Bolt stopped when he reached him, putting a hand on his shoulder. 'Matt, you all right?'
Through the earpiece, Barry demanded to know what was going on. It was only then that Bolt saw the growing bloodstain on his colleague's shirt.
'Shit!'
Turner looked up, his eyes wide and fearful, his expression almost childlike. 'I think I've been stabbed, boss,' was all he said, and then he put a hand out to steady himself and lay down on his side, almost as if he was about to go to sleep.
'Officer down!' yelled Bolt into the mike. 'Stabbed by second suspect. We need urgent medical help immediately.'
'What the hell happened?' yelled Barry in his ear, his tone close to full-blown panic as the full enormity of what was happening began to hit home. 'Control to all units, secure the scene. Secure the money. Armed back-up is arriving shortly.'
Bolt knew that the important thing was to stay calm and take the lead. In the ten seconds since Turner had got hit, the man with the bag had disappeared. They had to get him. Obanje and Tina had arrived now and Bolt yelled at Obanje to keep up the chase and Tina to stay with her injured colleague.
'What about the one who stabbed him?' she demanded.
'He's mine,' hissed Bolt, jumping to his feet.
The knifeman had run off down Tottenham High Road and he, too, had disappeared from view, but Bolt wasn't going to give up that easily. He didn't give a toss about the money, that was irrelevant, but this bastard, whoever he was, had seriously injured one of his men, as well as put Bolt himself through over a day's worth of personal hell. He hadn't got a good enough look at him to see whether or not it was Ridgers, but he didn't think it was. Guessing that he would keep the black cap on to avoid being ID'd by CCTV cameras, and knowing he wouldn't have got far, Bolt took off after him, ignoring the frantic chatter in the earpiece.
He almost hit a police horse and took no notice of the shouted command of its rider as he ran down the middle of the road between the lines of stationary cars, his eyes scanning the pavements and the legions of white- shirted fans. There was no black cap anywhere to be seen. Not on either side of the road. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Except for one thing. The herd mentality remained in full flow, which meant that almost everybody had turned in the direction of the melee behind, and some were actually moving towards it, their movement hesitant. One man, though, stood out, simply because he was walking purposefully away from the scene, his pace far too quick. He was keeping to the inside of the pavement, trying to remain out of view as he weaved between other fans. Bolt had hardly got a look at him earlier, but he was the right height and build, and he was thirty, maybe forty yards ahead.
It was him, Bolt was sure of it. He wiped his eyes, spat on the ground to get the taste of gas out of his mouth and kept running, going flat out in his desperation to get hold of him.
Thirty-five, thirty, twenty-five, twenty yards. His footfalls sounded artificially loud on the tarmac. Two uniformed cops in full riot gear stood in the road surveying the crowd uneasily, their batons drawn. One of them heard Bolt's rapid approach and, as if he was looking for someone to lash out at, lifted his baton menacingly and shouted at him to stop. Bolt didn't even slow down. He just pulled out his warrant card and yelled 'Police!' as loud as he could, and miraculously the cop simply got out of the way.
Unfortunately, the suspect also turned round. The expression on his face was one of pure shock, even behind the black shades, and in that single moment Bolt knew he was looking at the right man.
The suspect took off down the street, knocking over a middle-aged woman in his haste and stumbling before regaining his balance. Her husband shouted something and threw out a hand to grab him but he was nowhere near quick enough. This guy was speedy, and he had one hell of a lot of incentive to get away from his pursuers.
Bolt was less fit than he should have been. These days he only got to the gym once a week at best, and he was beginning to put on a few pounds round the middle. Today, though, he was powered by pure rage, and he kept pace with his target. He screamed at him to stop, loud enough so the whole street could hear it. People turned his way, then towards the fleeing suspect, who reacted by pulling out his knife and waving it wildly in front of him. It was an effective move. The crowds parted, no one wanting to tackle a knifeman.
Bolt sneaked a quick look over his shoulder. Two of the team, Dan Blakeley and Cliff Yakonos, were running along behind him, but were still a good twenty-five yards back, while the helicopter continued to hover impotently overhead. And Bolt was unarmed. If he caught up with the suspect, he'd be taking a huge risk. He thought about this information, accepted the risk, and kept running, ignoring the pain in his lungs and beginning to gain on his target half-yard by half-yard.
'Suspect two running south on Tottenham High Road,' he shouted into the mike. 'He's armed and dangerous. Request immediate back-up.'
'This is control. Back-up on way. ETA one minute.'
Without warning, a large man in his thirties, with a kid of about ten who must have been his son, jumped at the suspect as he ran past, trying to grab him in a bear hug. It was a brave move. Brave, public-spirited and totally rash. He got a grip, knocked the suspect against the window of a charity shop, but wasn't quick enough to neutralize the knife. The suspect reacted ruthlessly and instinctively, driving it directly into the man's upper body with a single bloody lunge, his face contorted with rage and desperation. The man went down like a falling tree, probably dead before he hit the ground. His kid cried out, 'Dad!' It was a terrified, shocked howl, a sound that would live with Bolt for a long time. It was a savage reminder that death can be so quick. One second you're a living, breathing, smiling human being out with your boy to see your team play football on a glorious evening, the next you're gone. For ever.
'Suspect two has stabbed member of public; urgent medical assistance required,' Bolt yelled into his mike, but it wasn't urgent. The guy was dead. Like Andrea's cleaner and Jimmy Galante. Maybe even Emma. Laid low by a killer without the slightest regard for human life.
A fury filled Bolt. It was stronger than any he'd felt in a long, long time, maybe ever, dwarfing the emotion that had soared through him as he kicked and beat Marcus Richardson, and it seemed to give him a blind, terrible energy.
The man's intervention might have cost him his life but it also cost the suspect five or six yards. He took off again as soon as he could, waving his bloody knife as he ran past the son he'd just deprived of a father, but he now had only a handful of yards on Bolt. A junction was coming up ahead, and when he reached it he turned hard right, his body almost jack-knifing in his bid to keep momentum. Bolt kept coming, not even thinking about hesitating as he too took the corner, even though he knew the suspect could use the blind spot as an ambush point. He was
