Young Sherlock Holmes_ Death Cloud - Andrew Lane [43]
‘You thought you could break into our barn an’ get away with it?’ he snarled. ‘You was seen running off from the blaze like the rat you are.’ He reached for Sherlock’s hair with his left hand. ‘Prepare to meet your Maker!’
Sherlock backed into the corner of the tiny deck area, feeling the breeze as Clem’s flailing fingers passed in front of his eyes. The man was so close that Sherlock could smell the rank, sweaty odour rising from his rough clothes and see the dirt ingrained beneath his chipped fingernails.
Clem lunged forward and wound his fingers into Sherlock’s hair, pulling the boy forward. Sherlock couldn’t help crying out at the pain as his hair was almost yanked out of his scalp. For a moment, bizarrely, the memory of Albert tearing clumps of grass out of the riverbank filled his mind.
Clem pulled Sherlock against his shirt and gazed down into the boy’s eyes. Sherlock could feel Clem’s right hand coming up towards his throat, holding the knife. He was seconds away from having his throat slit open, and he didn’t even know why!
Something slammed against Clem’s back. Clem’s eyes widened in shock, and Sherlock felt the tight grip on his hair relax. He took a step backwards, pushing Clem away with both hands. The man didn’t resist, but staggered back before shuffling round, taking exaggeratedly careful steps.
Matty stood behind Clem. He was holding the boathook raised in both hands. For a moment Sherlock couldn’t quite work out what had happened, and then, as Clem turned fully towards Matty, Sherlock could see a deep and bloody gash running down the back of his head from the crown to his thick, bullish neck. The skin was split open, and Sherlock could see white bone beneath the blood. Matty had hit him squarely on the back of the head with the boathook.
Clem took a step forward towards Matty, and then another. He raised the hand that held the knife, but he didn’t seem to know what to do with it. He gazed stupidly at the knife, and then he toppled sideways, off the narrowboat and into the river, like a falling tree. The splash as he hit the surface of the water reached up almost as far as the bridge. For a moment Sherlock could see Clem’s face as he sank, and the expression of disbelief in his mad eyes, and then he was vanishing into the murk and sediment at the bottom of the river. His hands were the last to disappear, fingers waving like weeds in the current, and then they too were gone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sherlock was still shivering by the time the sun was fully above the horizon and hanging in the sky behind the black silhouettes of the trees like an overripe fruit. Clem’s grip on his shoulder had left a deep ache that radiated downward into his back. If he looked he was sure he would find bruises there – five oval bruises left by four fingers and a thumb.
After the attack, after Clem had sunk in the water and his companion had run off, Matty and Sherlock had just stared at each other for a few moments, shocked by the sudden violence and the equally sudden cessation.
‘He wasn’t trying to steal the boat,’ Matty had whispered eventually. ‘He was trying to destroy it. I’ve had coves trying to steal it before, but why would someone want to burn it? I never seen ’em before! What have I ever done to them?’
‘They wanted me,’ Sherlock had said reluctantly. ‘That was one of the men from the warehouse. I think he was in charge – at least, in charge of the men who were there. The Baron that they talked about is really in charge. He must have seen me leaving the warehouse when it was burning and realized that I’d overheard them. But I don’t know how they tracked us down to the barge.’ He had shaken his head in disbelief. ‘What is it that they’re doing that they’re willing to kill us to protect their secret? What is that important?’
Matty had just stared at Sherlock as if he’d been betrayed, then he had abruptly turned away and flicked the rope to get the horse moving again.
And now, as the sun was rising