A group of sightseers was standing by the sea wall, taking in the view of the opera house and the water. One of them was pointing across to the far side of the harbour, where a giant ferry, belching black smoke from its funnel, was just getting under way, slowly nosing its way out of its berth and into open water. The moment the tourists lost interest in it and turned back in Carver's direction, they'd see him. Meanwhile, the men pursuing him were getting closer. He ducked down between two lines of cars and considered his situation.
He had no money to buy a way out. He had no weapon with which to fight. He had no tools with which to force open a car. His only hope was to hijack a car as it arrived or left the car park. He'd get out of town, dump the car and think of his next move.
Carver was hiding behind a chunky Audi Q7. It was fast, tough and equipped with four-wheel drive: the perfect getaway vehicle but as inaccessible to his bare hands as Fort Knox. He heard the sound of a car coming into the car park, its tyres crunching on the gravelly surface. Raising his head and peering through the Audi's windows, he spotted an old VW Golf manoeuvring into a space. That would have to do.
The moment the engine died, Carver made his move. He got to his feet and sprinted towards the car.
The car door was opening. The driver emerged, a grey-haired, elderly woman. Carver hesitated. Christ, had he really been reduced to beating up old ladies for their car keys?
As he stopped, he heard a shout. He couldn't make out the exact words, but he didn't have to. He turned his head and saw three men walking towards him, sixty or seventy metres away. They were spread out, each walking between a different line of cars and they moved with a calm, purposeful stride as they cut off Carver's line of escape, knowing that they had him.
The middle man of the three was Damon Tyzack. Carver could see that he was smiling, just as he had been at the King Haakon Hotel. But his mocking smirk had given way to the rapacious, scavenging grin of the hyena, made in anticipation of the taste of blood, the tearing of flesh and the cracking of bones against teeth.
The woman looked up, reacting to the shout, and saw Carver standing barely ten metres away. They looked at one another and he saw her eyes flicker with alarm as she locked her car door and hurriedly stuffed the key in her bag. Then she held it to her chest, silently daring him to take it from her. She'd seen the other men and sensed that they were after him. Now she knew the odds were on her side.
Carver could still have escaped. All he needed was three strides; one punch; barely five seconds to grab the bag, rip out the keys, get in the car and go.
He couldn't do it.
He spun towards the sea wall and sprinted in the direction of the walkway that led to the opera house, followed by the sound of hurried footsteps as Tyzack and his men came after him.
The sightseers were watching him now, their eyes fixed on the chase, but their bodies backing away as they struggled between curiosity and fear.
Carver reached the walkway, which was made of the same white stone that had been used on the opera house and the paved area in front of it. Ahead of him, a tourist couple – almost certainly British or American – were waddling back towards him. It wasn't hard to place them. No Norwegian would ever be that grossly overweight. Carver pushed his way between them, popped out the far side like a cork from a champagne bottle, then turned and aimed a short, chopping kick at the man's leg. He fell to the ground like a tower block being demolished from the bottom, collapsing in on itself. His wife started screaming. Between them, they blocked the entire walkway. Perfect.
Carver heard the squeals of the woman and the pained cries of her husband mix with Tyzack's shouts telling them to get out of the way. For a moment he was almost amused, but then he saw something that dashed any brief flicker of optimism.
Ahead of him, coming round the far side of the opera house, were another three men, line abreast, eating up the ground in a relaxed loping stride. When they caught sight of Carver, they didn't speed towards him, but slowed down. One of them raised a hand to his mouth. Carver couldn't see if he had a phone held in it or was using a wrist-mike, but the upshot was the same. The net was closing in. From their point of view it was just a matter of where they took him and when. He wasn't going to get away now.
42
He was standing at the foot of the marble ramp that ran up the side of the opera house to the roof. On this side of the building, the ramp widened as it rose, flaring away from the glass core. Up its outer edge, marked by foot-level lights, ran a stairway made from stone whose shallow steps were rough and stippled for extra grip. The main ramp was covered with smooth marble, but was still walkable, as the occasional figures dotted about it proved. This would provide the most direct route to the top. Carver started up it, settling into a slow, grim, arm-pumping run.
He'd gone about a quarter of the way up when he looked back over his shoulder. Tyzack was standing at the foot of the slope, speaking into a mobile phone. His two goons had already begun their ascent up the ramp towards him. Carver kept moving. The next time he looked back, Tyzack, too, was heading his way. From where he was, Carver couldn't see the far side of the building. But he was willing to bet that the other three pursuers had taken the ramp that went that way. He was counting on it, in fact.
Close up, Carver could see that the ramp – apparently a single upward sweep – was in fact a series of fractionally crimped and angled surfaces. Its colour was not pure white, as it had seemed from a distance, but a very pale hint of grey. Above his head, the late-evening sky had clouded over so that it was now a virtual match for the marble on which he stood. He felt disconcerted, almost disoriented; running over a surface that was constantly shifting beneath his feet towards a barely perceptible horizon at which stone and sky became one; a monochrome world as cold and alien as an Arctic icefield.
A few paces back, he'd passed three teenage girls coming downhill, arm in arm and giggling, making a game out of trying to keep their feet. Now he heard the tone of the voices change, a shriek of alarm and a jumble of words in which he only understood one: 'Pistol!'
He stopped and looked back down the slope. Tyzack and his men had drawn their weapons, which they held at their sides, pointing down, as they walked. They knew that he was not armed. There was no need to make a show of it. But the girls' words had had an effect. People were turning to look, then backing away from the men when they saw that they were armed. There were more shouts of alarm, a scurry of movement as people tried to get off the ramp and the roof above, looking for a safe way down.
The three men paid no attention to any of it. They were indifferent to everything and everyone except Carver.
He was almost at the top now. Ahead of him were two towers, the lower one about twice his height and faced with pale grey metal tiles covered with raised dots, like Braille. The taller tower, marble-covered like the rest of the building, rose to his right, above the core of the opera house. The other three men would be somewhere beyond and below it, coming up the other side of the building.
The two towers were arranged diagonally to one another – kitty-corner, as Americans say. As long as Carver stood behind one or other of the towers, he would be invisible to anyone on either ramp. He'd reached the shelter of the low tower now. No one could see him. But there was a gap of about three long strides between the tower's two nearest corners. The moment he tried to cross that, the men behind him would spot him at once.