Lovers Meeting Read Online Free Page A

villainous trade. Another pack of four, dirty and shifty eyed, saw David Langley on his way to the shipping agents. His route took him through a maze of streets where all the houses seemed to be tenements. They teemed with grubby children and harassed women. He wound his way through them and the four skulked after him. But then, thinking he saw a short cut, he turned into an alley that led to a court that was dark even in the light of day. Here there was not a soul to be seen and here the gang struck. They spread out and one overtook David and swung round in front of him. He demanded hoarsely, black and stained teeth showing through his straggly beard, ‘Cough up!’ He held out one hand open, palm up, while the other pulled a short iron bar from his pocket.
    David checked for a second, startled, but then his reaction was automatic and he lashed out. His fist struck the other full in the face and he staggered back, but then his partners closed in from each side and behind. One locked his hands round David’s neck and the other two seized his arms. He struggled desperately and the panting, cursing group staggered about in the gloom of the court. The bearded one wielding the iron bar stepped in again but took David’s boot on his shin and yelped with pain and rage. ‘You bastard!’ And he struck out with his weapon.
    David’s jaw dropped as the club came down on his head. He slumped among his captors. For a second they held him up, then they let him go and he crumpled and fell in the dirt.
    One of them cursed, ‘You mad bugger! You’ve killed him!’
    No one argued; the result of that fearful blow was obvious. Another muttered, ‘You could swing for this.’
    But the bearded killer whined, ‘We’re all in it together!’ Then he shoved the iron bar in his pocket and ran, the others racing after him.
    When Reuben passed that way an hour later there was a policeman beside the blanket-covered corpse. An ambulance with its team of two sweating horses stood nearby. A crowd surrounded them, all talking about the young man who had been killed. Reuben stood back and listened.
    ‘Bloody murder! … Smashed his head open! … He was dead when they found him so they could ha’ walked them poor horses ’stead o’ whipping ’em along here at a gallop … could ha’ been you or me …’
    He shrugged – the man meant nothing to him – and went up to the room. He joined his mother and sisters, all of them drunk now, and took a bottle from one of them. He drank and coughed as the raw spirit caught at his throat, but slowly his temper improved. He consoled himself that he would not have to put up with them for much longer. He was making far more money than he could have done by working. He took the lion’s share of everything the gang stole and he saw to it that they worked hard at it. He knew he had the power to charm or terrify and that those gifts would make him rich.
    He told himself that must come first. He would wreak his revenge on William and all the Langleys but in his own good time. He knew where to find them.
    ‘You are Mrs Langley, wife of Mr David Langley?’ A policeman brought the news. He stood blue and burly in the dim hallway of the boarding house with its aspidistra on a table and its smell of boiled cabbage. Peggy Langley was nervous, standing in his shadow with little Josie holding to her skirt, then distraught with grief and shock when he told her awkwardly that David was dead. She knew she had to control herself for the sake of the child at her side and at first there was disbelief. Hadn’t she kissed David, and seen him saunter off, only an hour or so ago? But then the policeman produced David’s wallet and notebook, in which he had written the address of the boarding house. So she knew it was true.
    Josie asked in a whisper, afraid of the big policeman, ‘What’s the matter, Mam?’ The tears rolled down Peggy’s cheeks, and now Mrs Entwistle came waddling to comfort her, with Herbert Entwistle