Private Princess

Chapter 72

Hooligan shuffled as quickly as he could to the packed White Swan pub. He was so busy throwing terrified looks over his shoulders that he never saw the bouncer in front of him, and recoiled as his head bumped off the big man’s chest.

“Watch where you’re going,” the bouncer warned.

“Can I come in?” Hooligan asked. “I’ve got friends inside.”

The bouncer shook his head at the disheveled man. “Not a chance, mate. You’re shit-faced.”

“I’m not!” Hooligan pleaded. “I swear on me mum! I’m not drunk!”

“Well, you’ve been scrapping then. Either way, you’re not coming in.”

“Can I stand next to you?” Hooligan asked, swallowing. “Someone’s trying to get me.”

“Get out of here, you smackhead,” the man growled, “before I stick my fist down your throat.”

The red-hot anger in the man’s eyes told Hooligan that he would back up his threat. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Hooligan scuttled along the pub’s wall, trying to have at least one side of himself covered from the approach of his stabbed assailant.

Hooligan scanned the crowd and saw no sign of his attacker. The closest uniforms were a hundred yards away — two mounted police who were craning their necks at something as they patrolled along the roadside, where vehicles sat bunched and lazy, awaiting their turn to slip away from the stadium’s neighborhood.

“Where are you?” Hooligan asked hurriedly into his phone. “They won’t let me in the pub!”

“Stay next to it,” Knight replied. “Jack is coming for you. Jez, listen. Who is following you?”

Hooligan opened his mouth to reply, but the words died in his throat.

The “officer” was on the opposite side of the crowded street. A gray hoody was now pulled up over his head, but there was no forgetting the man’s grim, ominous face.

“He’s here,” whispered Hooligan as the man spotted him and began to cross the pedestrian traffic, a sick smile creeping across his ugly face. “I need to run!” Hooligan hissed into the phone.

“Stay where you are,” Knight insisted.

“But he’s coming!”

“Hooligan, if you run, we may not be able to find you again.”

“Peter! He’s getting close! Where’s Jack?”

“Stay where you are!”

“Peter! Peter!”

His pursuer was now halfway through the crowd. Halfway, and gesturing toward Hooligan’s position — the assailant was not alone.

“Help!” shouted Hooligan to everyone and no one. But the revelers ignored him, seeing either a smackhead or a drunk. “Help me!” Hooligan begged, but they did not. They shook their heads or smiled as they walked by.

It was only when another man began to shout in the crowd that the smiles began to slip, and were replaced with panic, and something more powerful than fear.

Terror.