Baird heard quick, heavy footsteps on the stairs. He saw a fat, powerfully built fellow, going bald, with a blue-black growth of beard, come bounding on to the landing. He was wearing a soiled singlet and black trousers, and his face was shiny with sweat.
Laughing, he rushed at the girl, who avoided him. They dodged about on the landing. She was very quick, but she hadn’t much room to manoeuvre, and he finally trapped her in a corner.
‘No, Toni! I was only fooling,’ she said, trying to push him back as he crowded her, holding her arms and grinning like a mischievous monkey as she wrestled with him. ‘Not now. Some other night. Stop it!
They’l be coming up!’
‘It’s always some other night,’ the man said, giggling excitedly. ‘To hel with them! Al talk, you say.
I show you it’s not al talk!’
He grabbed her around the waist and under the knees and swung her off her feet.
‘Put me down, Toni!’ the girl said, keeping her voice low. She struggled to break away, but not so violently that he couldn’t handle her.
‘Not even a cop with a gun is going to stop me this time,’ he said, and there was a sudden change in his voice that made Baird stiffen.
‘No! Stop it, you fool!’