The Secret of Excalibur

Ahead, the big man reached a junction. He too slowed, looking each way, first in confusion, then frustration, before going right.

Nina rounded the corner to find herself in a clone of the corridor she’d just left. A maid was closing the door of one of the rooms, her housekeeping trolley angled across the passage. The bearded man yelled something in a foreign tongue - Russian? Nina thought - as he stumbled into it, scattering spray bottles of cleaning products. The maid shrieked.

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,