Faulkner didn’t go down, but he was badly rattled. ‘Come on then, you bastard,’ the Gunner yelled. ‘Let’s be having you.’

Miller pushed himself up on one knee and tried to lift Mallory into a sitting position. Jenny Crowther crawled across to help and pillowed Mallory’s head against her shoulder. He nodded, face twisted in pain, unable to speak and Miller folded his arms tightly about his chest and coughed as blood rose into his mouth.

There had been a time when people had been glad to pay as much as fifty guineas to see Gunner Doyle in action, but up there on the roof in the rain, Miller, the girl and Mallory had a ringside seat for free at his last and greatest battle.

He went after Faulkner two-handed, crouched like a tiger. Faulkner was hurt – hurt badly, and the Gunner had seen enough to know that his only chance lay in keeping him in that state. He swayed to one side as Faulkner threw a punch and smashed his left into the exposed mouth that was already crushed and bleeding from Miller’s efforts. Faulkner cried out in pain and the Gunner gave him a right that connected just below the eye and moved close.

‘Keep away from him,’ Miller yelled. ‘Don’t get too close.’

The Gunner heard only the roar of the crowd as he breathed in the stench of the ring – that strange never-to-be-forgotten compound of human sweat, heat, and embrocation. He let Faulkner have another right to the jaw to straighten him up and stepped in close for a blow to the heart that might finish the job. It was his biggest mistake. Faulkner pivoted, delivering an elbow strike backwards that doubled the Gunner over. In the same moment Faulkner turned again, lifting the Gunner backwards with a knee in the face delivered with such force that he went staggering across the roof and fell heavily against the railing. It sagged, half-breaking and he hung there trying to struggle to his feet, blood pouring from his nose and mouth. Faulkner charged in like a runaway express train, shoulder down and sent him back across the railing. The Gunner rolled over twice on the way down, bounced across the broad iron gutter and fell to the cobbles below.

Faulkner turned slowly, a terrifying sight, eyes glaring, blood from his mouth soaking down into his collar. He snarled at the three of them helpless before him, grabbed at the sagging iron railing and wrenched a four-foot length of it free. He gave a kind of animal-like growl and started forward.