Page 38 of Strangers in Time

They burst from the alley with the swift-footed Charlie in the lead, Lonzo right behind, and the shorter-legged Eddie bringing up the rear.

When they reached the street, Charlie shot across it, and Lonzo did so a moment later. They both looked back when they heard the squeal of wheels, the gnashing of brakes, the blaring of a horn, and, more distressing, the impact of flesh against metal. And, most horrifying of all, the screams.

The lorry had slammed into the constable right as he reached Eddie, hurling his body a good ten feet in the air. He landed with a sickening thud. Eddie had seen the truck coming and had ducked down; the lorry’s wheel rolled over his head.

Charlie had stopped so fast that Lonzo ran into him. They went down in a tangle of arms and legs. Charlie saw that the constable and Eddie were lying in the street a good many feet apart; both were motionless, their blood staining the road. The driver of the lorry climbed out and looked at the bodies with a dazed expression.

Charlie got to his feet and cried out, “Eddie!”

He was about to go back when Lonzo violently grabbed his arm. “No, Charlie. We got to run for it.”

“We got to go back,” protested Charlie.

“We go back there they’ll put us in prison for sure.”

“But—”

Lonzo pulled his knife. “I’ll gut you right ’ere. And then I’ll do your gran. Now move!”

“Hey, you there, you come back here,” the lorry driver, a bearded, beefy man, called out when he spotted them.

Charlie turned and sprinted away with Lonzo right behind. They ran for what seemed miles through much of sleeping London. Finally, they stopped, bent low, and gasped for breath. When Lonzo straightened he said haltingly, “You… you reckon Eddie…?”

Charlie said breathlessly, “I… I don’t think it’s good. I… I think he’s…”

“Shit.” Tough Lonzo looked to Charlie like he might start to weep.

Charlie understood this. Eddie was all Lonzo had.

Lonzo looked angrily at Charlie. “This is your damn fault.”

“It wasyouridea to go there, Lonzo.”

“But if you ’adn’t been sostupidas to brin’ the quid back,” he snarled in his misery. “And a copper done for on top’it. That’s… that’s a bloody ’angin’ job.”

Charlie had not considered this. “They won’t hang us, Lonzo. We ain’t old enough.”

“You stupid git! We’re just a pair of East End blokes, not worth nothin’.” He grabbed Charlie’s arm. “You keep your mouth shut, you ’ear me? You say one bleedin’ word ’a this, I’ll cut you upandyour gran, too. I swear it on me mum’s grave.”

“I ain’t sayin’ nothin’, Lonzo. I don’t want to hang.”

“You better not.” He let go, turned, and disappeared into the night.

Charlie, his limbs all still quivering, swiftly made his way back to Bethnal Green.

When he returned to his flat he opened Gran’s door and stood there staring at her lying on her mattress for the longest time. An image flashed through his mind of Lonzo breaking into their home, his knife raised, Gran screaming, and the blade coming down…

Trembling with fear and shock, he fled to his cupboard. He lay there fully dressed, his mind full of a darkness far blacker than the tar on the windows.

Eddie was dead. And a copper, too. Ahangingjob. What they had done tonight was a hanging job, thought Charlie.

His eyes were still open when Gran rose in the morning and kissed him goodbye. He leapt up and followed her, making sure she got to her bus all right and that Lonzo was nowhere around.

When Charlie got back to his bed he finally fell into an exhausted sleep, until the knock came hours later. He rose, thinking it must be the coppers and he would have to flee out the window, until he heardhervoice.

A FLEETINGMEETING

HELLO, CHARLIEMATTERS,”SHEsaid.

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