His thin eyes met hers. ‘Thank you,’ he said, handing over his money.
The man’s lips pursed and he was about to say something else, when the street door was suddenly thrown wide, clattering back on its hinges. The oil lamps flickered and conversation momentarily ebbed, as the patrons of the Black Horse turned to see the cause of the disruption. Standing in the doorway was little Ann Lovekin, her young face streaming with tears.
‘Ann! Whatever do you be doing in here?’ Eliza yelled across the bar, as conversations around the room resumed.
‘It’s Hattie—she be gone again!’ Ann sobbed. ‘I be having a terrible night, Ma!’
Eliza shot a look at her husband then darted towards her daughter.
‘That addle-headed girl! She be a-wanting a good bannicking,’ Joseph ranted. ‘Eliza, you be staying here and I be finding her.’
‘Want help, Joe?’ George Fox, one of the fishermen offered.
‘Thank you,’ Joseph answered, hurrying towards the door.
‘I be a-helping, too,’ added Walter Croft, another of the fishermen.
Eliza watched as the three men darted from the gin palace and was left cradling her sobbing daughter. Her worry for Harriet’s safety only intensified when the moments before Ann had burst into the pub sprung into her mind. She was sure that she recognised a figure loitering at the back of the gin palace. Her eyes searched him out but he was gone. It couldn’t have been him, she told herself. Not after all these years. Not Mr Honeysett. Not here.
Joseph stepped from the bright interior of the gin palace with George and Walter close behind. Tossing his head left and right, he listened intently, but could hear nothing other than the clamour coming from his own public house and the distant rumblings of the sea. He threw open the street door to his house. ‘Hattie? Hattie? You be in there?’
From the darkness of the room came Keziah’s feeble voice. ‘She don’t be here, Pa.’
‘Get up to your bed, Keziah,’ Joseph ordered.
‘George, you search the shoreline and up onto Cuckoo Hill. Walter, you search the Breeds’s yards, the tanneries and up towards the Priory Stream.’
The two men darted off, calling Harriet’s name into the cold night-time air. Joseph ran around the corner and hammered on Widow Elphick’s door. ‘Christopher Elphick—do you be in there?’ He knocked on the window shutters and repeated his call.
‘What be the problem, Mr Lovekin?’ Christopher stammered, opening the door.
‘Hattie—she be gone—do you be seeing her this night?’ Joseph questioned, his misgivings obvious from his tone.
Christopher’s face flushed and he shook his head vehemently. ‘No, no—I ain’t be seeing her since the night of Ma’s accident, surely.’
Joseph turned and headed away from the house.
‘Wait! Mr Lovekin—I be a-knowing where she might be.’
Joseph stopped and swung around. ‘Speak, Christopher.’
‘I don’t wonder if she be up on Cuckoo-’
A bloodcurdling scream sliced through Christopher’s sentence and there was the briefest snatch of a second where joint recognition occurred in the two men’s eyes, before instinct sent them in the direction of the cry.
As adrenalin coursed through his body, like as had not happened since the French wars, Joseph knew where he would find his daughter; he only hoped that he wasn’t too late. He raced through the alleyways as another scream rose into the air—this one was curtailed and quickly stifled into silence. Joseph tore around the corner and emerged before the five tenements of ill fame. Such was his speed and concentration that he failed to see George Fox who, having also heard the cries from Cuckoo Hill, was sprinting towards Harriet. The two collided in a thump and fell to the stony ground.
As Joseph tumbled backward, his head slammed into the brick wall of the Breeds’s yard and he fell flat on his back, watching as the stars faded from the sky and darkness enveloped him. George Fox, too, had been floored by the impact and was moaning as he writhed on the floor.
Christopher, watching the collision just a few paces in front of him, veered around the two men and slowed his pace, listening for further clues as to Harriet’s whereabouts. In his peripheral vision, the shadows moved unnaturally and Christopher’s gaze concentrated on the formless black shape. It shifted again and he picked up his pace towards it. ‘Hattie? Do you be there?’ he called.
The shadows twitched and Christopher knew that Harriet was struggling against someone. Quickly and suddenly, he was upon them. Harriet was being pinned against the wall by a giant brute, one hand around her throat and the other over her mouth. Christopher knew that he was no match for the man, but he didn’t care; the only thought running through his mind was to free Harriet. With Mr Fox and Mr Lovekin out of action, Christopher knew that he needed to think fast but he also knew that a blind act of heroism could end up with both of them being seriously injured or worse. ‘Let her go—now!’ Christopher commanded breathlessly. His youthful voice shone a light on his vulnerability and he heard Harriet’s assailant laughing. Harriet squirmed again and Christopher knew that had no choice but to try and free her. Lunging noisily at the man, he launched his right foot sharply into the man’s shinbone.
The brute yelped and momentarily loosened his grip on Harriet’s mouth.
‘Christopher!’ came Harriet’s winded, guttural cry.
Christopher drew back his fist and slammed it into the man’s face, feeling a soft crack under his fingers as his knuckles met with the man’s nose.
The brute was clearly taken aback at Christopher’s unexpected bravery. An unearthly roar bellowed out from him, as he finally released his grip on Harriet and switched his focus towards Christopher. A succession of left and right punches—almost
