Before he could do that, he needed to manage the situation around him. Rosie, as he’d quickly discovered the young mother’s name to be, had protected the baby at the expense of her own hands and knees, all of which were torn, but the baby was unharmed, mercifully. The man had assured Albert that he was going to be okay, though he was white as a sheet, and insisted he could wait while Albert tended to the young lady and infant. With an ambulance on route and the police alerted, Albert helped Rosie back toward a car parked at the edge of the road. There, he convinced her to take the weight off her feet by leaning on it.
‘If you feel faint at all, just put your head down and call for me,’ he urged her. ‘I’m going to check on the gentleman who was attacked.’
Rosie murmured, ‘Okay,’ but her attention was all on the baby which was beginning to get uppity.
‘Hello,’ Albert said as he approached the man in the suit. ‘How are you feeling now?’ The colour was coming back to the man’s cheeks and he didn’t seem to be injured. ‘Can I ask your name? Mine’s Albert,’ Albert said to get the man talking.
The man was using his left hand to brush a mark from his suit where he knelt it on the pavement earlier to retrieve his money. He looked across at Albert when he spoke. ‘Alan Crystal.’ He switched his briefcase from right hand to left, extending his right hand to shake. ‘Was that your dog?’ he asked.
The question caused Albert to wince with worry and check back along the road to see if Rex was anywhere in sight. ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘I’m beginning to worry about him.’
‘He did me quite the favour then,’ the man admitted. Picking up his briefcase once more, he joined Albert in looking down the street. ‘No sign of him?’
Other people were joining them now. Albert didn’t think anyone other than he and Rex had seen the attack, but it was clear to anyone looking now, that something had happened, and Rosie’s distressed state was plain to see. He wanted to ask Alan about the surprising amount of money in his briefcase. In his experience, no one in their right mind carried around bundles of notes like that. It was the sort of thing a person saw in a movie where a ransom was being paid. The uninvited thought made him scratch his chin as another question surfaced. He couldn’t ask any of them though, not just because it was none of his business, but because the small gathering of concerned people was growing more numbers by the second.
The baby was really starting to wind up, the sound coming from it roughly the same volume as an air raid siren. ‘Can one of you help me?’ Rosie asked, her tone pleading and still coming out as a sob.
Both men sprung to her aid. ‘What can we do, my dear?’ asked Albert.
‘I need to get the baby out of the sling, but my hands are really sore.’ Albert willingly approached, but once standing in front of her, he was struck by how complex the simple task might be.
Staring at the baby, and definitely not the woman’s voluminous chest, he cautiously lifted his hands, but paused more than a foot away as he twisted his hands this way and that. ‘How do I …’
Rosie came to him, bumping herself away from the car, ‘You just have to pull the folds apart a little and reach your hands down inside. Grab Teddy under his arms and pull him upwards. He’ll just slide out.
The small, but gathering, crowd around them spewed forth a volunteer. ‘Here, I’ll do it,’ said a youth of about fourteen with a leering look. His mates laughed as he stepped forward with his hands already in the famous grab-your-boobs pose.
Rosie frowned and was probably about to say something cutting when Albert distracted her by tackling the task. The wailing noise from little Teddy defied belief, yet there seemed no end to it. Rosie had her head turned to one side since Albert was right inside her personal space, close enough that he caught a trace of her perfume when he slid his hands in around the baby.
Sirens boomed into life a street over, the sound echoing off the buildings. To Albert it was a welcome noise that meant the cavalry would soon arrive to rescue him. Focused on getting the task done so he could hand the baby to someone else and protect his hearing before Teddy made him deaf, Albert probably should have questioned why the baby was so squishy. A heartbeat later, as he tried to lift him and realisation dawned, his head shot around to look into Rosie’s face.
‘That is not the baby you have hold of,’ she growled.
Quickly opening his right hand and groping, quite literally, around, he managed to find something that felt much more like a tiny ribcage. With a final scream of success from Teddy, Albert pulled the baby clear and Rosie, injured hands still held aloft, was able to step away.
When finally, the police arrived ten seconds later, Teddy was back with his mother and beginning to settle. The moment the police got within earshot, he started toward them, it was time to find Rex.
Lost Dog
Rex followed the moped to where it had turned off the road and then carried on for a distance trying to track the scent. He hadn’t been able to get a decent enough sample of the man’s scent as he chased him. There were too many other smells around to be sure which was distinctly his. In contrast, the smell left behind by the moped was easy to follow.
