Young Sherlock Holmes_ Death Cloud - Andrew Lane [73]
He could see as he got halfway down that the alley finished in a brick wall. Sherlock’s eyes widened. He was trapped! He turned, desperately trying to work out if he had enough time to run back and find another way, but the men were closing in on him. There were five of them, he noted in a kind of terrified calm, and they were all holding knives or heavy sticks. He wasn’t going to get out of this alive.
A voice suddenly sounded very clearly in his head, and he couldn’t tell whether it was his brother’s voice, or Amyus Crowe’s voice or his own, but it said: ‘Alleys and roads lead from one place to another. An alley that ends in a brick wall is illogical. It has no purpose, and therefore should never have been built.’
Sherlock swung back and let his gaze scan the brickwork of the alley. No doors, no windows, nothing but a patch of shadow in one corner where the lacklustre sunlight could not penetrate.
And if there was a way out, that was where it would be.
He ran into the shadows. If there had been nothing there then he would have run straight into the brickwork, knocking himself out, but instead there was a slender gap. A means of escape.
The narrow walkway ran between two buildings. He raced along it, hearing shouts of frustration from behind him as the men tried to find the dark way out. Single file they stumbled into the walkway after him, the grunts of their breath echoing from the steep brick walls.
Zigzagging through the darkness, Sherlock stumbled out into a wide road lined with doors. He ran on, sensing boots hitting cobbles behind him, and skidded left into another alley, gaining himself a few yards more. A dog sprang out of a gap in the wall as he passed, but he was gone before its teeth closed on empty air. Instead, it turned on the men chasing him. Sherlock heard furious barking and the sound of cursing as the men tried to get away from it. He winced at the noise of a boot thudding into something soft. The dog whimpered and scrabbled away.
Scooting round another corner, he ran full tilt into a man and woman walking along the side of the Thames, sending the man sprawling and himself spinning backwards.
‘You little beggar!’ the man shouted, heaving himself back to his feet. ‘I’ll teach you what for!’ He started pushing the sleeves of his jacket up, revealing muscle-swollen forearms covered with blue tattoos of anchors and mermaids.
‘Don’t touch him, Bill. He didn’t mean it!’ The woman clutched at her companion’s arm. Her skin was white with badly applied make-up, her lips a crimson slash, her eyes shaded with black powder. The effect was to make her face look like a skull. ‘He’s only a kid.’
‘I thought he was a thief,’ the man growled again, but less aggressively this time.
‘There’s men after me,’ Sherlock said through his heavy panting. ‘I need help.’
‘You know what they do to boys round here,’ the woman said. ‘I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Bill, do something. Help the lad.’
‘Get behind me,’ Bill said. Sleeves pushed up, he was obviously itching for a fight not too concerned who it was with. Sherlock slipped behind the man’s massive bulk as his pursuers came around the corner.
‘Stop right there,’ Bill said, his voice low and full of the promise of violence. ‘Let the kid be.’
‘Not a chance,’ said Denny, who was at the forefront of the five men. He brought his hand up, and he was holding a knife. Light trickled along the edge of the blade like a glowing liquid. ‘He’s ours.’
Bill reached out to take the knife, but Denny tossed it from his right hand to his left and punched it forward, into Bill’s chest. The man fell to his knees, coughing blood, a disbelieving look on his face as if he couldn’t accept that these moments, here in this alley, would be his last.
Denny smiled at Sherlock as Bill fell forward on to the cobbled surface of the road. ‘With you,’ he promised, ‘it won’t be so quick.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sherlock’s whole body seemed to freeze in horror and disbelief, then a white heat of rage passed through him. Stepping forward, he punched his fist hard