Dodger

poor man to recover.’
    The girl – and the Outlander looked like a girl not much bigger than Simplicity and, he had to admit, slightly thinner – gave him a charming smile. ‘It won’t be long now, Mister Dodger. And what is it that you are staring at, apart of course from myself?’
    Dodger, almost swallowing his tongue, said, ‘Well, miss, not staring, miss, just praying to the Lady.’ And indeed he was praying, but also watching the shadows shift. They lingered even here.
    ‘Ah yes, I have heard tell of her . . . the Madonna of the sewers, the goddess Cloacina, the lady of the rats, and I see so many of her congregation here with us this evening,’ the Outlander continued.
    The shadows behind her quite subtly changed again. And hope, which had disappeared for some time, suddenly returned. Although Dodger made certain to keep it out of his face.
    ‘You are a fervent believer to turn to the darkness in supplication, but I am afraid it will take more than rats to save you now, however hard you stare into the darkness . . .’
    ‘Now!’ screamed Dodger, and the quite hefty lump of wood in Simplicity’s hands was already in flight, hitting the Outlander on the back of the head and knocking her straight to the ground. Dodger jumped and slid and snatched up the pistol, banging his head on the side of the sewer in his haste as the rats ran and squeaked in panic.
    He gave Hans another swift boot to ensure he stayed on the ground a little longer and Simplicity, with great presence of mind, sat on the woman. Dodger thought, Thank goodness for all that heavy German sausage, then he shouted, ‘Why did you come back here? It’s
dangerous
!’
    Simplicity gave Dodger a bewildered look and said, ‘You know, I looked at the ring that I found, and on it I saw it said in tiny writing:
To S, with love from Dodger
. So of course I had to come back, but I kept quiet, because you said we should keep quiet in the sewers. I told them I was going to wait until I saw you come out of the sewer, and I thought something was wrong. Well, you told me that the Outlander always had a good-looking lady with him, and I thought, well, a good-looking lady who went around with somebody like that assassin would be a very powerful woman. I wondered if you realized that; it would appear, my dearest Dodger, that I was right.’
    In the echoes of that little speech, for just one bleary moment, Dodger thought he heard the voice of Grandad, with its cheerful, toothless sound, saying, ‘Told yuz! You is the best tosher I known. You got your tosheroon now. That young lady there – she’s your tosheroon, lad!’
    There was nothing for it. Treading heavily on the Outlander, he grabbed Simplicity, gave her a hug and a kiss, one which regrettably couldn’t go the optimum distance because now, surely, there was so much to do.
    Simplicity had hit the Outlander quite hard; there was certainly a pulse, but also a bit of blood here and there, and the assassin definitely wasn’t going to get up for a while. The man, however, was, but not with much enthusiasm, since a mouth full of mixed sewer water can slow down anybody. He was groaning, swaying and dribbling – dribbling green slime.
    Dodger grabbed him and said, ‘Can you understand English?’ He couldn’t understand the answer, but Simplicity stepped forward, and after a brief interrogation said, ‘He’s from one of the Germanys, from Hamburg, and he sounds very scared.’
    ‘Good, tell him that if he is a good boy and does what we ask he might see his home country again. Don’t tell him that what he’s likely to see there could be the gallows, ’cos I wouldn’t want him to worry. Right now, of course, I need to be a friend to this poor man led astray by a wicked woman. So he will, I reckon, be very very helpful . . . Oh, and tell him to take his trousers off, quickly!’ They were foreign and pretty good, but as the man sat there, naked, Dodger tore the German trousers to shreds and used them to bind the recumbent Outlander and her employee.
    Simplicity was wreathed in smiles, but a cloud passed over her face and she said, ‘What should we do now, Dodger?’ and he replied, ‘It’s like the plan. You know the place I told you about. We call it the Cauldron, ’cos that is what it is like when there is a real storm, but at least it means it’s a lot cleaner than most of the places down here. You remember all the lighter bricks? There’s food up there, and a bottle of