Man Eater

by Marilyn Todd

  Which it was. It just happened not to be Claudia’s address.

  Jupiter, Juno and Mars—whichever way she turned, the lanes twisted, narrowed, doubled back, and led relentlessly downhill. Damn! The dogs were not giving up, either. One had a distinctive howl—not dissimilar, she mused, to the sound her cat, Drusilla, made this morning, when her tail got caught in the door.

  Kneading the stitch in her side, Claudia paused and looked around and felt a sudden chill of terror. She could not say when or where it had changed, but twisting wynds had turned into stinking runnels, sedate apartment blocks were now crumbling tenements. A standpipe dripped at the end of the street and a young mother with a child at her hip blew her nose with her fingers. Daylight was beginning to fade, too, exacerbated by the heavy grey clouds which had been building up during the course of the afternoon. Doors were being slammed, latches fastened, shutters drawn. With panic rising in her breast, Claudia knew she was well and truly lost. While the dogs still bayed close by.

  ‘Hello?’ Someone help me. Please. But only shadows and vermin roamed the alleys amid the raw sewage, the vegetation rotting on the middens and the bloated corpse of a puppy being picked over by rats. A three-legged truckle-bed sat upended where it had been dumped, broken pots crunched underfoot, and from open windows came the sounds of drunken bullies beating their wives and their children in the name of obedience. Spooked by the rankness that defines sheer and utter hopelessness, Claudia went spinning down the lanes.

  Stumbling. Tripping. Oblivious to the cess trenches, the dogs, the thugs who ran with them, she had to get out… ‘Shit!’

  Swallowing hard, she blinked back the tears as she came face to face with the truckle-bed and the rats and the dead puppydog.

  ‘Shit, shit, shit!’

  Perhaps, then, it was time to use brains and not footwear? A raw-boned mongrel, grey around the face, wandered up to the broken bed, cocked its leg then lolloped off. Dear Diana! Impossible to imagine that all roads lead from Rome, reaching even the darkest outpost of our mighty Empire, while these alleys criss-cross like the minotaur’s labyrinth.

  ‘There! There she is!’

  Dammit, they’d caught up. Claudia shot down the nearest passageway, then skidded to a halt. The mongrel was examining something dark and sticky on a rusty skillet. The inspection appeared to be in its early stages. Plenty of time for a girl to unclip her blue cotton wrap, rip it with the brooch pin and ram the poor mutt’s head through the hole before it even had a chance to snarl its disapproval. Stung in the rump by a shard of pottery, it shot off down the street, flapping oceans of blue cotton in its wake. Blue cotton heavily scented with Judaean perfume, no less.

  As she flung open the nearest tenement door, Claudia realised her ploy had failed. The dogs wanted to follow the scent, but the handlers had sharp eyes. The gap was closing. Claudia flew up the dimly lit stairs two at a time. While they searched the lower floors, she could hide. She ran along the corridor, testing door after door, until finally one surrendered.

  ‘Anyone home?’

  A toothless crone sat on a stool supping porridge straight from the crock.

  ‘Can you hide me?’ Claudia panted. ‘I can pay.’ She pulled off a ring set with emeralds.

  Watery gruel dribbled down the old woman’s chin. Sweet Janus, was she blind?

  ‘Please!’ A cupboard. Under the bed. There must be some way out of this mess. ‘Will you help me?’

  ‘Oi!’ Fists pounded the door. ‘Open up!’ The hinges were weak. They would not stand much more rough treatment.

  Rheumy eyes watched disinterestedly as the crone continued to slurp from the bowl. Bugger! Claudia ran to the window and looked down. The front door was bulging more and more with each shove from the moneylender’s thug.

  ‘No way out, luv,’ he crowed. ‘You’re trapped.’

  Really? Ignoring the dizziness, Claudia climbed on to the sill. What about that balcony over the way? She took a deep breath.

  Now eight feet is not very far. Measure it out and you’d be hard pressed to fit in, say, a decent bout of shadow-boxing, half a game of hopscotch, you couldn’t even rig up a funeral pyre. So, no, it’s not very far. On the ground… Heart pounding, mouth dry, Claudia launched herself into space.

  YES! As her hands connected with the balustrade, she felt a rush of such elation that she actually laughed aloud.

  Until she heard the crack.

  This isn’t a rail. This is woodworm holding hands. Her knuckles were white as she glanced down. Janus, it must be seventy feet at least. Waves of nausea washed over her as she struggled to swing her body on to the balcony before the rail gave way.

  Too late. With a splintering sound, the balustrade began to bow inexorably downwards. Claudia closed her eyes. And wondered which Olympian divinity owed her a favour.