past shop windows. Paramedics were loading an injured cyclist into the back of the ambulance on a stretcher. There was a twisted bicycle in the gutter. They ran on.
Behind them, the three men quickened their pace.
Leaving behind the mess of congested traffic and past more shops, Ben could see the big roundabout up ahead called the Plain. He remembered that it led to Magdalen Bridge and the High Street, straight into the heart of the city.
They raced across the road and the three men followed at a trot, threading through slow-moving cars. Off the Plain was a big wine-shop. A young man who looked like a student was parking a scooter on the kerb outside. He went into the shop, taking off his helmet and leaving the key dangling from the ignition.
Ben dragged the lightweight machine away from the window and swung his leg over the saddle. Leigh jumped on behind him as he started the engine. The student turned round and ran out of the shop, yelling at them to stop. One of the three men giving chase was talking urgently into a phone.
A hundred yards back down St Clements the Range Rovers battered through the stationary, honking traffic, smashing aside anything in their way and sending the police running for cover.
Ben twisted the throttle of the scooter. It was like driving a sewing machine. The little bike lurched into a sea of red and green buses, taxis and cars rumbling away from the Plain and across the Thames over Magdalen Bridge. Leigh’s arms were wrapped tightly around Ben’s waist as she perched precariously on the tiny pillion seat. He could hear police sirens in the distance behind them. He looked over his shoulder. The Range Rovers were coming up fast. The police cars had given chase, blue lights flashing.
Up ahead the traffic had stopped for a red light. Ben aimed the whining scooter at the kerb and it almost threw them off as it bumped up onto the pavement with a lurching wobble. He opened the throttle again and sent pedestrians scattering as he headed over the bridge. People turned and stared, some shouted. They made it halfway up the High Street, swerving wildly all over the pavement.
A shop door opened and the front wheels of a pram rolled out in front of them. It was carrying a baby wrapped in a blanket. The young mother was looking the other way and hadn’t seen the scooter racing towards her. She turned around and stopped, her mouth opening in horror.
Ben squeezed the brakes too hard and felt the scooter’s wheels lock up. He kicked out, tried to save it, but it skidded out from under them. He and Leigh tumbled to the ground. The machine scraped across the pavement on its side, hit a signpost and slid out into the path of a double-decker. The bus couldn’t stop in time. Sparks showered across the road as the scooter was flattened and mangled, pieces of smashed plastic bodywork spinning across the tarmac.
Ben sprang to his feet and grabbed his fallen bag while Leigh picked herself off the ground. Her jeans were ripped at the knee. The Range Rovers were speeding up the middle of the honking traffic just fifty yards away.
They ran. Off the High Street and through some metal bollards that blocked the way to vehicles. Up the cobbled lane past the Radcliffe Camera and Hertford College.
The Range Rovers skidded to a halt at the bollards and all six men jumped out, giving chase. The police sirens weren’t far away.
Ben had Leigh by the hand as they ran past the grand Bodleian Library and up Broad Street. Further up the street was the famous Sheldonian Theatre, a venue for classical concerts. A crowd was queuing for concert tickets as Ben and Leigh ran by. A woman’s face lit up with recognition as she spotted Leigh. She pointed, nudged her friend. ‘Hey, look! It’s Leigh Llewellyn!’
The crowd closed in around them as Leigh was met by smiles and requests for autographs. Nobody seemed to notice her flushed face, anxious look and torn knee. Camera phones clicked and flashed.
The six men were hanging back, watching through the crowd and panting with exertion from their sprint up the street. They scattered as a police car rounded the corner, its blue lights swirling. Two of them crossed the road and pretended to look in the window of Blackwell’s bookshop, while another two headed slowly up the Bodleian steps. The last pair stood chatting at the kerbside as the police car cruised past, its occupants scanning the busy street with stern faces.
Ben took Leigh’s hand again as they slipped away from the crowd and followed the slow-moving police car up the street. They glanced back and saw that the men had regrouped and were gaining on them again. On the corner of Broad Street and Cornmarket the crowds were thick with Christmas shoppers. Ben spied a taxi-rank and quickened his step. Ushering Leigh into the back seat of a cab, he caught a last glimpse of their pursuers’ angry faces. He slammed the taxi door and the car melted into the traffic.
Vienna
Markus Kinski strode up to his Chief’s office and barged in without knocking. He took the little plastic bag out of his pocket and slammed it down on the desk in front of him. In it were the handful of jangling, tarnished shell cases from the lakeside.
Hans Schiller looked down at the bag, nudged it with his finger and frowned up at Kinski. ‘What is this meant to be, Markus?’
The Chief looked harried. His hairline seemed to have receded another inch since yesterday. His face was grey and sallow, and his eyes were sunken deep into a bed of wrinkles. Kinski knew he was counting the minutes to his retirement.
‘I want the Oliver Llewellyn case reopened,’ Kinski said. He was the only detective on Schiller’s team who didn’t address him as sir, and the only one who could get away with it.
Schiller rested his elbows on the desktop and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘I thought we’d laid that one to rest, Detective,’ he said wearily. ‘Haven’t you anything better to do?’
‘There’s more to it,’ Kinski said, not taking his eyes off the Chief.
‘What’ve you got?’
Kinski pointed at the bag. ‘Nine-mil empties.’
‘I can see what they are,’ Schiller said. ‘What’d you do, scoop them off the range floor?’
‘I found them just now at the lake. The lake where Llewellyn died.’
Schiller took off his glasses and polished them with a tissue. He leaned forwards across the desk and looked hard at Kinski. ‘What are you trying to say? You’ve got nothing here. Llewellyn drowned. It was an accident.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘So what’s with the brass?’
‘I don’t know yet. I just know that I need to know more.’
‘But we already know what happened. You were there when they took the witness’s statement.’
‘The witness is a phoney.’
Schiller leaned back in his chair and breathed out loudly through his nose. He folded his arms across his stomach. ‘How do you know that?’
‘I just do.’
‘That’s a bold statement, Markus.’
