Chapter Five
The youth raised his head, and Jack found himself gazing into a smutty face with a very familiar pair of eyes, swimming with tears. He opened his mouth to exclaim but she whispered urgently.
"Hush. Before you say anything, I'm not interfering, I'm just finding out what's happening. It was murder, Jack, plain and simple – but your best witness will be terrified out of his skin. I'll be home by tonight, and I going to bring him with me."
"Phryne, come home now!" he muttered back. "You're obviously in danger. Let me take it from here." You said you would, after all, his eyes accused her.
"Without a witness you can't do anything, and you'll never get the witness to come forward without me. It's all about fear, Jack. The only one not frightened is me, and I admit even I'm getting edgy now and again." She broke off, and looked down at the dead boy's face with a new coldness – a coping-mechanism he knew well. "This is – was – Tod. Do your best for him. I'll see you later."
He reached to grasp for her hand, but she was gone, melting into the crowd, head down.
In one thing, she proved right. Although plenty of passers-by had seen the boy fall in front of the tram, there was no-one who was able to say how he had come to do so. It was a busy street, at a busy time of day, and everyone had been busy with other things.
Apparently.
Phryne kept her head down and her hands in her pockets as she wove through the crowds. Moving slowly attracted less attention than moving fast, and at all costs, she wanted to avoid attracting attention.
As she gained Little Lon, the crowd had thinned and she risked raising her head a little to glance around the street.
Her prey wasn't in sight, but there was a certain bakery with a back door that was always open to their kind, and she settled in, uncomfortably, to wait.
By the middle of the afternoon, she knew she'd made the right call. The trousers were too short, the coat lacked elbows – yes, it was him. He was clearly on edge – it took almost ten minutes for him to satisfy himself that the coast was clear. When he emerged from the bakery, he found a companion waiting for him, one foot propped nonchalantly against the wall.
"Nipper."
He jumped. "Fran? Thought I'd lost you," he said nervously.
"So you did, mate, so you did," she reassured him, falling into step as he devoured the pie in his hands. "Thought I'd like a word, though, so I waited to see if you'd turn up. And you did! Lucky, eh?" she smiled.
His cautious agreement was muffled as he attempted to inhale the whole pie in one mouthful.
As he did so, she cast a glance over her shoulder and when she saw no threat, nudged her companion into a side alley … then another … then another … and they emerged onto Queen Street.
By this time, the pie was consumed and Nipper was gathering his wits to make his next getaway.
Before he had the chance to gather too many of them, Phryne sidled up beside a shiny black taxi and, with one hand behind her back, felt for the handle. One last swift glance around, seeing the coast clear, she jerked the door open, thrust an astonished Nipper onto the floor of the cab and stepped in over him, slamming the door closed and cramming her cap down over her face.
"About ruddy time too," grumbled Albert Johnson, igniting the engine and putting his foot down. He'd turned down half a dozen decent fares and had a thirst like the Sahara bloody Desert. If it wasn't for the promise of good money and a cold beer, he'd have been gone half an hour ago. His one consolation was that Cec Yates was going to be turning up to relieve him in ten minutes' time and find him gone.