Excerpt: A Life Not Wasted

Valiantly though the first rays of sunlight fought, the river fog remained nigh impenetrable. Despite the morning light not yet reaching the streets of London it was sunrise, or so said countless clocks and mills across the city, and one by one, the gaslights began to go out.

Sally startled as, just outside the window, there was a delicate 'ker-click' and darkness descended from the lamplight. The moment past, she finished the job: wrapping a small leatherbound book in newsprint and slipping it into the front of her blouse. "Not the doorhandle. Don't go getting excited, now" she muttered under her breath, lifting the heavy drapes and sweeping the street outside. Thieves' Light, and not a soul to be seen. Good. She lifted the sash and swung her legs over: a short drop to the pavement and she was on her way, down toward the river and into the warehouse district, where she'd meet... "Hey, you!" A shout interrupted her reverie; she turned out of sheer instinct to see a maid's head and body protruding from the window she'd so recently left ... open. Damn. She turned and took to her heels, the slap-flop, slap-flop of her ancient boots echoing back to her from the clean, fancy fronts of the up-market houses about her. There was more shouting behind her, then, as she turned the corner into Threadneedle Street, the first of the shrill, keening whistles. The chase was on.