‘What did you think? I’m not going to shout “Go, go, go!” just so you can get to kick the door in with your size twelves.’
‘On the other hand,’ Atherton said, ‘we’ll have to watch the place now we know there’s a chance Bates is in there. Hadn’t we better call it in and make it official?’
‘It’ll have to be twenty-four-hour surveillance. I’d better get Mr Porson out of bed. Can you radio the station and see who they can get here by way of temporary back-up – out of uniform, of course.’
Porson seemed rather glad than otherwise to be called out. Slider wondered if he had trouble sleeping. He said he would come straight in and sort out the paperwork for a surveillance request. At the station, they said they’d get someone over for surveillance as soon as they’d got them into their civvies – about half an hour, if they could hang on. Atherton said they could, and they settled down, with Fathom’s tangible disappointment like a fourth person in the back seat, to watch the quiet house and wait for support to arrive.
But only minutes later there was a movement across the road.
‘Someone’s coming out,’ Fathom said. A dark figure was coming up the steps from the semi-basement. ‘Is it Mark?’
It was a man in all-over motorcycle leathers and a dark-visored helmet. Little runt of a man. ‘Not big enough for Mark,’ Slider said, hearing his own voice cool and far away, while his blood tingled with adrenaline. ‘I’d say it was probably Bates.’
‘Where the hell’s he going?’ Atherton complained.
‘Escaping. It’s my fault,’ Slider said. ‘I told you to radio in. Pound to a penny he’s been monitoring the station radio. Why the hell wouldn’t he? I just didn’t think of it.’
‘What do we do, guv?’ Fathom asked. He was sweating with excitement now. ‘Do we grab him? Let’s go get him! Run across the road and collar him!’
But the figure was already astride the bike. Even if they ran, by the time they got across there he’d be moving, and then they’d be on foot and he’d be motorised. He’d be away and gone while they were scrambling back to the car.
‘Follow him,’ Slider said tersely. Atherton gunned the engine. ‘There he goes.’
‘I’m on it,’ Atherton said.
The bike swerved out of the opening and on to the road, executed a flashy U-turn round an on-coming taxi, and hammered off down the road towards Shepherd’s Bush Green. Atherton was after him, while Slider radioed the information to the dispatcher. ‘I bet he goes up the motorway,’ Fathom said. He was leaning forward as if he could make the car go faster that way, gripping the back of Slider’s seat, his breath whistling hot past Slider’s ear. ‘He’s gonna go up the motorway. That’s what I’d do. Bet he does. Bet he does.’
But he didn’t. He went on past the big roundabout towards the Green.
‘He wants to lose us in traffic,’ Atherton said grimly, through clenched driving teeth. There was still a lot of it about, and it was easier for a bike to weave through it than a car. Slider was glad Atherton was driving. His reactions were years quicker and he was completely fearless behind a wheel.
‘What about the bubble, guv?’ Fathom suggested.
‘It might help me,’ Atherton agreed.
‘And it might make him nervous,’ Slider said. He reached out of the window on his side and slapped the blue light on to the roof. As the siren wailed he saw the motorcyclist look back over his shoulder. I’m going to look a complete plonker if it isn’t Bates, Slider thought. And he had a hideous mental image of Bates slipping quietly and at leisure out if the house while they chased a nobody. But it wasn’t Mark, and it would have taken time to brief an innocent extra, and there hadn’t been more than enough time to get the leathers on. Besides, nobody who wasn’t serious about getting away would ride a bike like that, and at that speed, through Shepherd’s Bush.
Atherton squeezed the car between two frightened civilians who swerved apart and then back into their lanes, hitting their horns in sheer reaction. A chorus answered from the drivers behind who had been briefly inconvenienced. The motorcyclist was coming up to the far end of the Green with a choice of three directions to go. But the lights were red to go left towards Hammersmith.
Atherton said, ‘He’s going straight on, down Goldhawk.’
A gap opened up, and he accelerated with an affronted roar of the engine. Pool cars didn’t expect this kind of treatment.
The rider looked over his shoulder again, one quick glance, and then instead of going straight on, at the last moment bent the bike at a fantastic angle and went right, taking the curve round the Green in front of the cinemas with the machine almost horizontal.
‘Bloody hell,’ Fathom said.
‘Hold on!’
Tyres screamed as Atherton swung the wheel hard right, and behind them there was a screech of brakes, a blast of horn, and a crunch and tinkle as someone was forced to veer and didn’t quite miss someone else. The wheels raced and then gripped again, and as the car lurched forward Fathom nutted the back of Slider’s head.
‘Ow!’
‘Shit! Sorry, guv.’
The rider looked again to see if they had followed. It was a mistake. He had gone over at so steep an angle that the glance back was just too much. His balance went. The rear wheel went out sideways, the bike slewed left across the road and slid in a shower of sparks, hit the kerb and threw the driver off. There was a chorus of horns and brakes, and piercingly, heard even over the traffic, someone screamed. The rider rolled over and over at incredible speed, like a small black log hurtling down a mountainside. A truck, coming briskly round the corner from Goldhawk Road had no chance to brake and nowhere to swerve to. Slider felt his scalp go cold, heard Fathom swear, and saw the bike go under the wheels with a hideous series of sounds.
But the speed the rider had rolled had saved him, taking him just clear as the truck lurched to a stop, scattering a tinkling of small glass and metal from the mangled thing under the wheels. As the traffic came to a standstill, leather-man staggered to his feet, pushing himself against the lorry’s snout to make his balance. Slider caught a glimpse of the lorry driver, white and rigid behind the wheel, eyes and mouth three shocked O’s, as Atherton swerved across to the kerb and stopped at a diagonal in front of all the mess.
They were all out in a second, but leather-man was already on the move. He ran, limping stiffly the first few steps; glanced round, found some adrenaline reserve, and went like the clappers, limp forgotten. They pounded after him.
‘Bloody Mel Gibson,’ Atherton said tersely.
There were pedestrians scattered about, halting and looking round, uncertain what was happening.
‘Police,’ Slider shouted. ‘Stop that man.’
But no-one did. One man put out a feeble foot but leather-man easily avoided it. ‘What’s ’e done?’ Slider heard someone shout. His whole burning attention was fixed on the fleeing black figure. The accident must have hurt him. It would tell against him. Must do, when the adrenaline was used up.
Leather-man’s hands went up to the helmet, dragged it off and dropped it. It bounced like a hand-grenade, plastic splintering. Slider’s heart sang as the long red hair fell loose and flew out behind the runner like a flag. No doubt then – it was Bates. The helmet business had slowed him for a second, and Atherton, pulling ahead of Slider, was almost within reach. Bates showed a white eye and dodged, round a bollard and across the road, thumping past the stopped cars of the first two lanes, dodging the crawling, gawping outer lanes.
Atherton was ahead in the pursuit, and the heavy, less nimble Fathom was falling behind Slider. Strung out in a line they pounded after the black stick-figure with the flying red mane. Atherton almost had him and he dodged again, jinked left and right and then left again – dammit – back into the traffic and across the road. Slider jerked round to throw a diagonal course and cut him off, and Fathom ran into him from behind. Slider shouted something, he didn’t know what, and was off again.