The CRES code

Chapter Twenty Five - Loach makes contacts

     Randall and Loach knew that Jane didn't know they'd decided to kill her, so they assumed she'd be coming back to the Interesting Weasel as soon as she'd calmed down. After an hour or so, therefore, they went to their rooms to get some sleep. There'd be time enough to kill her in the morning.

      Before morning came, though, Loach had important business to conduct. He rose from his bed while there was still nothing but darkness visible through the window of his small room and got dressed. Then he picked up the gold necklace he'd bought a couple of days before in another town they'd passed through. He examined it critically. Was it gaudy enough to attract the attention of a mugger? It had cost most of his money to buy it, but that didn't bother him. Money was something you could always get more of and it would be worth the expense if it accomplished the purpose he had in mind for it.

     He sighed with resignation. He'd have preferred something bigger and flashier, but this was all he'd been able to afford. It would have to do. He hung it around his neck, therefore, and emerged from his room, walking through the dark, silent corridors of the boarding house until he reached the door out onto the street.

     The most important streets of the city were lit with oil lamps, some of which were dark, their oil having run out. An oiler, an elderly, skeletally thin man in a set of grubby yellow overalls, was pushing a squeaky wheeled barrel along the street, muttering under his breath as he did so. He glanced accusingly at Loach as he walked past, as if what he was saying to himself was of such overwhelming importance that dire consequences would ensue if he was overheard. Loach pretended to ignore him until the oiler relaxed and walked on, but then the former mob boss paused curiously to watch.

     The oiler continued along the street until he reached the base of an unlit lamp, where he lowered the barrel onto its base with a sigh of relief. Then he used a long, forked pole to bring the lamp down from the hook from which it was hanging. He refilled it from the barrel using a crusty cup,  trimmed the wick and lit it before hanging the lamp back in place. Then, with a grunt of effort, he lifted the barrel up onto its squeaky wheels and moved on, still muttering and grumbling as if he had an invisible companion who alone understood his problems and who alone sympathised.

     Loach watched as the oiler left the circle of light created by the newly lit lamp and disappeared into the darkness between it and the next. Then he turned his mind back to the business at hand. Muggers were unlikely to be found in a well lit street. He wanted a dark alleyway. That would make him hard to see, but the moon was almost full above the clouds and if he was lucky they would part long enough for a shaft of silvery light to illuminate him and the gold necklace he was wearing.

     There was no shortage of dingy, dark alleyways in this part of the city and, finding one, Loach hunched down as he entered it to make himself look small and feeble. An easy target. He remained alert, though. He wanted to catch a mugger, not get his throat cut by one.

     Getting mugged turned out to be harder than he'd expected, though, and he was half way down his fourth alleyway before he struck paydirt. A figure stepped out of the darkness ahead of him, and he heard furtive footsteps behind him telling him that his retreat was blocked. Two men at least, then. That complicated things, but Loach wasn't unduly worried. He could handle himself in a fight even without his head phone's combat apps.

     Right on schedule, the clouds above them parted and silvery moonlight shone through, lighting him up like a stage performer. In front of him, the mugger stepped closer. "Nice chain," he said. "Mend ef ah get a closer look?" There was a knife in his hand, Loach saw. He was making no attempt to hide it, unlike Loach whose knife was hidden under a fold of his jacket.

     Loach believed himself capable of killing all the men surrounding him in the alley, whether there were two, three or even four of them. The problem would be in taking one of them alive without being injured severely enough to require the attention of a priest. He also couldn't display such impressive fighting skills that they just ran away, leaving him no better off than he'd been before he started. He had to lure them close, then strike before they had a chance to react.