The Secret of Excalibur

direction, slamming over the kerb to drive the Jaguar into the park. Chase followed, another bone-jarring impact crashing through the tortured Focus.

‘The police are here!’ Nina protested. ‘Let them handle it!’

‘You know who they’ll arrest first? Us!’ Chase shot back. The police car fell in behind them, strobe lights pulsing - and the Grand Cherokee swept through the park entrance right behind it.

The narrow path forked. The left route headed through the trees along the park’s eastern side, but the Jaguar went right, towards a bridge over the river. It was barely wide enough for a car, the XK losing one of its wing mirrors to the metal railings. A man jogging across in the other direction stared in disbelief as the Jag roared at him, coming to his senses just in time to fling himself into the water.

Sparks flew up from the Focus’s flank as it scraped against the bridge, the remaining wing mirror going the same way as the Jag’s. The XK reached a crossroads, the path directly ahead blocked by an ice-cream van, to the right only the balloon and the way back to the crowds of the Square. It went left, towards the seafront—

Shots!

Three, four, five cracks from behind. But the shaven-headed man in the SUV wasn’t aiming at Chase, but at the police, trying to get them out of his way.

Blood splattered the Volvo’s windscreen as the driver was hit. The V70 veered sharply, hitting the bridge railings sidelong so hard that it folded around them, all the windows exploding. The Grand Cherokee’s driver saw that his path was blocked and slammed on the brakes, but not fast enough to stop the SUV from T-boning the police car and crushing it even harder against the metal posts.

The Jeep wasn’t out of the pursuit, though. Tyres smoking, broken chunks of grille and bumper trailing beneath it, it shrieked in reverse back up the hill before reaching the fork and lunging along the tree-lined path.

Chase performed a powerslide through the crossroads to follow the Jaguar. More people hurled themselves away from the cars, tumbling on to the neatly mowed grass. A crazy golf course whipped past, trees and another fork in the path ahead—

‘Go right!’ Nan ordered.

‘What?’ The Jaguar went left.

‘Right, it’s shorter!’

Hoping his grandmother’s local knowledge was up to scratch, Chase swerved the Focus on to the right-hand path, one hand pounding on the horn. He glanced left, seeing glints of black through the bushes and trees.

And further back, the Grand Cherokee powering down a hill to a second bridge, about to rejoin the hunt.

Nan had been right - this route was shorter. They were gaining on the Jaguar. Ahead, Chase saw the elevated road over the pierfront esplanade, their hotel to the right. ‘We’re going round in bloody circles!’

Both cars raced under the raised roadway, the pier entrance directly ahead. Stalls channelled them towards the beach, but these were semi-permanent structures backed by brick and concrete, no way to simply smash through. The Jaguar’s driver frantically looked for an exit as more sirens approached.

Chase’s mirror suddenly filled with broken chrome teeth, the Jeep’s mangled grille snarling at him. The more powerful Grand Cherokee had caught up.

A shot punched through the roof directly above his head and blew a hole in the windscreen. Nan screamed. ‘Eddie!’ Nina cried as he swung the car over to the driver’s side of the Jeep to deny the gunman a clear shot. Cans and bottles clattered against her. ‘Are you okay?’

‘Yeah!’ was all he had time to say. The Jaguar reached the end of the stalls, skidding round them to head up an access road beside the Imax. The Jeep’s engine roared right behind the Focus. If Chase turned to follow the XK, he would put everyone in the car in the gunman’s line of fire, at almost point-blank range . . .

Some mad inspiration struck Nina, and she hurled a tin out of the shattered rear window. It hit the Jeep’s windscreen, crazing it. Startled, the driver instinctively swerved away.

Chase saw his chance and hauled on the wheel to bring the Focus round the stalls after the Jaguar. The Grand Cherokee went wide, tilting heavily on its suspension before coming after them again.

Nina grabbed the heaviest item she could see, a bottle of Pimm’s. The amber liquid sloshing as the car juddered round to pursue the Jaguar up the hill, she prepared to throw it—

A man directly ahead jumped away - revealing a woman with a baby in a pushchair right behind him. Chase braked, desperately swinging the Focus . . . back into the gunman’s sights.

Caught unawares by the sudden braking, Nina threw the bottle. It fell short, smashing on the paving.

The gunman aimed—

The Jeep’s front wheel ran over the jagged shards.

The tyre exploded. The driver lost control, sawing at the wheel as he tried to bring the two-ton-plus SUV to a stop, but it was too late.

The Grand Cherokee flipped over and barrel-rolled through the glass facade of the Imax building. It slammed into a wall - and exploded.

The raging fireball roiled through the foyer, every pane of glass shattering and raining down on to the esplanade. ‘Bloody hell!’ said Chase, looking back at the smoking structure.

‘It’s an improvement,’ his grandmother said quietly.

The Jaguar made another turn, into the exit road from a small car park. On the far side, Chase realised, was the road where he’d been caught by a speed camera less than five minutes - though it felt like five hours - earlier. From there, the dual carriageway out of town was only a couple of roundabouts away.

He threw the Focus round the corner after the Jag, knowing that once the convertible was free of the twisting urban roads he would never catch it. The orange-haired woman turned right to head uphill, out of the town centre. He followed, a car coming down the hill barely missing him.

More police sirens, growing louder . . .

A roundabout ahead. The Jaguar went left - but racing straight for Chase were two more police cars, the lead one swerving the wrong way round the roundabout to block his path as the second went the other way, boxing him in—

‘Fuck a duck!’ Nan shrieked.

‘Nan!’ yelped Chase shocked, as he yanked the handbrake—

The skidding Ford smashed headlong into the side of the first police car. The airbags deployed with a bang, cushioning the occupants of the front seats. Nina threw herself flat just before impact and was flung into the rear footwell, groceries ricocheting around her.

It had been a relatively low-speed collision, but Chase was still shaken. He sat up as the airbags deflated, and saw his grandmother bent over beside him. ‘Nan! Are you okay?’

She slowly raised her head. ‘I think . . .’

‘What?’

‘I think I just wee’d a little bit.’

Chase almost laughed, before remembering Nina. He looked round for her . . . and found himself staring down the barrel of an MP-5 sub-machine gun.

Not just one. Four policemen in flak jackets surrounded the car, weapons raised, fingers on triggers. An Armed Response Unit.

‘Armed police!’ one of them screamed. ‘Put your hands up! Now!’

Chase carefully raised his hands, nodding for his grandmother to do the same. ‘Nice one, lads. You stopped the wrong car. We’re the good guys.’

‘Shut up!’ The policeman looked into the rear of the car. ‘You in the back! Show me your hands, slowly! Get up!’

Nina obeyed, shaking glass out of her hair as she spoke to Chase. ‘And you said Bournemouth was boring . . .’

6

‘Well, well,’ said a familiar voice. ‘If it isn’t Eddie Chase. Or should that be Mad Max?’

Chase looked up as the cell door opened. ‘You took your time,’ he said with a tired grin. Jim ‘Mac’ McCrimmon, Chase’s former commanding officer in the SAS, had been the person he’d contacted with his phone call