sidestepped a tailor’s apprentice who turned, a green-painted shutter held in his widespread arms, his mouth forming a silent
The entrance to an alley yawned ahead. The brown-coated man darted down it, Sebastian hard after him. They were in an old mews, the high, bulging walls propped up by rotting beams that thrust out to trip the unwary, the former yards filled now with a hodgepodge of illegal shacks and grim hovels. A group of ragged children playing with a hoop shouted as they dashed past. One little boy of no more then five or six, his face smeared with filth, ran after them, calling to them and laughing until he could keep up no longer and fell away.
For a moment Sebastian thought the man had misjudged and trapped himself in a cul-de-sac. Then a black mouth opened up before them and Sebastian saw a low archway where the upper stories of the houses on either side of what had once been a narrow lane had extended out to swallow the sky, leaving only a dark tunnel beneath.
Plunging into a shadowy darkness of recessed doorways and sharp corners where a man might lie in wait, Sebastian was forced to slow his pace, listening always for the slap of running feet, the sawing of labored breath up ahead. Then the traboule opened up and he found himself in a courtyard of what must once have been a fine coaching in, its ground floor now filled with dilapidated workshops overhung by rented rooms where ragged laundry hung limp and the still evening air trapped the scent of frying onions and burning dung.
Leaping a puddle left by the previous day’s rain, Sebastian ran on. Two women taking down the laundry paused to stare; an old man filling a clay pipe called out something lost in the din. Sebastian followed his quarry through the arch and down a narrow passageway between two brown brick buildings. Then the pale glow of lamplight shone up ahead and the passageway emptied out into a wide, busy thoroughfare that Sebastian realized must be the Strand.
The man ahead of him was breathing heavily now, stumbling as he dodged between a hackney and a ponderous old landau sporting a faded crest. Two men on the far footpath, their red waistcoats and blue coats marking them as men from the Bow Street Patrol, turned and shouted.
Brown Coat’s head snapped around, his open mouth sucking in air, his eyes going wide. Abandoning the busy, lamplit expanse of the Strand, he careered around the nearest corner, heading now toward the river.
The streets were newer here and straight, the chance of running into a trap diminished. Lungs aching, his breath coming hard and fast, Sebastian pushed himself on. They were halfway across the open square of Hungerford Market when Sebastian caught him.
Reaching out, Sebastian closed his hand on the man’s shoulder and spun him around. They lost their balance together, the man pulling back, Sebastian practically running over him as, legs tangling, they sprawled across the pavement.
Brown Coat’s back hit the ground hard, driving the wind out of him. “Who are you?” Sebastian demanded. The man heaved up against him once, then lay still, panting, his face ashen with pain.
“Damn you.” Sebastian closed his fist on the cloth of the man’s coat to draw him up, then slam him back down again. “Who set you after me?”
A heavy hand fell on Sebastian’s shoulder, jerking him up. “There, there now, me lads,” said a gruff voice. “What’s all this, then?”
His hold on Brown Coat broken, Sebastian found himself staring into the broad, whiskered face of one of the men from the Bow Street Patrol.
Sebastian shook his head to fling the sweat from his eyes. “Bloody hell.”
“Now then, let’s have none of that,” chided the second Bow Street man, grabbing Sebastian’s other arm.
Scuttling backward, Brown Coat scrambled to his feet and took off at a run.
“You stupid sons of bitches,” swore Sebastian, bringing his arm back to drive his elbow, hard, into the plump red waistcoat of the first man who’d grabbed him.
Air gusting out of a painfully pursed mouth, the Runner let go of Sebastian and hunched forward, his hands pressed to his gut.
“I say,” began the other Runner, just as Sebastian drove his fist into the man’s face and wrenched his left arm free.
By now, Brown Coat had made it to the end of the market. Sebastian pelted after him, the shriek of the Bow Street men’s whistles cutting through the night.
Up ahead, he could see the wide-open expanse of the Thames. The riverbank here had been built up into a stone-faced terrace fronted by a low wall. Dodging across the open space, Brown Coat leapt up onto the flat top of the wall, meaning perhaps to avoid the traffic clogging the street fronting the river by running along the wall to the top of the steps.
But the wall was old, the weathered stone damp and crumbling. His feet shot out from beneath him. For a moment the man wavered, his arms windmilling through the air as he sought to regain his balance. With a sharp cry, he toppled backward.
There was a dull thump. Then all was silent except for the insistent blowing of the Runners’ whistles and the lapping of the water at the river’s edge.
Leaning his outstretched arms against the top of the wall, Sebastian hung his head and gasped for breath. On the rocks far below, the man lay sprawled on his back, his arms outflung, his eyes wide and unseeing.
“Bloody hell,” said Sebastian, and pushed away from the wall to swipe one muddy forearm across his sweat- drenched forehead.
“IF YOUR MAIN PURPOSE was to find out who he is,” said Sir Henry Lovejoy, staring down at the body at their feet, “then why did you kill him?”
Sebastian grunted. “I didn’t kill him. He fell.”
“Yes, of course.” Moving gingerly across the wet rocks, Lovejoy hunkered down beside the man’s still form and peered at the upturned face, ashen now in the moonlight. “Do you know who he is?”
