The gang were all now roaring with laughter at the ridiculous sight of their great leader floored by a girl half his size . . . all except Billy that is. He did not appreciate the joke. I could feel his hand shaking with anger, but he had to make light of it or risk losing their respect. I knew then I was in deep trouble.
‘Look, lads!’ he exclaimed, pulling on my ankle. ‘You saw that: she fair threw ’erself at me, she did. Couldn’t resist me!’
‘Let go, you beast!’ I shouted, kicking at him to release his grip, squirming and twisting on the muddy ground.
Without looking at me, Billy tightened his hold and got to his feet, in effect dragging me up upside down so I was left dangling powerlessly. My ankle hurt hellishly in his fist and I could feel all the blood rush to my head. Billy was now pretending not to hear my protests, play-acting as if I did not exist. This his gang found even funnier.
‘Anyone ’ear that cat meowin’?’ he asked his gang loudly, cupping his free hand to his ear. ‘Sounds in a bad way. Perhaps someone should put it out of its misery.’
The boys bellowed with laughter; Ferret-features doubled up with mirth. Then, suddenly, the laughter stopped. I felt the grip on my leg give way as I was dropped hurriedly to the floor. Next a pair of strong hands lifted me to my feet and clumsily brushed me down.
‘What you doing to Cat?’ asked Syd from behind me, his voice laced with menace.
Billy’s grin had frozen on his face. He looked pale, tensing for a fight.
‘We were just playin’, weren’t we, Cat?’ said Billy. ‘’Avin’ a laugh.’ His right hand was feeling for something in his pocket. I caught a glimpse of a blade in his palm.
‘I didn’t see her laughing,’ said Pedro, pushing his way forward to stand beside me, Lord Francis with him.
Billy shot Pedro a poisonous look and I could feel Syd’s bandaged hands tighten on my shoulders as he prepared himself for another battle. Panic fluttered in my stomach: I didn’t want to be the reason that more blood was split.
‘It was nothing, Syd. Let’s go,’ I muttered, turning away.
Syd looked down at my upturned face with a strange expression in his eyes: part pity, part understanding. I knew then he’d seen the knife too and was concerned for what would happen to me if this confrontation developed into a brawl. He addressed himself to Billy again. ‘I’ve ’ad enough fightin’ for one day, Boil, but I’ll take you all on if I find you touchin’ Cat again. Understand this: no one, but no one, messes with my Cat and gets away with it.’
Billy slipped his hand in his pocket for a second, then raised his hands, palms open, as if to say something placatory to his rival, but Syd ignored him, steered me round and marched me through the silent ranks of Billy’s gang. Having just seen him fell the Camden Crusher, no one wanted to chance their arm against him now.
Once we had reached the safety of Syd’s party of supporters, I felt relieved but also ashamed of myself. I should not have come to the match. I had run straight into trouble and almost come to grief. Syd’s father, a ruddy-faced man with fists like hams, gave me a disapproving stare as he watched his son usher me over to a stool at the ringside.
‘Let’s see that ankle, Cat,’ Syd said tenderly, taking off the rough woollen stocking on my right leg. Lord Francis, whom I suspected I had to thank for raising the alarm, hovered behind Syd, looking both embarrassed and anxious. Indeed my ankle was not a pretty sight: you could see the marks made by Billy’s fingers now blooming into red and blue bruises.
Syd’s frown deepened. ‘I should’ve punched his stupid face in ’ad I known ’e’d done this.’
‘It’s nothing, Syd,’ I said quickly, not wanting him to think I was bothered by so slight an injury. ‘As he said, he was just teasing.’
‘Teasing!’ exploded Pedro. ‘He had you upside down. That’s torture, not teasing. You shouldn’t play his game, Cat!’
‘I didn’t exactly ask to be treated like that!’ I answered, channelling the pain into anger at Pedro’s remark. ‘If you hadn’t all run off so quick, I wouldn’t have been left alone and he wouldn’t’ve dared pick on me!’ I stood up, intending to make a dignified exit, stamping off back home, but collapsed again as a stabbing pain shot up my leg.
‘Cat is right,’ said Lord Francis, looking abject. ‘We were most remiss to leave a lady on her own.’
‘We were what?’ asked Nick.
‘You shouldn’t’ve scarpered,’ I translated, ‘leaving me with that dung-ball Billy Shepherd.’
‘So that was Billy ‘Boil’ Shepherd?’ asked Lord Francis eagerly.
The knowledge that he had just been wrestling with one of London’s most infamous gang leaders seemed to restore his spirits, which had been depressed by Billy’s boot.
‘Let me make some amends for our lamentable neglect by paying for a chair to carry you home,’ he said, pulling out a guinea from his well-filled purse.
Nick and Syd stared at him in amazement.
‘Where’d you get that?’ asked Syd. ‘I’ll not ’ave you friends with no thief, Cat.’ He rounded on me, assuming that Lord Francis’s wealth must be ill-gotten.
‘Nothing to worry about, Syd,’ said Pedro, ‘it’s his. He’s not what he seems.’
Syd gave the blackened face of Lord Francis a hard stare. He may not be quick, but given time, Syd can usually see his way through a brick wall. ‘You a gent?’
Lord Francis glanced at Pedro anxiously. He now knew to fear the gang leaders of Covent Garden. He wasn’t to know that the mountain of muscle in front of him had a much sweeter nature . . . few people did.
‘He is,’ said Pedro.
‘What d’you mean bringin’ ’im along, Cat?’ Syd said angrily, immediately assuming it was all my fault. ‘Didn’t you stop to think what might ’appen to ’im if ’e was found out?’
‘It was my idea,’ said Pedro, but he could not draw Syd’s fire like that. Syd had got it fixed in his head that I must be responsible for the whole affair.