Shanghai Sparrow Read Online Free PDF Page B

held his hands up. “That,” she said, “that was a right munge. What were you trying to do, pat me on the arse? Saw you coming halfway down the street.” The nice young country girl the cook had fed with cake was gone like the hallucination she was; now Eveline was a city rat, all lash and grimy bite.
    The boy swore and tried to kick her shins.
    “Need some help, love?”
    Eveline glanced at the grinning, broad-shouldered man standing behind the boy, an ancient stained bowler tilted over one eye.
    Her captive hunched and tried to twist out of her grip. “ He needs help more’n I do,” she said. “Bugger off, then. Juggins.” She let go. The boy gave her a final look of fierce dislike, spat at her feet and darted off into the crowd.
    “Not a local, is he?” said the smiling man. “Or he’d know better.” He eyed her maid’s getup. “You going into service, turning respectable? That’d be a waste, that would.”
    “No,” she said. “I gotta go, Bartie, Ma’s waiting.”
    “Tell her I said hello.” He waved jauntily and set his hat to an even more aggressive tilt before striding off. Eveline watched him go with slightly narrowed eyes. Bartholomew Simms thought well of himself, but she didn’t like him. He gave her the cold grue. He ran a string of girls, and she heard things. Well, he wasn’t getting her into that line of work. Like Sal said, she was better off with Ma.
     
     
    “W ELL, HOW WAS it?” Ma Pether was seated at the vast littered table, a chewed and weary cheroot in the corner of her mouth, poking a screwdriver at something that looked like a dismantled pistol with a bulbous barrel and a fancy chased-silver stock. Evvie moved around to one side of the table, so the barrel wasn’t pointing at her. She knew Ma and her mechanisms.
    There was a pop and a spurt of vapour; something pinged off into a corner of the room, and Ma swore.
    “Did I hear you cheeking Bartholomew, Sparrow-Girl?”
    “No, Ma.”
    Ma raised her head. She had a jeweller’s glass screwed into one eye; the other was grey, sharp, ready to be amused or to glower. Her strong coppery-blonde hair was streaked with white, pulled back in a rough bun under a net. She wore a coarse cotton shirt, a hide weskit and battered canvas trousers.
    “Better not. I know you ain’t never going to be best of friends, and let’s be honest, he ain’t none of mine either, but he’s too useful to go making an enemy of. Enemies are bad seeds you sowed yerself, remember.”
    “Yes, Ma.”
    “So, the house. Anyone scope you?” Eveline had given her answer some thought on her way home. She’d been pleased with how her morning’s business had gone, but the more she’d thought about it, the more Grey-Coat had wormed his way into her head.
    If he was a copper and she didn’t tell Ma about him and there were consequences, she’d be up to her neck in shit. And if Ma had sent him herself, the fact that Evvie had spotted him would show Ma how good Evvie was.
    “The house went well,” she said. “I know where everything is, and it’ll be empty on Whitsun. But there was someone hanging about. Not while I was checking the place, but after, a good street away. Smelled like a bluebottle, though he wasn’t in uniform. Darkish, not so tall, in a grey coat. Neat-looking.” She eyed Ma for some sign of recognition, but Ma’s frown looked genuine. “Seemed like he was watching me. Well, he wasn’t actually watching me, I just got that feeling that he’d been looking, and looked away, just as I caught him. I’d not have made anything of it, only I think I seen him before. Anyway, I lost him.”
    “I hope you weren’t staring, Evvie. You know what I taught you.”
    “‘Staring’s foolish, staring stinks, staring gets you thrown in clink.’ Yes, Ma, I remember .”
    “You’d better. You seen him before. When and where?”
    “Down the docks, about three days back. I dunno what made me take notice, only he didn’t seem quite right .