The Diamond of Drury Lane (12 page)

Then disaster struck: the Crusher landed a powerful blow to Syd’s jaw, knocking him backwards to the floor. Syd rolled over with a groan, his eyes now at a level with our heads only a few feet away.

‘One! Two! Three . . .!’ chanted the crowd.

Syd’s dad rushed over to help him to his feet but he was not moving.

‘Come on, son!’ he bellowed. ‘Get up!’

‘Fifteen! Sixteen! Seventeen . . .!’

‘Come on, Syd!’ I screamed above the jeers and hoots. ‘Keep going!’

Perhaps Syd heard me for his eyes locked on mine and, through the trickles of blood running down his face, I thought I could see him smile. Slowly, he heaved himself to his knees, then to his feet. Swaying like a drunken man, he let his father lead him to the chalk square.

‘Twenty-eight! Twenty-nine . . .!’

He had come up to scratch just in time.

‘Set-to!’ shouted the referee.

Some in the crowd groaned . . . an easy victory snatched from the Crusher’s grasp. Those of us backing the outsider cheered lustily.

Battle recommenced, now slower as the toll of all those blows began to tell on the combatants. Syd was moving heavily as if he had weights tied to his legs, but the Crusher seemed barely to be moving at all as he stood defending himself in the middle of the scratch. I began to think that maybe, just maybe, Syd could win this one. I stopped peeking through my fingers and joined in with the chant of ‘Butcher! Butcher!’ that Pedro and Nick had started. Next to me Lord Francis was hopping up and down, yelling his encouragement.

‘At him, man! Go for him, sir!’ he shouted, failing miserably to keep in character. Fortunately, everyone was too engrossed in the fight to notice.

With sweat pouring from his brow, the Crusher struck out with another of the right hooks for which he was famed, but Syd leapt back, out of
harm’s way. The Crusher lost his balance and, before he could right himself, Syd came in with a blow to his jaw that sent the champion staggering. The Crusher collapsed to his knees, hands on the floor, breathing hard.

‘One! Two! Three!’ the crowd began to chant again.

‘Get up, you lazy oaf!’ screamed the Crusher’s second. ‘Get up, you good-for-nothing girl!’

But the Crusher swayed and then fell forward, the side of his face pressed against the floor, eyes glassy, a dribble of saliva trailing from his half-open mouth. He didn’t move. The second kicked him with his foot, trying to make him stir.

‘Twenty-eight! Twenty-nine! Thirty!’ bellowed the crowd.

The Crusher hadn’t moved.

A huge cheer went up. Even those who had lost their bets threw their hats in the air to applaud the plucky newcomer. Nick, Pedro, Lord Francis and I jumped up and down together and cheered with the best of them. Syd, bowing to each corner in turn, gave us a two-handed victory signal when
he faced us. The Crusher’s second was not looking after his man. He was in a huddle with Syd’s father at the side of the stage. As they broke apart, he thrust a purse into the butcher’s fist and they gave each other a businesslike nod. Behind them, some friends of the Crusher had rushed into the ring to help the defeated boy to his feet. He did not look badly injured but he missed his stool completely when he went to sit down, ending up on the floor again.

The referee bounded over the prostrate body of the Crusher and raised Syd’s fist in the air.

‘Gents, we have a new champion. I give you the Bow Street Butcher!’

‘Come on, let’s go and congratulate Syd,’ said Pedro eagerly as he launched himself against the tide of people now flowing away from the boxing ring.

Nick and Lord Francis ran after him. Being the last in line, I tried to follow but a party of gentlemen jumped from the ringside into my path, blocking my way.

‘Splendid fight!’ enthused a man in a black silk hat as he leapt heavily down, practically flattening me as he did so.

‘A rare talent, that butcher,’ commented his friend. ‘Perhaps I should ask cook to get the meat from him in future . . . show some support.’

‘Or perhaps not,’ said the other, already laughing in anticipation of his own witticism. ‘You don’t know what he does with the ones he knocks out cold. Chop, chop! Meat pies, sir?’

The gentlemen both laughed raucously. I
glared at them and tried to push past, annoyed that they could imply anything so cruel about Syd. The grey-haired man must have noticed me trying to squeeze between them for he looked down and automatically clapped his hand to his watch chain.

‘We’d better get back to the club,’ he murmured to his companion. ‘This place is rife with pickpockets, they say.’

The pair pushed past me, knocking me backwards into another bystander. I had no time to be offended for I now found myself buffeted to the ground by the person I had been thrown against.

‘Watch where you’re goin’, Tiddler,’ he jeered.

I knew that voice. I kept my head down, eyes trained on the steel caps of his boots, hoping he wouldn’t notice. Unfortunately for me, some of my hair had escaped from the back of my cap.

‘’Ere, wot’s this?’ he crowed with delight. I was seized by the shoulder and pulled to my feet. ‘Well, well, a little pussycat pretendin’ to be a tom.’

A hand snatched the cap from my head, letting my hair tumble over my face. I pushed it out of my eyes and looked furiously up into the face of Billy
Boil. He was not looking at me now: he stood in the middle of a group of his followers, twirling my cap nonchalantly on an index finger, gazing about him to see if I was under anyone’s protection.

‘’Ere on your own? That’s very brave of you, ain’t it? Come to see lover boy fight?’

‘Give me that!’ I said in a fury, making a grab for my cap.

‘Oops!’ said Billy with a taunting smile as he sent the hat sailing over my head to a pox-faced boy on the other side. Pox-face dangled the cap just out of reach, pulling it away each time I jumped to snatch it back. Billy’s gang, simple minds all, hooted with laughter. I, however, was not amused. I felt hot with humiliation and was annoyed that I teetered so perilously close to tears.

‘Aw, look, boys! The little pussycat doesn’t like playing with us!’ jeered Billy when his sharp eye spotted me wipe away a tear of anger.

Sick of their teasing, I tried to make a run for it, determined to abandon my hat if this was the only way of escape, but Billy stepped forward to catch me by the back of my jacket. Reluctant
though I am to admit this, Reader, I have to say that Billy does have his boys well trained for his gang quickly formed a ring around me, shutting me in as well as hiding me from any friends who might be looking for me.

‘Such a shame she don’t like playing with us, for I ’eard Little Miss Cat wanted to be in a gang.’ Billy pulled me towards him. ‘I’d even ’eard that the blockhead butcher didn’t want ’er, so I thought to myself, I thought, why not let ’er join me gang? Add a bit of class, she would.’ Billy grabbed my cap from Pox-face and presented it to me with a bow. ‘Wot you say to that?’

I took the hat suspiciously, expecting him to whip it away again at the last moment, but he didn’t. I quickly stuffed it back on my head and made a dash to escape. He gave another tug on my jacket, bringing me back like a fish on a line.

‘Not so fast. You ain’t given me your answer.’

‘Answer?’ I asked warily, feeling like a sheep surrounded by a pack of wolves.

‘Yeah. Do you want to join my gang?’

I stopped pulling away from him.

‘You’re joking.’

‘I’m not.’

I gazed up into Billy’s hard green eyes but saw no mockery in them, only cold calculation. ‘Why me?’

He looked away and winked at his followers. ‘Gawd, girl, I’m not askin’ you to marry me nor nuffink! Why not you? You’re as good as many a boy I know . . . and better than some.’

Despite myself, I felt a rush of pleasure to hear this compliment from Billy Shepherd of all people. He was offering me a chance to really belong in Covent Garden, to move from the sidelines where Syd had put me and join in with the boys’ adventures, to be party to the secret signs and passwords of a gang. I was tempted, sorely tempted. If only the offer had come from Syd, who I admired and trusted, and not from his devious rival! I would have to refuse, of course, but . . . I looked round the ring of faces, hard-bitten, tough characters all. What would they do to me when I said no?

‘That’s very decent of you, Billy,’ I began, backing away from him, looking for an escape
route, a weak spot in the wall. Perhaps if I ducked under the biggest boy’s legs? ‘But you don’t want a girl like me in your gang.’

He gave me a broad grin and tipped his hat back on his head. He smirked at his boys. ‘See, I’d told you I’d ’ave to woo ’er!’ He turned back to me. ‘You’re wrong, girl. That’s just what I want.’

‘But I’m useless at fighting . . . I’d let you down.’

His grin, if anything, got wider. It was like looking into the jaws of a Nile crocodile waiting to swallow me up. ‘Don’t believe it, Cat. You’re a terror when your blood’s up . . . a real little wildcat with ’er claws out. Anyway, I want other talents in my gang than fightin’. I’ve got Meatpie Matt ’ere to do the punchin’.’ He gestured towards a burly lad not much smaller than Syd but with none of Syd’s blond good looks to recommend him. ‘Nah, I need you for somethink else.’

I had backed as far as I could go without actually bumping into the ferret-featured boy with carrot-red hair on my side of the circle.

‘What’s that?’ I asked, curious despite myself to know what had prompted Billy to make so
astonishing an offer. I could see how he might derive a twisted pleasure from taking one of Syd’s friends away from him, but it still seemed a very unlikely proposition.

‘It’s obvious, ain’t it?’ said Billy, rocking on his heels casually, though his eyes were still fixed on me. ‘Brains, Cat, brains. I want you for what you know . . . though, as you’re bein’ so slow on the old uptake, perhaps your reputation for wit and learnin’ is a case of
misrepresentation
?’ He said the last word proudly as he rarely indulged in words with more than two syllables.

I was flattered. I had not known that I was so highly spoken of in the market. But his praise did not change the essentials of my position: I would have to rely on some of the brains for which I was famed to extricate myself from this circle. But how?

Suddenly, a sooty boy burst through the outer guard into the middle of the circle.

‘There you are, Cat!’ exclaimed Lord Francis. ‘We wondered what had happened to you! I was very perturbed to find that you had not followed us.’

‘Per-what?’ guffawed Billy, grabbing Lord
Francis by the lapels of his filthy jacket. ‘’Oo do you think you are, Sootie? A dook or somethink?’

It was an alarmingly accurate guess. I could tell from the look on Lord Francis’s good-natured face that he had only just twigged he had walked in on a dangerous situation. He opened and shut his mouth like a fish landed at Billingsgate, but made no comprehensible sound.

‘Queer fellas you’re making friends with, Cat,’ said Billy, discarding Lord Francis by pushing him to one side into Meatpie Matt. Meatpie threw the peer of the realm to the floor like a ragdoll. ‘That’ll ’ave to stop, you understand? Can’t ’ave a girl in my gang mixin’ with the wrong sort.’

‘Er, Billy,’ I began, my eyes on the crumpled body of Lord Francis.

‘Yeah, Pussycat?’

‘I haven’t actually given you my answer yet.’

Lord Francis started to scramble to his feet. Billy absentmindedly kicked him to the floor again and stood with his hobnailed boot on the neck of the duke’s son.

‘Wot was that you were sayin’?’ he said, his
eyes sparkling maliciously. We both knew that if I refused to join him the pressure of his boot would increase.

‘Can I think about your offer?’ I asked lamely, though I knew what his answer was likely to be.

‘Sadly not. For a number of pressin’ reasons,’ he made Lord Francis gasp as he placed more weight on his neck, ‘I need an immediate acceptance.’

My choices were not attractive. Refuse and face the consequences of being the reason why a member of the nobility is kicked to a pulp; accept and find myself under Billy’s leadership. I’d prefer to put
my
neck under his boot than do that. At least I could try to help Lord Francis, not least because his face was now an unbecoming shade of purple.

‘Billy, really it’s very decent of you . . . but no!’

Even as I spoke, I put my head down and ran full pelt at him, taking him quite by surprise. I charged into his stomach, knocking us both to the floor, in the process achieving my aim of getting him away from Lord Francis. In the confusion that followed, Lord Francis scrambled to his feet and had the sense to run for it. I tried to do the same
but found my ankle seized by Billy. I froze. There was no kind Mrs Peters to hide me today.

‘Wot you make of that, Billy?’ laughed Ferret-features. ‘Not a wildcat . . . a miniature bull, that’s wot she is!’

The gang were all now roaring with laughter at the ridiculous sight of their great leader floored by a girl half his size . . . all except Billy that is. He did not appreciate the joke. I could feel his hand shaking with anger, but he had to make light of it or risk losing their respect. I knew then I was in deep trouble.