Bryce Courtenay - The Potato Factory

'Yes, well, frankly you're right, it's not much to take before the bench.' He looked up at her and seemed for a moment to hesitate, then added, 'We also have a problem with the damned frog forger chappie we arrested in the basement of your husband's premises.'

'Oh, the geezer what's got the printer? What's the problem?'

Sir Jasper drew on his cigar and threw Hannah a dark look. He appeared to be thinking, his eyes narrowed, his head only half visible in a miasma of cigar smoke. 'Unfortunately he's deaf and dumb!'

The Upper Marshal batted away the smoke from his eyes, looked at Hannah and smiled, seeming for a moment genuinely amused. 'Ideal for a man of his occupation, eh? Most decidely nimble of hand and eye, though deaf and dumb. Not much chop in the witness box, though.'

'Three tarts and a madam in the Old Bailey and a bludger what's deaf an' dumb, it ain't much to go with, is it then? I'll bet ya London to a brick that in ten minutes I can find you four tarts who'll swear on the 'Oly Bible, even swear on their dyin' muvver's 'ead, that yer forger geezer just recited the ten commandments personal to 'em, forwards and then backwards and finished it orf with a rendition of 'Andel's 'Allelujah Chorus, and this Van Summink's a Jew as well!'

'Well, yes, you might be right! What we need is someone or something else.'

'Ere, wait a mo!' Hannah, astonished, exclaimed. 'Yer not askin' me to invent evidence against me 'usband, is ya?'

'Well, no, not precisely.' He arched one of his magnificent eyebrows. 'That would simply be making five witnesses of a kind!' Sir Jasper's nose suddenly came alive again, delighted at the tartness of this last remark. 'As you so wisely observed, women of your vocation will swear to anything on the heads of their dying loved ones.' He pulled at his cigar, satisfied that he had once again achieved the upper hand.

Hannah's hidden frustration at the news of Ikey's betrayal suddenly overwhelmed her sense of caution. She wanted to bite back and Sir Jasper was available. 'It takes a whore to know one! Whore's ain't only of one sex!'

Sir Jasper shot upright, the legs of the chair hitting the floor with a crack. 'Madam!'

To Hannah's surprise, after this single admonishment, Sir Jasper returned his chair to its former two-legged position and smiled, a small secret smile. With the sharpness quite gone from his voice he said, 'I'm grateful we've reached common ground at last, madam. Down to brass tacks, eh? I was hoping we might not have to raise the matter of the five, or is it six brothels you own?' His voice grew suddenly sharper again. 'Correctly prosecuted, you should receive more than a drag or even a stretch, transportation, fourteen years at the very least, Botany Bay or perhaps Van Diemen's Land.'

He waited for a reaction from Hannah and when none was forthcoming he cleared his throat and continued, 'Why, madam, such would seem the only possible sentence. You shall have fourteen years to regret your lack of co-operation! Do you not think you ought to think upon this? Or is your loyalty and affection to Mr Solomons of such a purity that you would protect him at the cost of a dark, rat-infested prison at the other end of the world for much of the remainder of your miserable life?'

Sir Jasper waited, removed the cigar from his mouth and examined it at arm's length. Hannah saw that it had become dark stained with his spittle at the sucking end, while it carried a full inch of spent ash at the other. She observed his cigar, not from any personal interest, but because her wits had temporarily forsaken her, and she knew herself to be hopelessly trapped and entirely at the mercy of the small, cigar-toting policeman.

Curiously, it did not occur to her to blame the smug little knight for her predicament. Nor did she recall that it was she who had persuaded a reluctant Ikey to employ Abraham Van Esselyn. All she could think was that it was Ikey who had once again caused her downfall. He had absconded and left her as his hostage. He had betrayed her with a whore and robbed her of a prize which was rightfully hers. Come what may, she would make him pay! She would not take a moment's punishment for the miserable, sodding shit.

'I should remind you that you will never see your darling children again,' Sir Jasper added. 'What do you say to that, Mrs Solomons?'

Hannah inhaled sharply and then in a low voice asked, 'Now, sir, what was it ya jus' said about it 'aving to be, ya know, someone or summink else what is needed for the case at 'and?'

Sir Jasper, now also smiling, leaned a little closer and placed his hand on her knee.

'Well done, my dear, how very sensible of you. I feel sure we can come to some satisfactory arrangement, what?'

Hannah looked up suddenly. 'Could we not leave England, scarper, never come back no more?'

'Why, madam, that's preposterous! Simply unthinkable!'

'Why?' Hannah asked simply.

'Justice, there must be justice! Good God, woman, where would we be if we simply let our hardened criminals escape to other societies. What would they think of the English?'

'They probably don't think all that much of 'em as it is,' Hannah said laconically.

'Balderdash! There's not a civilised man on earth who doesn't wish he was an Englishman! An arranged escape? Unthinkable and positively unpatriotic!'

Hannah cleared her throat, averted her eyes and spoke in a small, almost girlish voice. 'We could probably leave a little bequest, a little summink to remember us by, a little personal summink what we could leave to yer discretion to use for whatsoever good you might consider in yer wisdom can be done for Mother England?' She paused and looked furtively up at the policeman. 'If you knows what I mean, sir?'

The cigar fell from Sir Jasper's lips, 'Good God, woman! Are you attempting to bri- '

At this point Sir Jasper leapt from his chair with a terrible yowl, upsetting the table and sending his top hat flying across the room as he frantically beat at the front of his trousers. The cigar, nowhere to be seen, must have fallen through his waistcoat and down into the interior of his trousers, for Sir Jasper continued to beat at his crotch, while turning in small agitated circles, his legs pumping up and down as though dancing on the spot. Then his foot caught the leg of the upturned table and, losing his balance, he landed in Hannah's voluminous lap. His head fell upon her breast and his now panicked nose was inches from her own. But for the fact of the room being so small, and that the back of her chair was placed almost against the wall, Hannah, together with Sir Jasper, would have turned topsy-turvy, landing on the floor in a heap of kicking legs, petticoats, pantaloons and flailing arms.

Hannah was the quicker of the two to recover. She looked down at the hapless Sir Jasper, who was flapping, whimpering and snorting, and observed the smoke rising from that area of his trousers which is known to be most delicate when assaulted. With one arm she pinned him to her breast and with her free hand hastily undid the last two buttons of his waistcoat, shot into the front of his trousers, and plucked the offending cigar from within.

Hannah's shameless sense of humour overcame her as she held up the still smouldering cigar. 'There were two of them little devils down there, sir. I chose the bigger one!' she cackled. Then, the gravity of the situation reasserted itself and she released him, and clamped her hand over her mouth to smother any possibility of a further outburst.

If Sir Jasper was conscious of this coarse attempt at humour he gave no sign of it. As though caught within a collapsed tent he was struggling wildly to find his way out of the folds of Hannah's commodious skirts. He regained his feet finally and, clutching his singed and painful scrotum in both hands, he roared at Hannah, 'You have not heard the last of this, madam! By God! I shall see you and your husband hanged at Tyburn yet!'