Page 93 of A Treacherous Trade
“Have an orderly call for a police wagon,” Croft boomed, his nostrils flaring and his eyes still bright from the stimulation of the chase. “I’m taking him to the Yard.”
“You can’t. Wound’s gone bad,” Mr. Not John Johnson rasped, moaning with apparent distress. “Bitch stabbed me! Arresther.”
“You will watch your mouth, or I’ll relieve it of all its teeth.” Croft’s own teeth didn’t unclench even to provide the threat.
“Tell me who paid you to attack me,” I demanded. “I know it was no random assault of chance.”
“Fuck you,” the man growled.
I held up a hand against Croft’s physical response, and to my surprise, it worked. He merely held the man with his arms painfully secured behind him.
I saw the telltale bloom of blood seeping through the layers of Mr. Johnson’s winter clothes. “I’ll convince my friend here to go easy on you if you just tell me who hired you to hurt me.”
“Weren’t supposed to ’urt you none. Just manhandle you a bit. She said it was to scare you off somefing. But you were a right cunt, and I thought you needed a lesson taught ya.”
I watched a strange transformation overtake Croft. Rather than exploding with a fiery rage as he sometimes did, he blinked, and a chilling calm settled over him like a mantle. He took extra care hauling the man to his feet, going so far as to brush little leaves and specks of grass from his shabby wool coat.
Then he leaned his face uncomfortably close to his captive and said in a barely audible voice, “I can’twaituntil we’re alone.”
To his credit, the prisoner didn’t show fear. Perhaps he was even less intelligent than he looked, if that were possible.
She.A woman had hired him. An exhilaration overtook me, the particular elation of being on the precipice of piecing together the solution to a problem that was assumed unsolvable.
“Who was she?” I asked.
His eyes narrowed to impossible slits. “Don’t know her name. Wouldn’t tell it ya if I did.”
“You’ll tell me,” Croft said before turning to me. “Dammit, Fiona, check if someone’s sent for the wagon. This piece of filth isn’t fit to speak in decent company.”
I ignored him, having seen at least a handful of people jump to follow his order to summon the police the moment he’d issued it. “Please.” I wasn’t above pleading with a piece of filth to get the information I so desperately needed. “Just tell me anything. Was she light or dark? Young or older?”
“She’s prettier thanyou,” he said, though it’d lost a bit of its effect due to his alarming pallor and the bloom of sweat on his brow. “Skinnier and sweeter, too. Offered to suck me cock for a penny after she paid me pounds. Took ’er up on it, I did. I like me whores young, fair-haired, and frilly rather than—”
Croft jostled him, jerking the arm on his injured side. “You were not born into this world, you were shat into it. And you will be nothing but the muck of ravens when I’m through with you.”
“Izzy,” I whispered, dumbfounded by the intensity of my hurt.
Both men stared at me with comically similar quizzical expressions.
“Isabelle James. She works at The Orchard. She was the only one who was kind to me. She gave me impression of a girl without guile.”
Johnson, or whatever his name was, snorted. “No such fing. All whores are good at acting. It’s how they make their money.”
“Enough out of you.” Croft shoved him forward, toward the street. “Amelia was to visit Beatrice with some tea and jams she’d made,” he told me.
“I’m on my way,” I said, dashing toward the street.
“No!” He could no sooner release his charge and chase me as he could stop me with mere words. “Fiona, you stay here. I’ll go myself once they arrive to gather this human stain.”
I already had my hand outstretched to hail a hackney, pretending I didn’t hear him.
“Say nothing to anyone at The Orchard!” he called after me, intelligent enough to realize there was no stopping me now, though his voice became increasingly louder. “And if you see a constable, you take him with you. Understand? Use my name. And don’t bloody confront any suspects!Fiona?”
I waved back at him. At least, I thought I did. My heart raced, each thump a painful bruise, my mind reeling with so many thoughts I couldn’t seem to pin one down.
“I’m bleeding,” my attacker complained. “Don’t ya have to show me to a doctor?”
“Oh, you’ll be bandaged,” Croft answered, though the rest of his reply was lost to the cacophony in my mind and a late London morning.
