was standing also, holding her toddler, half-turned as if to shield him or her from danger. The breakfasting man stood and dashed into the cafe so quickly that he knocked over a chair and spilled his coffee pot. It hit the ground with a loud metallic clang.
‘Hulk!’ Andy said.
Dom laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. ‘Don’t make me angry!’ he shouted across the square, almost hysterical.
‘Mate,’ Andy said, surprised. ‘Come on.’
Dom dropped into the car and slammed the door, panting, hands sweaty as they clasped for the seatbelt. ‘We did it?’
‘Yeah,’ Andy said. He sat motionless for a beat, then ripped off his Iron Man mask. That wasn’t part of the plan.
‘Andy?’
No response. No movement.
‘Andy, what’s—’
‘Yeah, we did it,’ Andy said. He started the engine, slipped into gear and pulled away.
A white transit van entered the square ahead of them, screeching around the corner and veering across the road. Two figures sat in the front.
Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.
‘Oh, fuck,’ Andy said. His voice sounded flat.
What? Dom thought. Maybe he even spoke it. He wasn’t sure.
Dom braced himself against the dashboard as Andy turned to the left, hitting the kerb so that one front wheel mounted the square’s small lawned area. The van nudged the car’s rear wing on the driver’s side, a glancing blow.
Another vehicle had skidded around the corner, close behind the transit van. A silver BMW. It passed so close to them that wing mirrors kissed.
Andy pressed on the gas. The Focus bounced down onto the road again and accelerated towards the corner around which the van and BMW had appeared.
‘What the hell?’ Dom shouted. ‘Andy, what the fuck?’ He twisted and looked through the rear window.
The van had halted in front of the post office, slewed across the road. The passenger door opened and Bugs Bunny jumped out. He held a gun. Dom had no idea what kind, but it was big and ugly, and looked very real.
‘Andy …’ he said.
‘I know.’
The BMW had stopped behind the van. Its driver’s window was down, and Roadrunner stared after them.
‘Andy, what’s happening?’
Andy stared back at the car and van. Then he said, ‘We’re getting out of here.’
Daffy Duck jumped from the van’s driver’s side and stood watching them go. Bugs Bunny was already through the doorway and into the post office. The van’s rear door opened and Jerry the cat appeared, also staring after the car. Jerry gestured, shouting, and Roadrunner’s head turned.
Then they were around the corner and the square was out of sight, and Andy accelerated away from the small village, heading towards the climb into the hills that Dom was so nervous of descending on his bike.
Dom shook. He needed to piss. He tried to take his mask off but his fingers felt numb, he couldn’t get them beneath the damp, stinking latex. He was suffocating.
‘Deep breaths,’ Andy said.
‘Deep fucking breaths?’ he shouted, voice muffled in the green mask. He worked his thumbs beneath the edge at last and tugged it from his head, edges pulling his hair and raking against his skin. ‘What was that?’
‘Trouble,’ Andy said.
‘They had guns, they were there to—’
‘Trouble coming our way.’ Andy was glancing back and forth between road and rear-view mirror, and Dom twisted in his seat.
The silver BMW was tearing along the road towards them.
‘Oh, shit,’ Dom said.
‘You need to work with me, Dom. Got it?’
‘Work with you?’
‘You saw the guns. Whoever they are, they’re serious. You’ve lived here all your life, you know these roads better than me, so think how we can lose him.’
Andy knocked down a gear and pressed on the gas. The road was narrow and twisting.
‘Andy, maybe we should stop.’
‘Seriously?’ his friend said, risking a glance across at Dom. ‘You’re serious?’
Dom shook his head. He didn’t know. He couldn’t quite fathom what was happening, his brain could make no sense of things.
‘Dom! Nothing changes. We lose him then we’re away, we’re good, and we’ve got a bag full of money. We follow the plan. Understand?’
‘How can we?’
‘How can we not?’ Andy said. ‘It’s done, mate. We’ve done it. No going back.’ He grimaced as he slammed on the brakes. Tyres screamed as they took a bend too fast.
Dom held his breath. Nothing was coming the other way.
The road started to rise into the hills.
‘Closer,’ Andy muttered.
Dom looked back. The BMW was so close that he could no longer see its number plate and grille. They must have been doing sixty, and the silver car was just feet from their rear.
Roadrunner’s madcap smile was fixed on him. The driver held up a phone, camera pointed their way.
I took my mask off, Dom thought. But it was too late now.
‘Dom, we’ve got two or three miles to lose him or stop him. After that we’re over the hill, out of the woods and we hit the main road. Once that happens, we’re screwed. Law will be coming. Helicopter pursuit, the works. What do you think, the tight bend at the top?’
‘What do you mean?’ Dom asked. He didn’t recognise this Andy, but he shouldn’t have been surprised. They were in a car chase. His friend was keeping it together.
‘This is our future,’ Andy said.
‘Yeah,’ Dom said, and he thought of Emma and Daisy. His future.
‘So, that bend? We know it, he doesn’t. Maybe if I take it fast enough he’ll lose control?’
‘Better idea,’ Dom said. ‘Just after that there’s a turn right, hundred metres before the pink house, narrow lane, looks more like a field gateway. It heads up into the woods. I used to mountain bike up there before I started on the roads.’
‘You’re sure?’ Andy asked. He dropped down a gear again as the slope
