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panting breath of someone hot on my heels. If I didn’t get out of sight, it was all up with me. I took a sharp right, dodging out of view of my pursuers for a few precious seconds, and dived under the cheese-monger’s stall. Mrs Peters was minding the shop . . . a lucky thing for me, for she was known to be a kind-hearted woman.
    ‘Hide me, please!’ I hissed to her plump ankles.
    ‘Lawd love us, Cat!’ she muttered. ‘What scrape ’ave you got into now?’
    I had no time to reply, for Billy Shepherd had arrived at her stall. I shrank close to a churn, hoping he would not think to look under the table. My hiding place had the sour smell of milk on the turn, but in my present situation I could not afford to be too particular.
    ‘Oi, missus! Which way she go?’ asked Billy, panting hard.
    ‘’Oo’s that?’ Mrs Peters replied with forced cheerfulness, though I could see her knuckles were white as she clenched a cloth by her side. All of the stallholders had reason to fear Billy Shepherd. He was a nasty piece of work who would not think twice about wrecking their business if it suited him. They had been appealing to Syd to do something about Billy and we all knew a confrontation was brewing.
    ‘Don’t be clever with me,’ growled Billy. ‘Cat . . . that red-’aired girl from the theatre. ‘’Oo else d’you think I mean?’
    ‘Oh, ’er,’ said Mrs Peters as if the daylight ofunderstanding was just dawning in her benighted mind. ‘I saw ’er run off down Russell Street as if the devil ’imself were after ’er.’
    Billy swore. ‘I don’t believe you, you old cow. She couldn’t get so far so fast.’
    ‘If you don’t believe me, search my stall then . . . and ’is . . . and ’ers.’ She waved her cloth at the other stallholders. This was a high-risk strategy on her part. I slid as close as I could to the churn, feeling the metal cold on my cheek. ‘I’ve got nuffink to ’ide from the likes of you.’
    ‘Watch it, woman, or my boys will be paying you a call one of these nights.’
    Mrs Peters fell silent. Would Billy take up her invitation to search the stall? If he did, I was dead. But perhaps the thought of poking around amidst the highly smelling cheeses deterred him. He hesitated just long enough for one of his boys to come running back to him.
    ‘Billy, Blackie’s been spotted. Over ’ere!’
    The hobnailed boots thundered off across the cobbles on the scent of a new quarry. I waited till the din had died away completely and thenscrambled out of my hiding place.
    ‘Thanks, Mrs Peters,’ I said gratefully, gulping breaths of fresh air.
    ‘Don’t you do that to me again, Cat!’ she said, venting her fury by hacking at a round cheese the size of a cartwheel axle.
    ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to get you into trouble.’
    She wiped her forehead with the back of her hand and stood looking at me, her hands on her hips. ‘I know, dearie, but you stay out of ’is way, won’t you? Or you’ll be found in the gutter one mornin’ with your throat slit like wot ’appened to poor Nat Perkins.’ She looked around the edge of her stall, checking that the coast was clear. ‘You’d better get out of ’ere while you can.’
    I nodded and headed off southwards, intending to circle round and enter the theatre from the Drury Lane side. I just hoped that Pedro had managed to get away too.
    I found him leaning over a water fountain near the stage door. His fine livery was in tatters and he had a bloodied nose and black eye. He looked up as I approached and gave me a nod, his white teethstained with blood from a cut to his mouth.
    ‘You got away too then?’ he asked.
    ‘Better than you, by the looks of it.’
    He shrugged. ‘I took a wrong turn but there was only one of them by the time he caught up with me . . . the small one. I soon sorted him out and got away before the others arrived.’
    ‘Sorted him out?’ I asked incredulously. I’d not put Pedro down as a street-fighter.
    ‘I can