The Secret of Excalibur

  The man looked back, saw Nina and her companion running after him—

  And picked up the entire trolley, hoisting it almost effortlessly and flinging it down the corridor at them.

  ‘Jesus!’ Nina threw herself against a door. The slight recess gave her just enough space to dodge the angular missile - but the young man was less lucky, looking up from his phone a moment too late. The trolley smashed into him and knocked him down, its remaining contents flying everywhere.

  Nina straightened, but the bearded man wasn’t finished. Now he picked up the maid and hurled the screaming woman at her. This time Nina had nowhere to go. Both women tumbled to the floor amongst the debris.

  Their attacker let out a satisfied grunt at the chaos, then turned and ran again.

  ‘Son of a bitch!’ Nina gasped as she struggled upright. The maid seemed more shocked than hurt, but the young man was moaning, clutching a broken wrist. ‘Are you okay?’ she asked the woman, getting a confused nod in reply. She pointed at the injured man. ‘Help him!’

  His phone lay amongst the scattered soaps and shampoos, screen glowing. Nina snatched it up and broke into a pained run after the giant.

  He reached another junction, frustration now evident as his head snapped from left to right and back again. He was lost, Nina realised - trapped by the bland conformity of the corridors, and apparently unable to read the signs directing guests through the maze.

  He looked back at her and scowled, the scar on his forehead twisting the lines of his skin. Nina slowed. If he changed tactics and attacked her instead of running, she wouldn’t stand a chance.

  But instead he turned away, going left. Wrong way, she thought, reading the sign as she ran after him. If he couldn’t find the exit, there was a chance he could be caught before he got away or hurt anyone else.

  But she needed help, someone who could take down the overmuscled giant . . .

  Chase was guiding the Focus through the traffic, his grandmother sitting beside him with a bag of shopping on her lap and several more lined up on the back seat, when his phone rang. He sighed and fumbled in his pocket. ‘Can you answer that for me, Nan?’ he asked, handing it to her. ‘Don’t want to get in trouble with the police on my first day back in the country.’

  He expected it was Nina calling, as he doubted Holly would have got her new phone charged up so quickly, and the likelihood of Elizabeth’s phoning him for a chat was extremely small. ‘Ooh, hello, Nina,’ Nan said, proving him right, before adding unnecessarily: ‘It’s Nina.’

  ‘Thought it might be,’ he replied, opting not to treat his grandmother to any of his usual sarcasm. ‘What’s she want?’

  A procession of increasingly surprised oohs and aahs followed, Chase glancing sideways to see Nan’s expression turn to one of utter disbelief. ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘She says the man she went to see was just assassinated, and she’s chasing another man who stole her laptop round the hotel.’

  ‘Oh, sh . . . oes,’ blurted Chase. He shoved down the accelerator.

  ‘You know, I didn’t get the impression she was the type for practical jokes.’

  ‘She’s not,’ he told Nan grimly. ‘I can’t bloody take her anywhere!’

  Nina rounded another corner - to find herself facing a dead end. The bearded man lurched to a stop ahead of her, letting out another angry exclamation. He turned and glared at Nina.

  ‘Er . . . hi,’ she said, horribly aware that their roles in the chase had suddenly reversed. He took a step towards her. ‘Okay, how about you keep the laptop? It’s insured . . . I think . . .’

  The man took another step. Nina fearfully backed away, passing a bright red fire extinguisher attached to the wall.

  A weapon—

  She yanked it from its clips, and hurled it at him with all her strength.

  He brought up a hand, but too late, taking the blunt end of the extinguisher on his face with a flat metallic blong. He reeled back . . .

  And smiled at her.

  ‘Daaaa,’ he moaned almost ecstatically through bloodied teeth. His demented grin widened, eyes fixing on Nina.

  ‘Aw, crap . . .’

  He grabbed the fire extinguisher, and flung it back at her. She dived out of its path, the end of its hose slashing across her back. The extinguisher hit the opposite wall with a bang and punched straight through it like a giant bullet, wood and plaster splintering.

  Nina expected him to attack while she was down, but instead she heard a crack of breaking wood. Looking up, she saw he had kicked a door off its hinges and entered an emergency stairwell.

  Wincing at the cut on her back, she went after him. The smell of food wafting up from below told her she was heading for the hotel’s kitchens. There was a loud crash of doors being flung open followed by angry yelling, then a metallic cacophony of cascading pans and a shriek of pain.

  Nina reached the bottom of the stairs. The doors were still swinging wildly like the entrance to a Wild West saloon. She barged through them, seeing a man in chef’s whites - now spotted with red from his broken nose - sprawled on the tiled floor amongst pans from an overturned trolley. Other staff were desperately trying to get out of the bearded man’s way as he ran for another set of doors at the kitchen’s far end.

  She jumped over the battered chef, her heel catching one of the pans and sending it clanging across the aisle. The man glanced back and saw her. Another foreign curse - and then he yanked a cleaver out of a side of beef and threw it at her.

  Nina yelped and dropped to the floor as the razor-sharp slice of steel whistled over her head and buried itself two inches deep in the wall. She took a cautious look over the edge of the nearest counter, hurriedly ducking back as the hefty chunk of meat itself bounced off the metal just above her. More heavyweight culinary missiles followed - a bucket-sized can of baked beans, a whole turkey, and a glass jar that exploded on impact and showered her with pickled onions. Vinegar splashed the cut on her back, stinging.

  ‘What is this, a goddamn food fight?’ she cried.

  More shouts came from the other end of the kitchen, followed by a colossal crash of breaking crockery. Nina risked another look over the counter, seeing the doors swinging and thousands of fragments of plates and bowls skittering over the tiles where another trolley had been overturned. The man was gone.

  ‘Shit!’ She jumped up and ran past the kitchen staff, skidding and slithering over the smashed china into the hotel’s dining room. The bearded man had seemingly got his bearings, and was racing towards the exit to the reception area. She followed.

  Chase powered down the hill alongside the Imax, triggering a speed camera in his haste to reach Nina. He just managed to hold in an obscenity on seeing the double flash in his mirror. Beside him, Nan clung tightly with one hand to the door handle, her other arm hugging her bag of shopping.

  He swept over the elevated road above the broad pierfront esplanade and back up the hill towards the International Centre. As he braked sharply to turn into the Paragon’s car park, he saw he wasn’t the only one in a hurry - a gleaming black Jaguar XK convertible screeched in ahead of him from the opposite direction, a woman with punkish orange hair at its wheel.

  Somehow, he knew she was connected with whatever trouble Nina had got herself into. If Nan hadn’t been with him, he would have rammed the Focus into the Jag to stop the woman from making a getaway, but instead all he could do was watch helplessly as a huge bearded slab of a man ran out of the hotel, swatting a doorman aside with a sweep of one arm.

  He had an Apple laptop in his other hand. It had to be Nina’s . . . The Jaguar skidded to a halt. The man vaulted the door and landed in the passenger seat, the car visibly tilting under his weight. The woman stamped on the accelerator, skidding the car round to head back the way it had come.

  Nina charged out of the hotel and ran to the Focus. ‘That’s them, they killed him!’ she shouted, pointing after the disappearing XK. She was about to open the front passenger door when she realised the seat
was occupied. ‘Oh!’

  ‘You remember my nan, don’t you?’ Chase said sheepishly.

  ‘Yeah, ah . . .’ The Jaguar disappeared from view; she stared desperately after it, then pulled open the rear door and jumped in, shoving shopping aside. ‘They’re getting away, go go go!’

  Chase gave her a despairing look. ‘Nina, my grandmother’s in the car!’

  To their mutual surprise, Nan spoke up. ‘Go after them, Edward!’

  Chase’s eyebrows shot up. ‘What?’

  Nan shoved the bag on her lap into the footwell and gripped the door handle with both hands. ‘I always wanted to see what my grandson does for a living.’

  ‘But—’

  She glowered fiercely at him. ‘Edward, they’re getting away! Go on, get after them!’

  He revved the engine. ‘This is such a fff . . . lippin’ bad idea . . .’ And with that, Chase brought the Focus screaming round after the Jaguar.

  5

  Chase flung the Focus out of the car park into a sharp right turn. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked Nina.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Nina said tersely.

  ‘That helps!’

  ‘The woman shot Bernd, and the big guy stole my laptop. I think he’s Russian.’

  Ahead, the Jaguar slewed the wrong way through a roundabout. Another car swerved to avoid a collision and crashed on to the pavement. ‘Why’d he steal your laptop?’

  ‘That disc Bernd gave me - whatever’s on it, they want it!’

  Chase braked hard and skidded round the roundabout. The shopping bags in the back seat spilled their contents over Nina. ‘So what’s on the disc?’

  ‘I don’t know! Something to do with finding Excalibur.’

  The Jaguar was pulling away up a hill. Chase wished he’d hired something more powerful than a family hatchback. ‘What, King Arthur’s sword?’

  ‘No, the John Boorman movie!’ she snapped sarcastically. ‘Yes, King Arthur’s sword!’

  ‘All right, Jesus Christ!’ His grandmother gave him a stern look. ‘Sorry, Nan. Where does this road go?’

  ‘The top end of town,’ Nan told him - but Chase was no longer listening, his attention caught by a skirl of tyres and a flash of movement in the mirror. A black Jeep Grand Cherokee swept in behind them from a side road.

  Someone was leaning out of the passenger-side window—

  ‘Get down!’ Chase screamed, left arm snapping across to shove his grandmother’s head down. The rear window burst apart, glittering fragments of safety glass showering over Nina as she ducked.

  Another bullet plunked through the Focus’s hatchback door, cracking against the hard plastic of the seat back. Hunching low, Chase caught a glimpse of the shaven-headed gunman in the wing mirror. He was only armed with a pistol, but at such close range it was enough.

  ‘Who the hell are these guys?’ yelled Nina.

  ‘More Russians!’ Chase guessed. One group to carry out the hit and get the disc - and a second team to make sure nobody stopped them from escaping with their prize.

  ‘Oh, great! I don’t suppose you picked up a gun from the supermarket?’

  ‘This is England! The only people with guns are farmers and hoodies!’

  Traffic waited at a set of lights ahead, an approaching truck filling the other lane. The Jaguar braked hard and made a sharp right turn, going the wrong way down a one-way street. Chase followed suit, slamming down through the gears into a screaming, barely controlled drift after it. Nina was thrown bodily against the left-hand door, loose bottles and boxes battering her. The Focus juddered as its tyres struggled for grip, Chase battling with the wheel to hold it on the road.

  He looked ahead - and saw a bus rounding another tight corner. The Jaguar’s brake lights flared as the orange-haired woman swerved and slammed it up on to the pavement to guide it into a narrow gap between the shopfronts and a line of bollards. People screamed and dived aside as the XK raced down the hill.

  ‘Hold on!’ Chase shouted as he aimed the Focus after it.

  ‘It’s too narrow!’ Nina protested.

  ‘If they can fit, so can—’

  The passenger-side wing mirror clipped a signpost and flew off in a shower of glass and plastic. Nan gasped in fright.

  ‘Okay, I should’ve gone a bit further over,’ Chase admitted as he guided the car through the line of bollards and on to the pedestrianised area beyond. He recognised where they were - at the top of the street where he’d bought Holly her phone. Behind him, the Grand Cherokee slowed to squeeze through the gap, its bodywork scraping against the shopfronts.

  Nina looked ahead in horror as Chase accelerated again and blasted a frenzied tattoo on the horn. The street was still busy, shoppers reacting in panic as the cars raced at them. ‘Eddie, stop before we kill someone!’

  ‘If we stop, we’ll get killed!’ he countered. The black SUV had cleared the bollards, the shaven-headed man raising his gun again.

  The Jaguar weaved down the road, horn blaring - less out of concern for the lives of pedestrians than because hitting them would slow it down. Past the XK, Chase saw the clock tower overlooking the Square almost straight ahead, another road curving away to the left - but more bollards blocked the way, and the end of the pedestrian zone was blocked by a large metal gate—

  With nowhere else to go, the orange-haired woman aimed the Jaguar to the right of the gate and speeded up. People jumped aside, but one man was too slow and bounced off the bonnet to crash through the window of a Burger King. Chase grimaced, both his passengers reacting in shock.

  They cleared the gate. Chase glanced in the mirror. The Grand Cherokee was gaining, but the gap was tight even for a car, never mind an SUV - maybe too tight . . .

  The Jeep suddenly fell back, braking hard. But again the gap was just wide enough for it to fit through - it would be back in the chase very quickly.

  The Jaguar roared into the Square, smashing several chairs outside the café before ploughing into a cart and sending brightly coloured pashminas spinning into the air like butterflies. The market stalls formed a channel through the plaza, limiting options for escape. Somewhere in the distance, Chase heard a siren - the police.

  The woman heard it too, and started hunting for an exit route. All were clogged with people trying to flee the cars. Chase increased speed, intending to swipe the Jag’s rear end and force it into a lamppost. ‘Hang on!’

  She saw him coming and floored the accelerator, swinging right - and sending the Jaguar headlong through a fruit stall, an explosion of colour erupting in its wake. ‘Oh, fff . . . ruit!’ Chase gasped as he pursued it through the demolished stall, more varieties than he could name bouncing and splattering on the windscreen. Through the mush he saw the XK turn again, clipping a bus shelter and blowing out a pane of glass before flying off the kerb on to a road.

  He sent the Focus after it, the suspension bottoming out with a horrible crunch. Finding the wiper controls, Chase managed to clear his view and saw he was on the road running round the park. The Jaguar was already racing away.

  The siren suddenly became much louder. A police car, a Volvo V70 emblazoned with squares of Day-Glo yellow and blue, tore round the corner ahead of them, headlights flashing. The orange-haired woman changed direction, slamming over the kerb to drive the Jaguar into the park. Chase followed, another bone-jarring impact crashing through the tortured Focus.

  ‘The police are here!’ Nina protested. ‘Let them handle it!’

  ‘You know who they’ll arrest first? Us!’ Chase shot back. The police car fell in behind them, strobe lights pulsing - and the Grand Cherokee swept through the park entrance right behind it.

  The narrow path forked. The left route headed through the trees along the park’s eastern side, but the Jaguar went right, towards a bridge over the river. It was barely wide enough for a car, the XK losing one of its wing mirrors to the metal railings. A man jogging across in the other direction stared in disbelief as the Jag roared at him, coming to his senses just in time
to fling himself into the water.

  Sparks flew up from the Focus’s flank as it scraped against the bridge, the remaining wing mirror going the same way as the Jag’s. The XK reached a crossroads, the path directly ahead blocked by an ice-cream van, to the right only the balloon and the way back to the crowds of the Square. It went left, towards the seafront—

  Shots!

  Three, four, five cracks from behind. But the shaven-headed man in the SUV wasn’t aiming at Chase, but at the police, trying to get them out of his way.

  Blood splattered the Volvo’s windscreen as the driver was hit. The V70 veered sharply, hitting the bridge railings sidelong so hard that it folded around them, all the windows exploding. The Grand Cherokee’s driver saw that his path was blocked and slammed on the brakes, but not fast enough to stop the SUV from T-boning the police car and crushing it even harder against the metal posts.

  The Jeep wasn’t out of the pursuit, though. Tyres smoking, broken chunks of grille and bumper trailing beneath it, it shrieked in reverse back up the hill before reaching the fork and lunging along the tree-lined path.

  Chase performed a powerslide through the crossroads to follow the Jaguar. More people hurled themselves away from the cars, tumbling on to the neatly mowed grass. A crazy golf course whipped past, trees and another fork in the path ahead—

  ‘Go right!’ Nan ordered.

  ‘What?’ The Jaguar went left.

  ‘Right, it’s shorter!’

  Hoping his grandmother’s local knowledge was up to scratch, Chase swerved the Focus on to the right-hand path, one hand pounding on the horn. He glanced left, seeing glints of black through the bushes and trees.

  And further back, the Grand Cherokee powering down a hill to a second bridge, about to rejoin the hunt.

  Nan had been right - this route was shorter. They were gaining on the Jaguar. Ahead, Chase saw the elevated road over the pierfront esplanade, their hotel to the right. ‘We’re going round in bloody circles!’