“Coppers fuckin’ everywhere, Patty boy,” John said, pulling his bowler low over his eyes. “Look there.” He nodded to the left, where three more policemen huddled over a lighter, smoking their pipes apathetically and leaning against the brick.
“He said he’d be here,” Patrick said through his teeth, his forehead glistening with exertion. “Where the fuck is he?”
“Who?” I asked.
“We gotta move, Pat,” John said over my shoulder. “Won’t be long before the cavalry comes chargin’ in.”
“I know,” Patrick said.
“We’ve got minutes, Pat. Now or never.”
“Iknow!” Patrick cinched his eyes closed and muttered to himself, as though a private consultation were occurring, then turned to look at his father and me both. He took the bowler from his father’s head and pulled it low over my own, then pulled the navy cloak from his shoulders and threw it around me, pulling the collar up high over my hair. “They’ll recognize Nina before they recognize us,” he said to his father. “Distract them, if it comes to it.”
John Colson nodded. “At all costs, my boy. No more time to lose.”
“Stick as close to me as you can get,” Patrick said. “And keep your hands hidden.”
We walked out of the alley and into the chaos of the dock with John in front, and me tucked so tightly into Patrick’s side I could feel every breath, every heartbeat. He slung an arm around my shoulder, and it served to hide half my face. He looked about in a casual way—just another weary traveler awaiting their fare.
“Baymouth on four!” shouted the copper. “Morland on three!”
“Morland,” Patrick repeated, and his father nodded once.
But pylon three was crowded with those coppers smoking their pipes and watching the crowd. “Patrick. The police—”
“Morland,” he said again. “It has to be Morland.”
I swallowed dryly and buried my head farther into the recess of him. I didn’t pray. I simply held my breath.
We shuffled into line, the coppers not a foot from my back, so close their conversation was easy to overhear. The tobacco in their pipes wafted over my hat.
“… begged him to trade shifts with me. What I wouldn’t give for a little entertainment,” one said. Then came the sound of his spit hitting the dock.
“Not me, I’m squeamish,” said another. “If I’m to see a woman’s back I’d rather it not be whipped to tatters.”
I stiffened. My tongue seemed to swell in my mouth.
“Still,” said the remaining, this voice younger. “As good a reason as any for a little sport, wouldn’t you say?”
The first grunted a laugh. “What’s your bet?”
“Fifty shillin’s she can stay on her knees for the first ten lashes.”
“Naw. It’ll be lights out before the second. Swank skin’s as thin as they come.”
Patrick seemed to seize beside me. His feet cemented to the dock.
“Heard she ain’t well bred, though,” the coppers continued, voices damningly loud. “From Sommerland or some such. Might’ve given her a bit of grit at least.”
There was a low whistle. “If a Sommerland girl is good for somethin’, it’s bein’ on her knees.”
Harsh laughter carried on the cold air, and Patrick, oblivious to my nudging, turned.
“Don’t,” I whispered to him.
There was now a notable space in the queue before us, waiting to be filled, but Patrick seemed incapacitated, his fists balling, eyes sparking, and I watched in horror as one of the police looked up to meet his eye, jutting his chin toward him. “Oy!” the man called, pipe slipping from his lips. “Move along there!”
“Patrick,” I intoned, desperate now, but Patrick seemed possessed, as though the violence of the past week had only now caught up to him, and his blood couldn’t cool. His chest filled.
