The Secret of Excalibur

swatting a doorman aside with a sweep of one arm.

He had an Apple laptop in his other hand. It had to be Nina’s . . . The Jaguar skidded to a halt. The man vaulted the door and landed in the passenger seat, the car visibly tilting under his weight. The woman stamped on the accelerator, skidding the car round to head back the way it had come.

Nina charged out of the hotel and ran to the Focus. ‘That’s them, they killed him!’ she shouted, pointing after the disappearing XK. She was about to open the front passenger door when she realised the seat was occupied. ‘Oh!’

‘You remember my nan, don’t you?’ Chase said sheepishly.

‘Yeah, ah . . .’ The Jaguar disappeared from view; she stared desperately after it, then pulled open the rear door and jumped in, shoving shopping aside. ‘They’re getting away, go go go!’

Chase gave her a despairing look. ‘Nina, my grandmother’s in the car!’

To their mutual surprise, Nan spoke up. ‘Go after them, Edward!’

Chase’s eyebrows shot up. ‘What?’

Nan shoved the bag on her lap into the footwell and gripped the door handle with both hands. ‘I always wanted to see what my grandson does for a living.’

‘But—’

She glowered fiercely at him. ‘Edward, they’re getting away! Go on, get after them!’

He revved the engine. ‘This is such a fff . . . lippin’ bad idea . . .’ And with that, Chase brought the Focus screaming round after the Jaguar.

5

Chase flung the Focus out of the car park into a sharp right turn. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked Nina.

‘I don’t know,’ Nina said tersely.

‘That helps!’

‘The woman shot Bernd, and the big guy stole my laptop. I think he’s Russian.’

Ahead, the Jaguar slewed the wrong way through a roundabout. Another car swerved to avoid a collision and crashed on to the pavement. ‘Why’d he steal your laptop?’

‘That disc Bernd gave me - whatever’s on it, they want it!’

Chase braked hard and skidded round the roundabout. The shopping bags in the back seat spilled their contents over Nina. ‘So what’s on the disc?’

‘I don’t know! Something to do with finding Excalibur.’

The Jaguar was pulling away up a hill. Chase wished he’d hired something more powerful than a family hatchback. ‘What, King Arthur’s sword?’

‘No, the John Boorman movie!’ she snapped sarcastically. ‘Yes, King Arthur’s sword!’

‘All right, Jesus Christ!’ His grandmother gave him a stern look. ‘Sorry, Nan. Where does this road go?’

‘The top end of town,’ Nan told him - but Chase was no longer listening, his attention caught by a skirl of tyres and a flash of movement in the mirror. A black Jeep Grand Cherokee swept in behind them from a side road.

Someone was leaning out of the passenger-side window—

‘Get down!’ Chase screamed, left arm snapping across to shove his grandmother’s head down. The rear window burst apart, glittering fragments of safety glass showering over Nina as she ducked.

Another bullet plunked through the Focus’s hatchback door, cracking against the hard plastic of the seat back. Hunching low, Chase caught a glimpse of the shaven-headed gunman in the wing mirror. He was only armed with a pistol, but at such close range it was enough.

‘Who the hell are these guys?’ yelled Nina.

‘More Russians!’ Chase guessed. One group to carry out the hit and get the disc - and a second team to make sure nobody stopped them from escaping with their prize.

‘Oh, great! I don’t suppose you picked up a gun from the supermarket?’

‘This is England! The only people with guns are farmers and hoodies!’

Traffic waited at a set of lights ahead, an approaching truck filling the other lane. The Jaguar braked hard and made a sharp right turn, going the wrong way down a one-way street. Chase followed suit, slamming down through the gears into a screaming, barely controlled drift after it. Nina was thrown bodily against the left-hand door, loose bottles and boxes battering her. The Focus juddered as its tyres struggled for grip, Chase battling with the wheel to hold it on the road.

He looked ahead - and saw a bus rounding another tight corner. The Jaguar’s brake lights flared as the orange-haired woman swerved and slammed it up on to the pavement to guide it into a narrow gap between the shopfronts and a line of bollards. People screamed and dived aside as the XK raced down the hill.

‘Hold on!’ Chase shouted as he aimed the Focus after it.

‘It’s too narrow!’ Nina protested.

‘If they can fit, so can—’

The passenger-side wing mirror clipped a signpost and flew off in a shower of glass and plastic. Nan gasped in fright.

‘Okay, I should’ve gone a bit further over,’ Chase admitted as he guided the car through the line of bollards and on to the pedestrianised area beyond. He recognised where they were - at the top of the street where he’d bought Holly her phone. Behind him, the Grand Cherokee slowed to squeeze through the gap, its bodywork scraping against the shopfronts.

Nina looked ahead in horror as Chase accelerated again and blasted a frenzied tattoo on the horn. The street was still busy, shoppers reacting in panic as the cars raced at them. ‘Eddie, stop before we kill someone!’

‘If we stop, we’ll get killed!’ he countered. The black SUV had cleared the bollards, the shaven-headed man raising his gun again.

The Jaguar weaved down the road, horn blaring - less out of concern for the lives of pedestrians than because hitting them would slow it down. Past the XK, Chase saw the clock tower overlooking the Square almost straight ahead, another road curving away to the left - but more bollards blocked the way, and the end of the pedestrian zone was blocked by a large metal gate—

With nowhere else to go, the orange-haired woman aimed the Jaguar to the right of the gate and speeded up. People jumped aside, but one man was too slow and bounced off the bonnet to crash through the window of a Burger King. Chase grimaced, both his passengers reacting in shock.

They cleared the gate. Chase glanced in the mirror. The Grand Cherokee was gaining, but the gap was tight even for a car, never mind an SUV - maybe too tight . . .

The Jeep suddenly fell back, braking hard. But again the gap was just wide enough for it to fit through - it would be back in the chase very quickly.

The Jaguar roared into the Square, smashing several chairs outside the cafe before ploughing into a cart and sending brightly coloured pashminas spinning into the air like butterflies. The market stalls formed a channel through the plaza, limiting options for escape. Somewhere in the distance, Chase heard a siren - the police.

The woman heard it too, and started hunting for an exit route. All were clogged with people trying to flee the cars. Chase increased speed, intending to swipe the Jag’s rear end and force it into a lamppost. ‘Hang on!’

She saw him coming and floored the accelerator, swinging right - and sending the Jaguar headlong through a fruit stall, an explosion of colour erupting in its wake. ‘Oh, fff . . . ruit!’ Chase gasped as he pursued it through the demolished stall, more varieties than he could name bouncing and splattering on the windscreen. Through the mush he saw the XK turn again, clipping a bus shelter and blowing out a pane of glass before flying off the kerb on to a road.

He sent the Focus after it, the suspension bottoming out with a horrible crunch. Finding the wiper controls, Chase managed to clear his view and saw he was on the road running round the park. The Jaguar was already racing away.

The siren suddenly became much louder. A police car, a Volvo V70 emblazoned with squares of Day-Glo yellow and blue, tore round the corner ahead of them, headlights flashing. The orange-haired woman changed