do now?” the man mumbled, spitting a tooth out of his bloody maw. “Kill me? Over a useless old bitch?”

Giles wanted to. He wanted, he realized, very much to do just that. But if he did, what would become of the boy and whatever other siblings he had? Undoubtedly they’d be a great sight better off without him. In fact, the world in general would be better off without him, starting with the dogs he abused, to the children, and the women he likely did as well. And anyone and anything else smaller, less vicious, or weaker than him.

A faint shiver ran through Giles as he realized that he was standing in a dark alley, calmly debating whether to kill a man who no longer posed a physical threat to him. Worse, there was nothing in that deliberation that frightened him. It seemed entirely appropriate for the man he’d become.
The man he’d become
. He’d never killed in cold blood before. And on the long list of his sins, murder had never appeared.

What had happened to the idealistic young man who so ardently wanted to ride to battle to protect his country and its citizens? What had happened to the man that boy had planned to become? He’d disappeared and it seemed suddenly very important that he find him again.

He looked down at the man whose eyes were glazed with fear, then over at the scar-covered dog. He vacillated. Whatever else he knew or wished, he knew that the world did not need this man in it.

In the end, the dog saved the man’s life.

She whimpered, drawing Strand’s attention. He went over and squatted, letting his hands rove over her scrawny form to feel for broken bones. When he looked up, the man had disappeared.

And Giles was relieved.

Chapter Twenty-Four

G
iles made a bandage of his handkerchief and shoved it under his sleeve, trusting the coat’s tight fit to keep it in place. The knife wound didn’t seem to have affected his movement. He’d deal with it properly later. Right now he had an appointment he needed to keep.

It took him some time to find the address scrawled on the greasy bit of paper the boy, Will, had handed him. There were few people on the streets, none of them by choice. A frigid wind was blowing in off the river, freezing the muck into deep ruts. Overhead the buildings leaned towards one another across narrow passageways, their windows boarded over in an attempt to hold in what little warmth their hidden rooms contained. Those without the wherewithal to rent a cot for the night huddled together in whatever doorway they could find. A few would be dead come morning, victims of the bitter cold that had gripped this city for weeks now.

Strand finally found his destination, alerted by the presence of a big man wearing a thick knit cap and a heavy coat standing outside. He was stomping his feet and blowing into his hands. When he caught sight of Strand, he motioned him over.

He was a bruising great hulk of a man, his forehead stove in above his right brow, causing the eye beneath to cant down and outward. Black stubble covered his cheeks and his lips were tinged purple. “Took ye long enough, din’ it?” he groused, swinging around and tromping down a short flight of steps. At the bottom, he banged twice on the door.

It swung open on a scene as improbable as it was homey. A merry fire burned in the little hearth of a small room with a low ceiling. A gimcrack assortment of upholstered chairs formed an arc around the fireplace. A half a dozen men occupied these, most of them balancing plates filled with food on their knees. One was smoking a fragrant pipe. They looked round at Giles’s entrance, their expressions guarded.

One of the men seated before the hearth rose. He wore his dark hair long and tied in an old-fashioned queue. In most ways, he appeared ordinary enough, being of middling height, middling weight. But his jaw was malformed and his mouth contorted with scar tissue and when he smiled, which he was doing now, he displayed a perfect set of teeth. They were not his own. Sergeant Alfred Bees had lost his teeth during the war when he’d taken a musket blast in the face.

“Giles, me lad. To what do I owe the pleasure? You’ve surely not come looking fer a dog fight, ’ave you? Because that poor old thing yer ’olding is more than ’alf spent.” He nodded at the bitch cur Giles cradled in his left arm.

“No. This is my pet.”

Alfie Bees roared with laugher and clapped his hands. “Oh God, Giles. Ye always knew how to make me laugh. Joff, pour m’lord here a proper drink.”

The giant with the dented skull reached across the wooden table for a bottle.

“Thank you, Mr. Bees,” Giles said, “but I won’t be here long.”

“Well, now. That remains to be seen, don’t it?” Alfie Bees said.

“Do you know something that would warrant a longer conversation?” Giles tried to keep any eagerness from his voice.

Alfie Bees was a criminal, an extortionist, a thief, and undoubtedly a murderer, but in London’s underground hierarchy, he stood as close to royalty as one got. As any king, he kept a close eye on all other claimants to his crown. Anything worth knowing that happened on these docks
eventually came to his attention. And all of it was for sale for the right price, because, though a self-acknowledged scoundrel, he styled himself first and foremost a businessman. If he thought that by withholding information it would fetch a better price elsewhere, he would do so.

Giles didn’t have the time or patience for such games.

Alfie pointed to an empty chair. With a quick, assessing glance about, Giles took it, setting the dog at his feet and angling around so he could keep an eye on the rest of Alfie’s “court.”

While he knew that it would gain Alfie nothing, and cost him much, if he were to try to roll him, Giles hadn’t lived through innumerable precarious situations by trusting in madmen’s good sense. He kept his left hand in his greatcoat pocket, a finger resting on his pistol’s hammer.

“Have you heard anything about that matter we discussed?” Giles asked.

“No,” Alf said. “If someone done Seward in, he didn’t come from ’round here. But,” he touched the side of his nose, “there were a pair of Germans at the Haldergate dog fights a month back. Sailors they said, only in port a day or two. Interesting lot.

“Had me lad inquire of the harbormaster and seems there weren’t no German ships come in that week. ’Course”—Alf shrugged—“German sailors don’t just work on German ships, do they? Then again, maybe they come in for a special purpose, ye kin? Like slitting throats.”

“Then where would the bodies be?”