The Loyal Servant by Eva Hudson Page A

citizens gathered around the old woman and the policeman like a hungry gang of twelve-year-olds in a school playground, baying for blood.
    ‘Stay away from me – Nazi!’
    She pulled back the walking stick and thrust it forward and up in a wide arc. The handle accelerated past the policeman’s nose, and knocked off his hat.
    ‘Right that’s it,’ he said.
    He charged towards her and made a grab for the circling three-foot baton. He snatched nothing but air. The effort rocked him sideways.
    Finally Frank Carter caught up with Angela.
    ‘You want to ease up on the pie-eating, Frank.’
    The pensioner, a glint in her eye, swung the stick again, like a golfer at the tee and hit the policeman’s hat twenty yards in the air. It landed with a splash in a muddy puddle.
    ‘You getting all this, Frank?’
    Two yellow-vested policemen broke away from the ragged cordon surrounding the other protestors.
    ‘There’s more where that came from.’ The woman was screaming now. ‘Don’t think you can bully me – just because I’m old and frail.’
    The police officer stepped in again. This time he reached for her arm, but she was too quick for him. The stick came crashing down in a diagonal swoop and only just missed his right cheek. He stumbled awkwardly and dropped to his knees.
    For a moment the stick wavered in mid air, the woman stood motionless, her mouth gaping. A pair of liver-spotted hands grabbed the stick and passed it to a blue-haired woman nearby and in an instant it was absorbed into the crowd, melting away behind a wall of pink, wrinkled, entirely innocent faces.
    The two policemen finally arrived and helped their colleague to his feet, one of them handed him his hat. He shrugged away their hands.
    ‘Arrest her. And anyone else who so much as opens their mouths.’ He turned away, brushing mud from his trousers. ‘And get those bloody chains off.’
    The man with the bolt cutters hesitated, keeping a healthy three feet between him and the woman. After a few moments two female constables appeared. The woman smiled at them and seemed quite happy to let them hold down her arms as the cutters chopped through the chains like scissors through bacon.
    Angela hobbled over to join the little procession of two police officers and old age pensioner as they made their way to a waiting squad car.
    ‘Would you like to make a statement?’ Angela said as she approached.
    ‘Who are you?’ The woman looked her up and down. ‘And what happened to your shoe?’
    ‘Angela Tate, Evening News .’ Angela waved her business card in the woman’s face.
    ‘Never read it.’
    ‘Well, even so, we do have a very big circulation.’ She forced a smile at the woman. ‘Think how much all that publicity would help your cause.’ She managed to reach around one of the policewomen and slipped her card into a pocket of the OAP’s cardigan.
    After a few moments they reached the police car and the woman looked into Angela’s face. ‘Jean Henderson,’ she said. ‘Retired. Widow. Mother of three, grandmother of five. Sixth on the way.’ Her mouth softened into a smile. ‘That the sort of thing you’re after?’
    Angela smiled back at her and nodded. She turned to one of the policewomen. ‘Which station are you taking her to?’
    ‘Catford.’
    ‘I’ll see you down at the station, Mrs Henderson.’
    ‘Call me Jean.’
    A policewoman pressed a hand on the top of Jean Henderson’s head, flattening her soft curls, and pushed her under the door arch of the police car. She climbed in after her and pulled the door firmly shut.
    In broken heels, Angela limped back to the entrance of the building site, just as the big truck of hardcore was reversing in. The remaining protesters had drifted away. Frank was scrolling through the images on his camera.
    ‘Any good?’ Angela asked.
    ‘Dynamite. Assuming no more shock Cabinet reshuffles happen overnight, we might even get the front page.’
    Angela slapped him on the back. ‘Now we just