particular, are we?’ Hocking sneered, though he did not insist on receiving any deposit. ‘What do you want, Major? A redhead? A blackbird? Fat? Skinny?’
‘Just young,’ Sharpe said. He felt dirty even though he was merely pretending.
‘She’ll be young, Major,’ Hocking said and held out his hand to seal the bargain. Sharpe took the hand and suppressed a shudder when Hocking held on to it. Hocking gripped hard, frowning. ‘It’s strange,’ he said, ‘but you do look familiar.’
‘I was raised in Yorkshire,’ Sharpe lied. ‘Maybe you were up there once?’
‘I don’t travel to foreign places.’ Hocking let go of Sharpe’s hand and stood. ‘Joe here will show you where to wait, but if I was you, Major, I’d watch the dogs for a while.’
Joe was one of the two young men and he jerked his head to show that Sharpe should follow him through the tavern’s back door. Sharpe knew what to expect there, for when Beaky Malone had been alive Sharpe had helped in that back room which was little more than a long and gloomy shed raised above the yards of three houses. It stank of animals. There were storerooms at either end of the shed, but most of the space had been converted into a makeshift arena of banked wooden benches that enclosed a pit twelve feet in diameter. The pit’s floor was sand and was surrounded by a barrier of planks.
‘It’s in there,’ Joe said, indicating one of the storerooms. ‘It ain’t luxury, but there’s a bed.’
‘I’ll wait out here,’ Sharpe said.
‘When the dogs are done,’ Joe explained, ‘wait in the room.’
Sharpe climbed to the topmost bench where he sat close under the roof beams. Six oil lamps hung above the pit, which was spattered with blood. The shed stank of it, and of gin, tobacco and meat pies. There must have been a hundred men on the benches and a handful of women. Some of the spectators watched Sharpe as he climbed the steps. He did not fit in here and the silver buttons of his uniform coat made them nervous. All uniforms unsettled these folk, and spectators made room for him on the bench just as a tall man with a hooked nose climbed over the plank barrier. ‘The next bout, ladies and gentlemen,’ the man bellowed, ‘is between Priscilla, a two-year-old bitch, and Nobleman, a dog of three years. Priscilla is by way of being the property of Mister Philip Machin’ – the name provoked a huge cheer – ‘while Nobleman,’ the man went on when there was silence, ‘was bred by Mister Roger Collis. You may place your wagers, gentlemen and ladies, and I do bid you all good fortune.’
A boy climbed to Sharpe’s bench, wanting to take his money, but Sharpe waved the lad away. Jem Hocking had appeared on a lower bench now and the wagers were being carried to his clerk. Another man, as thin as the ringmaster, threaded his way up the crowded benches to sit beside Sharpe. He looked about thirty, had hooded eyes, long hair and a flamboyant red handkerchief knotted about his skinny neck. He slid a knife from inside a boot and began cleaning his fingernails. ‘Lumpy wants to know who the hell you are, Colonel,’ he said.
‘Who’s Lumpy?’ Sharpe asked.
‘Him.’ The thin man nodded at the ringmaster.
‘Beaky’s son?’
The man gave Sharpe a very suspicious look. ‘How would you know that, Colonel?’
‘Because he looks like Beaky,’ Sharpe said, ‘and you’re Dan Pierce. Your mother lived in Shadwell and she only had one leg, but that never stopped her whoring, did it?’ The knife was suddenly just beneath Sharpe’s ribs, its point pricking his skin. Sharpe turned and looked at Pierce. ‘You’d kill an old friend, Dan?’
Pierce stared at Sharpe. ‘You’re not …’ he began, then checked. The knife was still in Sharpe’s side. ‘No,’ Pierce said, not trusting his suspicions.
Sharpe grinned. ‘You and me, Dan? We used to run errands for Beaky.’ He turned and looked at the ring where the dog and the bitch were being paraded. The bitch was excited, straining at the leash as she was led about the ring. ‘She looks lively,’ Sharpe said.
‘A lovely little killer,’ Pierce declared, ‘quick as a fish, she is.’
‘But too lively,’ Sharpe said. ‘She’ll waste effort.’
‘You’re Dick Sharpe, aren’t you?’ The knife vanished.
‘Jem doesn’t know who I am,’ Sharpe said, ‘and I want it to stay that way.’
‘I’ll not tell the bastard. Is it really you?’
Sharpe nodded.
‘An officer?’
Sharpe nodded again.
Pierce laughed. ‘Bloody hell. England’s run out of gentlemen?’
Sharpe smiled. ‘That’s about it, Dan. Have you got money on the bitch?’
‘The dog,’ Pierce said. ‘He’s good and steady.’ He stared at Sharpe. ‘You really are Dick Sharpe.’
‘I really am,’ Sharpe said, though it had been twenty years since he had last been in this rat pit. Beaky Malone had always prophesied that Sharpe would end up on the gallows, but somehow he had survived. He had run from London, gone to Yorkshire, murdered, joined the army to escape the law and there found a home. He had been promoted until, one hot day on a dusty battlefield in India, he had become an officer. Sharpe had come from this gutter and earned the King’s commission and now he was going back. The army did not want him, so he would say goodbye to the army, but first he needed money.
He watched as the timekeeper held up a great turnip watch. A coin had been tossed and the bitch was to fight first. The dog was lifted out of the ring and two cages were handed across the planks. A small boy unlatched the cages, tipped them, then vaulted the planks.
Thirty-six rats scuttled about the sand.
‘Are you up and ready?’ the ringmaster shouted. The crowd cheered.
‘Five seconds!’ the timekeeper, a drunken schoolmaster, called, then peered at his watch. ‘Now!’
The bitch was released and Sharpe and Pierce leaned forward. The bitch was good. The first two rats died before the others even realized a predator was among them. She nipped them by the neck, shook them vigorously and dropped them promptly, but then her excitement overtook her and she wasted valuable seconds snapping at three or four rats in turn. ‘Shake them!’ her owner bawled, his voice lost in the crowd’s cheers. She ran into a knot of the rats and started working again, ignoring the beasts that attacked her, but then she would not let go of a big black victim. ‘Drop it! Dead ‘un!’ her owner screamed. ‘Drop it! Drop it, you bastard bitch! It’s a dead ’un!’
‘She’s too young,’ Pierce said. ‘I told Phil to give her another six months. Let her practise, I said, but he wouldn’t listen. Cloth ears, that’s his problem.’ He stared at Sharpe. ‘I can’t believe it. Dick Sharpe a bloody jack pudding.’ He meant officer, for a jack pudding was a motley fool from the fairground, a clown dressed in fake finery and with donkey’s ears pinned to his hair. ‘Hocking didn’t recognize you?’
‘I don’t want him to either.’
‘I won’t
