didn’t need an invitation. Making the most of her opportunity, she grabbed her tray and backed clear of the danger.
Black-Hair was spluttering and wiping beer from screwed-up eyes with great rough tattooed hands. His hair was sodden and glistening with beer. It ran in rivulets down his cheeks and over his chin to drip its tea-coloured stain on to the grubby white of the shirt that covered his barrel chest. The shoulders of his shabby brown-woollen jacket were dark as rain-soaked earth. Even the front of his grey trousers was dark with it. He stank like a brewery.
His small bloodshot eyes swivelled to the perpetrator.
The hubbub of chatter and laughter and clank of glasses had ceased. There was curiosity and a whispered hush as everyone watched.
Emma shifted her gaze to follow that of the black-haired lout and saw the subject of her earlier covert study standing there. Tall, still, calm.
‘Sorry about that. Slip of the hand.’ The words might have offered apology, but the way the man said them suggested otherwise. His voice was the same East End accent as theirs, but low in tone, clear in volume, quietly menacing in its delivery.
‘Oh, you’ll be damn sorry all right!’ Black-Hair’s chair legs scraped loud against the wooden floorboards as he got to his feet. ‘You’ll be pissing yourself, mate, by the time I’ve finished with you.’
The man let his gaze drop pointedly to the dark sodden front of Black-Hair’s trousers, then rose again to meet his eyes. There was a glimmer of hard amusement in them. He raised the eyebrow with the scar running through it, the one that Emma thought made him look like a handsome rogue. ‘Looks like you got there first.’
The crowd sniggered at that.
Black-Hair’s face flushed puce. His little piggy eyes narrowed on the man like an enraged bull. He cracked his knuckles as he made a fist.
By some unspoken command Black-Hair’s four friends got to their feet, making their involvement clear. Any trace of curiosity and amusement fled the room’s atmosphere. It was suddenly sharp-edged with threat.
The hush spread. Every man in the chop-house was riveted on what was unfolding before Emma.
The nape of her neck prickled.
‘Settle down, boys,’ said Nancy. ‘There’s no harm done. Sit down and drink your pints before they get warm.’
But not one of the men moved. They all stayed put, stood where they were, eyeing each other like dogs with their hackles raised.
‘We don’t want no trouble in here. You got a disagreement, you take it outside.’ Nancy tried to come closer, but two men stepped into her path to stop her progress, murmuring advice—two regulars intent on keeping her safe.
No one heeded her anyway. Not the black-haired villain and his cronies. And not the man.
In the background Paulette’s face, like every other, was lit with excited and wary anticipation.
The man’s expression was implacable. He looked almost amused.
‘I’m going to kill you,’ said Black-Hair.
‘And there was me thinking you were offering to buy me a replacement porter,’ said the man.
‘You ain’t gonna be able to hold a pint of porter, let alone drink one, I swear.’
Emma’s blood ran cold. She knew what men like this in Whitechapel did to one another. This was not the first fight she had seen and the prospect of what was coming made her feel queasy.
The man smiled again, a smile that went nowhere near those cool blue eyes. ‘You really want to do this?’ he asked with a hint of disbelief and perplexity.
‘Too late to start grovelling now,’ said Black-Hair.
‘That’s a shame.’
There was not one sound in the whole of the chop-house. The silence hissed. No one moved. All eyes were on the man, Emma’s included. Staring with fascinated horror. Five ruffians against one man. The outcome was certain.
The black-haired man stepped closer to the man, squaring up to him, violent intent spilling from every pore.
She swallowed. Felt a shiver chase over her skin.
The man did not seem to feel the same. He smiled. It was a cold, hard smile. His eyes showed nothing of softness, not one hint of fear. Indeed, he looked as if he welcomed what would come. The blood. The violence. Five men against one. Maybe he really did have a death wish after all.
‘Someone stop them. Please,’ she said, but it was a plea that had no hope of being answered.
An old man pulled her back. ‘Ain’t no one going to stop them now, girl.’
He was right. She knew it and so did every single person in that taproom.
The black-haired brute cracked his knuckles and stretched his massive bull neck, ready to dispense punishment.
Emma held her breath. Her fingers were balled, her nails cutting into her palms.
The man’s movement was so fast and unexpected. One minute he was standing there. The next, he had landed a head butt against the lout’s nose. There was a sickening crunch. And blood. A lot of blood. Black-Hair doubled over as if bending in to meet the man’s knee that hit his face. The speed and suddenness of it shocked her. It shocked the men in there, too. She could tell by the look on their faces as they watched the black-haired giant go down. The ruffian was blinking and gasping with the shock of it as he lay there.
Emma watched in disbelief. Every muscle in her body tensed with shock. She held her breath for what would happen next.
‘Too late to start grovelling,’ the man said.
Leaning one hand on the floor, Black-Hair spat a bloody globule to land on the toe of the man’s boot and reached for a nearby chair.
‘But if you insist...’ The man stepped closer to Black-Hair, his bloodied boot treading on the giant’s splayed fingers, his hand catching hold of the villain’s outstretched hand as if he meant to help him to his feet. But it was not help he offered. He gave the wrist a short sharp twist, the resulting crack of which made Emma and the rest of the audience wince.
Black-Hair’s face went ashen. He made not one sound, just fainted into a crumpled heap and did not move.
In the stunned amazement that followed no one else moved either. There was not a sound.
‘He might need a little help in holding his porter,’ said the man to Black-Hair’s friends.
‘You bastard!’ One of them spat the curse.
The man smiled again. And this time Emma was prepared.
The tough charged with fists at the ready.
The man’s forehead shattered the villain’s cheekbone while his foot hooked around his ankle and felled him. When the rat tried to get up the man kicked his feet from under him. This time Black-Hair’s friend stayed where he was.
