Tooth & Nail

They were on St Martin's Lane now. People mingling, pre-theatre or after work. The busy West End. Yet the traffic ahead had thinned for no apparent reason and the crowds gawped as first the BMW, then the Jaguar sped past.

As they approached Trafalgar Square Rebus saw, to right and left, police officers in luminous yellow jackets holding up the traffic in the side-streets. Now why, would they do that? Unless . . .

Road block! One entrance to the Square left open, all exits blocked, the Square itself kept empty for their arrival. In a moment they'd have him. God bless you, George Flight.

Rebus picked up the handset, his voice a snarl, specks of saliva dotting the windscreen as he spoke.

`Stop the car, Chambers. There's no place to go.'

Silence. They were skidding into Trafalgar Square now, traffic blaring in queues all around them, held back by the gloved, raised hand of authority. Rebus was buzzing again. The whole West End of London, brought to a standstill so that he might race a Jaguar against a BMW. He could think of friends who'd give whole limbs to be in his place. Yet he had a job to do. That was the bottom line. It was just another job to be cleared up. He might as well have been following teenage Cortina thieves through the streets of some Edinburgh housing-scheme.

But he wasn't.

They'd done one full circuit around Nelson's Column. Canada House, South Africa House and the National Gallery were just blurs. The judge was being thrown against the door behind Rebus.

`Hang on,' Rebus called.

`To what, pray?'

And Rebus laughed. He roared with laughter. Then he realised the line was still open to Chambers's BMW. He laughed even harder, picking up the handset, his knuckles white against the steering wheel, left arm aching.

`Having fun, Chambers?' he yelled. `Like the TV programme used to say, there's no hiding place!'

And then the BMW gave a jolt, and Rebus heard Chambers gasp.

`You bitch!' Another jolt, and sounds of a struggle. Lisa was retaliating, now that Chambers was intent on this speeding circuit without end.

`No!'

`Get off!'

'I'll—'

And a piercing scream, two piercing screams, both high-pitched, feminine in their intensity, and the black car didn't take the next bend, flew straight for the pavement, mounted it and bounced into a bus shelter, crumpling the metal structure and driving on into the walls of the National Gallery itself

`Lisa!' Rebus cried. He brought the Jaguar to a sudden, pivoting stop. The driver's door of the BMW creaked open and Chambers stumbled out, slouching off in a half-run, clutching something in his right hand, one leg damaged. Rebus struggled with his own door, finally finding the handle. He ran to the BMW and peered in. Lisa was slumped in the passenger seat, a seatbelt passing in a diagonal across her body. She was groaning, but there were no signs of blood. Whiplash. Nothing more serious than whiplash. She opened her eyes.

'John?'

`You're going to be all right, Lisa. Just hang one Somebody will be here.' Indeed, the police cars were closing in, uniforms running into the Square. Rebus looked up from the car, seeking Chambers.

`There!'` The judge was out of the Jaguar and pointing with a rigid arm, pointing upwards. Rebus followed the line to the steps of the National Gallery. Chambers had reached the top step.

`Chambers!' Rebus yelled. 'Chambers!'

But the body disappeared from view. Rebus started towards the steps, finding his own legs to be less than solid. As though rubber instead of bone and cartilage were keeping him upright. He climbed the steps and entered the building by its nearest door—the exit door. A woman in a staff uniform was lying on the ground in the foyer, man standing over her. The man gestured towards the gallery's interior.

`He ran inside!'

And where Malcolm Chambers went, Rebus would surely follow.

He ran and he ran and he ran.

The way he used to run from his father—running and climbing the steps to the attic, hoping to hide. But always caught in the end. Even if he hid all day and half of the night, eventually the hunger, the thirst, would force him back downstairs, to where they were waiting.

His leg hurts. And he's cut. His, face is stinging. The warm blood is trickling down his chin, down his neck. And he's running.

It wasn't all bad, his childhood. He remembers his mother delicately snipping away at his father's nosehairs. 'Long nosehairs are so unbecoming in a man.' It wasn't his fault, was it, any of it? It was theirs. They'd wanted a daughter, they'd never wanted a son. His mother had dressed him in pink, in girls' colours and girls' clothes. Then had painted him, painted him with long blonde curls, imagining him into her paintings, into her landscapes. A little girl running by a riverbank. Running with bows in her hair. Running.

Past one guard, past two. Lunging at them. The alarm is, ringing somewhere. Maybe it's just his imagination. All these paintings. Where have all these paintings come from? Through one door, turn right, through another.