Lom knew the drill with batons. Basic police training. If you wanted to put an opponent out of action you aimed for the large muscle areas. The biceps. The quadriceps. There was a nerve in the side of the leg above the knee. A good blow to any of those would leave the limb numbed and disabled for five, ten minutes at least. But if you wanted to really hurt someone, you went for the skull. The sternum. The spine. The groin.
Rat-mouth came in high and hard, swinging for Lom’s head. A killing blow.
Which suited Lom fine. It cleared the air.
Lom had been in fights when he was a young policeman in Podchornok. Street fights. Bar-room brawls. Gangsters looking for revenge. Knives. Clubs. Broken bottles. The first fight he was ever in he’d lost, badly. He’d been lucky to get out of it alive. After that, he didn’t lose any more. He’d learned that what lost you a fight was inhibition. Decency. Restraint. Civilised values had their place, but you had to know when you’d stepped outside all that, because when your opponent went somewhere else, you had to go there too. Completely.
Rat-mouth went for a really big swing. A barnstormer. A skull-smasher. That was his first mistake. Men like him got used to hitting people who didn’t fight back. Mostly, if you come at someone with a baton they’ll try to duck it or they’ll hold up their arm to fend it off, which is a broken femur for certain. Game over. But Lom stepped forward inside the swing. He watched the arc of it coming and reached up and caught it in both hands when it was barely a foot past rat-mouth’s shoulder. The impact stung his palms but that was all. He pivoted left and jerked the stick down and forward. In the same movement he stamped down hard on the side of rat-mouth’s knee. Felt the joint burst open. Rat-mouth screamed. Lom tore the straightstick out of his grip before he hit the ground. He should have used the wrist strap. Second mistake.
The thug on the leader’s left was fast as well as big. By the time Lom straightened up he was already coming for him. Lom jabbed rat-mouth’s stick into the side of his head. No swing, just a quick jab. But hard. Very hard. The big man’s skull snapped sideways against his shoulder. Blood sprayed from his nose. He stayed on his feet for half a second, but his face was empty. Then he collapsed and lay still. His eyes were open, and there was blood and mess all over his face. Pink fluid coming out of his ear.
Two seconds, two down, five to go. So far so good. Lom felt hot and calm and alive. His anger was a quiet, efficient engine.
There was a dry click. Someone had opened a knife. A couple of the others had brass knuckles out and were putting them on. They were starting to fan out. Getting their act together. Another few seconds and he could be in bad trouble.
The one with the knife was the immediate threat. Lom stepped forward and crashed the tip of the baton down on his wrist. Felt the bone snap. He flicked the stick up and smashed it hard under the attacker’s chin. There was a warm spattering of blood as his head jerked back and he went down, jaw broken.
The leader lumbered in then, head hunched between his shoulders, swinging wildly. Lom let the meaty white fist buzz past his ear, matched his charge and crashed his left elbow horizontally into the big red face.
Five seconds, four down.
Someone from Lom’s right jabbed at his cheek with a knuckle-duster, grazing his ear. It might have done some damage but the boy had stayed too far out and mistimed it. Lom spun and smashed his left fist into the man’s belly at the same time as Maroussia clubbed him viciously on the back of the head with the stick the big fellow had dropped when he fell.
The leader was getting clumsily to his knees, coughing and snorting clods of blood from his nose. Lom kicked him hard in the ribs. His elbows caved in under him and he slumped face down on the ground.
Five down, four still standing, but it was over. The rest only needed an excuse to get out of there. Lom let the baton clatter to the ground and pulled the empty Sepora .44 from his pocket.
‘Like I said. Get in the wagon and drive away.’ He gestured to the five men on the ground. ‘And take this rubbish with you.’
There was a moment when they hesitated and a moment when he knew that’s what they would do.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Maroussia when they’d got clear of the square.
‘You were fine,’ said Lom. ‘You were more than fine. You were great.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Not that. I told that girl who we were. I gave her our names. I shouldn’t have. It was stupid and now it’s a risk. I’m sorry.’
He was only half listening to her. His hands were sore–there was a gash on one of his knuckles, seeping a little blood–and his legs felt weightless and slightly out of control as the adrenaline worked its way out of his system. For the second time, the day was stained with violence. Violence clanged in the air, hateful and sour. Now that the fighting was over Lom felt uncomfortable and slightly sick. He’d hurt people before, when he had to, but he hadn’t enjoyed it, not like that. Today he’d done it gladly, efficiently, well, and he felt faintly ashamed.
‘You were being kind,’ said Lom. ‘I guess we can’t afford too much of that.’
‘You helped that bookseller,’ said Maroussia.
‘Did I?’ said Lom. ‘They’ll come back, them or others like them, for him or some other old guy. It won’t be better because of what I did. It might be worse. Putting boys in hospital doesn’t make the world a better place.’
Maroussia stopped and turned to face him. She stood there, pale, troubled and determined. Holding herself upright, shivering a little in the snow and bitter cold that whipped round the corner. She looked so thin. The sleeves of her coat too short, her wrists bony and raw against the dark wool. She had kissed him that morning at the sea gate lodge. On the cheek. The cool graze of her mouth against his skin.
‘You didn’t start it,’ she said. ‘You chose a side, that’s all. There are only two sides now. There’s nowhere else to stand.’
They walked a little way in silence.
‘I didn’t know you could fight like that,’ said Maroussia.
‘That wasn’t fighting,’ said Lom. ‘That was winning. Different thing altogether.’
17
They came out abruptly on the side of the Mir opposite Big Side. The river was a broad green surge, a wide muscular shoulder of moving water knotted with twists of surface current. Low waves and backwash slapped against the bulwarks of the stone embankment. Canopied passenger vedettes jinked between ponderous barges nosing their way seawards.
They crossed the river by the crowded Chesma Bridge. The bronze oil-lamps on the parapet, shaped like rising fish with lace-ruff gills and scales like overlapping rows of coins, were already lit. Each one draped in ribbons of funeral black, they burned pale flames in the grey afternoon. Light flecks of snow speckled the air. Not falling, just drifting. Lom felt again the familiar pressure on his back. The follower was still there. He was certain of it now. It was time to do something about it.
On the other side of the river, after the embankment gardens and cafés, was the jewellers’ quarter, and galleries selling artefacts from the exotic provinces. Carpets and cushions and overstuffed couches. Vases and urns and samovars. Plenty of traffic. Plenty of crowds.
‘Will you do something for me?’ said Lom.
‘Of course.’
‘I mean, do exactly what I say?’
‘What do you want me to do?’ said Maroussia.