‘Because I will then be paid quite a considerable sum of money, young man. Surely you know that? Incidentally, I have no particular quarrel with yourself, although Hans – once he can stand up straight – almost certainly would quite like to have a brief, very brief, conversation with you. We just have to wait for the poor man to recover.’
The girl – and the Outlander looked like a girl not much bigger than Simplicity and, he had to admit, slightly thinner – gave him a charming smile. ‘It won’t be long now, Mister Dodger. And what is it that you are staring at, apart of course from myself?’
Dodger, almost swallowing his tongue, said, ‘Well, miss, not staring, miss, just praying to the Lady.’ And indeed he was praying, but also watching the shadows shift. They lingered even here.
‘Ah yes, I have heard tell of her . . . the Madonna of the sewers, the goddess Cloacina, the lady of the rats, and I see so many of her congregation here with us this evening,’ the Outlander continued.
The shadows behind her quite subtly changed again. And hope, which had disappeared for some time, suddenly returned. Although Dodger made certain to keep it out of his face.
‘You are a fervent believer to turn to the darkness in supplication, but I am afraid it will take more than rats to save you now, however hard you stare into the darkness . . .’
‘Now!’ screamed Dodger, and the quite hefty lump of wood in Simplicity’s hands was already in flight, hitting the Outlander on the back of the head and knocking her straight to the ground. Dodger jumped and slid and snatched up the pistol, banging his head on the side of the sewer in his haste as the rats ran and squeaked in panic.
He gave Hans another swift boot to ensure he stayed on the ground a little longer and Simplicity, with great presence of mind, sat on the woman. Dodger thought, Thank goodness for all that heavy German sausage, then he shouted, ‘Why did you come back here? It’s dangerous!’
Simplicity gave Dodger a bewildered look and said, ‘You know, I looked at the ring that I found, and on it I saw it said in tiny writing: To S, with love from Dodger. So of course I had to come back, but I kept quiet, because you said we should keep quiet in the sewers. I told them I was going to wait until I saw you come out of the sewer, and I thought something was wrong. Well, you told me that the Outlander always had a good-looking lady with him, and I thought, well, a good-looking lady who went around with somebody like that assassin would be a very powerful woman. I wondered if you realized that; it would appear, my dearest Dodger, that I was right.’
In the echoes of that little speech, for just one bleary moment, Dodger thought he heard the voice of Grandad, with its cheerful, toothless sound, saying, ‘Told yuz! You is the best tosher I known. You got your tosheroon now. That young lady there – she’s your tosheroon, lad!’
There was nothing for it. Treading heavily on the Outlander, he grabbed Simplicity, gave her a hug and a kiss, one which regrettably couldn’t go the optimum distance because now, surely, there was so much to do.
Simplicity had hit the Outlander quite hard; there was certainly a pulse, but also a bit of blood here and there, and the assassin definitely wasn’t going to get up for a while. The man, however, was, but not with much enthusiasm, since a mouth full of mixed sewer water can slow down anybody. He was groaning, swaying and dribbling – dribbling green slime.
Dodger grabbed him and said, ‘Can you understand English?’ He couldn’t understand the answer, but Simplicity stepped forward, and after a brief interrogation said, ‘He’s from one of the Germanys, from Hamburg, and he sounds very scared.’
‘Good, tell him that if he is a good boy and does what we ask he might see his home country again. Don’t tell him that what he’s likely to see there could be the gallows, ’cos I wouldn’t want him to worry. Right now, of course, I need to be a friend to this poor man led astray by a wicked woman. So he will, I reckon, be very very helpful . . . Oh, and tell him to take his trousers off, quickly!’ They were foreign and pretty good, but as the man sat there, naked, Dodger tore the German trousers to shreds and used them to bind the recumbent Outlander and her employee.
Simplicity was wreathed in smiles, but a cloud passed over her face and she said, ‘What should we do now, Dodger?’ and he replied, ‘It’s like the plan. You know the place I told you about. We call it the Cauldron, ’cos that is what it is like when there is a real storm, but at least it means it’s a lot cleaner than most of the places down here. You remember all the lighter bricks? There’s food up there, and a bottle of water too. And people will come running down when they hear the gunshot.’ He gave her Solomon’s pistol and said, ‘Do you know how to fire one of these things if necessary?’
‘Well, I have seen men shooting, with my . . . husband, and I think I can.’
‘Right!’ said Dodger. ‘You just point the bit at the end at anyone you don’t like, and that generally works. If all goes well, I think I should be able to come and find you around about midnight. Don’t you worry now; the worst thing in these sewers right now is me, and I’m on your side. You will hear voices, but just lie low and keep very quiet, and you will know it’s me that’s coming to find you when you hear me whistle; just like we planned . . .’
She kissed him and said, ‘Do you know, Dodger, your first plan would have worked too.’ Very pointedly she put on her finger the ring she had ‘found’ on the tosh, then she left, following the slightly lighter bricks in the darkness.
Dodger worked fast now. He scurried at speed back down through the sewers to the place he most emphatically had stopped Charlie going into, and with care pulled out from hiding – and from the sheaves of lavender – all that remained of the unfortunate girl, yellow-haired and wearing exactly the same breeches and cap as Simplicity was wearing. He slid the wonderful ring on her cold finger – the gold ring with the eagles on the crest.
Now there was the worst bit. He drew out the Outlander’s pistol, took a few breaths, shot the corpse in the heart twice, because the Outlander as a matter of course would use two shots to make sure, and – horribly, and almost without looking – once in the side of the face where the rats had begun to . . . well, do what rats usually do to a nice, fresh corpse. He whispered, ‘I’m sorry.’ Then he took from another hidey hole amongst the junk in the sewer a bucket of pigs’ blood. He tipped it out, trying all the time to not exactly be there, trying to become a disembodied spirit watching somebody else doing all these things, because as often as he told himself that he had done nothing really bad, there would always be a little part of him that would argue.
And then he walked back along the tunnel, sat and sobbed and listened to the noise of splashing feet coming at speed down the sewer, led, interestingly, by Charlie, followed by a couple of policemen. They found Dodger curled up in tears, tears that right now came of their own accord.
‘Yes,’ said Dodger, crying. ‘She’s dead, she’s really dead . . . But I did my best, I really did.’
A hand landed on Dodger’s neck and Charlie said, ‘Dead?’
Looking at his boots, Dodger said, ‘Yes, Charlie, she was shot. There was nothing I could do. It was . . . the Outlander, a right proper assassin.’ He looked up, tears glistening in the lamplight. ‘What chance would the likes of me have against someone like that?’
Charlie looked angrily at Dodger and said, ‘Are you telling me the truth, Dodger?’
Now Dodger looked up with his head held high. ‘It all happened so quickly that it’s all a bit of a fog. But yes, I’d say that’s the truth of it all right.’