‘You know where you can put your frickin’ mirrors?’ Nina growled — but a glance at the left mirror told her that he was correct. She was much farther over than she had thought, the combination of her seating position and the Routemaster’s size throwing off her spatial perception. A more precise turn of the wheel brought her closer in, just in time to whisk through the gap.
She saw that the road forked ahead. ‘We’re coming to an intersection! Which way?’
‘We’re on Fulham Broadway, so… right, go right!’ Roy told her. ‘It’ll take us towards the river — we can cross on Battersea Bridge. If we can reach it in one piece,’ he added.
‘I’ll try not to hit anything else!’ Nina sounded the horn in a warning blast as she tore through a set of red lights into the junction. Cars scattered like frightened mice as she accelerated on to the new road. ‘Roy, what about the laptop?’
‘Ninety-five per cent,’ he replied.
‘Seriously? Can’t you speed it up? My parents had a computer with a “turbo” button on it back in the damn Nineties!’
Roy sounded offended. ‘It’s working as fast as it can!’
Eddie had other concerns. The siren’s source had just appeared, a police car sweeping out from the left-hand fork — but rather than follow them, it stopped in the middle of the junction, blocking the confused traffic. The Range Rover entered the other side of the intersection and bullied its way through the chaos.
He thought the police car was waiting for their pursuers to take the lead. But when the Range Rover finally cleared the knot of cars and accelerated after the bus, the cops remained stationary.
There was only one reason why the police would have been instructed to leave the hunt to the Removal Men. Brice and those working with him wanted no official witnesses to their actions when they caught up.
‘Nina,’ he said, readying the gun, ‘you need to get away from these arseholes — or we’re going to die!’
36
Nina knew the urgency in her husband’s voice from far too much prior experience. She pulled out to overtake the vehicles ahead, tearing down the wrong side of the road at forty, forty-five, fifty miles per hour.
The street was broad enough for oncoming cars to swerve clear of the thundering Routemaster, but beyond them she saw buildings blocking her path at a T-junction. ‘Crap!’ she said. ‘Roy, which way?’
Roy looked up from the laptop. ‘Left!’
The intersection was controlled by lights, cars starting to come around the corner. ‘Hold on!’ she cried, releasing the accelerator and curving right — before throwing the bus hard to the left.
The Routemaster tipped alarmingly. The first oncoming car skidded to a stop as the bus tore past — only for a van behind to ram into it and knock it forward. The bus’s tail ripped off its front bumper and sent it spinning across the junction.
Nina gripped the shuddering wheel. The speedo was falling, but it still felt as if the double-decker was about to topple over. She braked. To her horror, the bus’s list became worse, the street rolling before her—
‘Don’t brake!’ Eddie yelled. ‘Go faster!’
She trusted him to be right. Foot back on the accelerator, hard. The bus lurched, still teetering on the brink of disaster… and then the extra power propelled it through the turn.
It swung back upright as she straightened out, straddling the middle of the road between the lines of traffic. ‘Glad you remembered your driving lessons!’ she called back to Eddie, heart pounding. ‘Where are we, and how do we get to the river?’
The bus’s drunken reel had almost thrown Roy from his seat. He hurriedly checked that the damaged hard drive hadn’t been disconnected before answering. ‘The King’s Road. Keep going, and there’s a turn that takes us to Battersea Bridge.’
‘How’s the computer doing?’
‘Ninety-seven per cent!’
‘It’s always the last little bit that takes for ever, isn’t it?’ said Eddie, looking back. Their pursuers had been forced to slow to round the wrecked car, but they wouldn’t be delayed for long.
The bus raced on. Bangs and screeches of metal punctuated its journey as it swiped off wing mirrors and scraped against cars that had not given it enough space. ‘Ninety-eight per cent!’ Roy announced as they hurtled through another set of lights. ‘Okay, next right for the bridge.’
Nina heard more sirens. ‘Cops are getting closer!’
‘So are the goon squad,’ Eddie warned. The Range Rover was gaining fast.
Roy pointed ahead. ‘Here, go right!’
Nina started to turn — then hurriedly abandoned the move and swerved back on to the King’s Road. ‘Roadblock!’ A police car had stopped across both lanes of the southbound street.
‘Why didn’t they block this road?’ Roy asked.
Eddie had the unwelcome answer. ‘Because Brice doesn’t want the cops to catch us. He wants the Removal Men to get us first — so they can shoot us without anyone asking questions!’
Nina saw a sign ahead. ‘Thank God!’
‘What is it?’ Eddie asked.
‘A bus lane!’ She found a gap in the traffic she was overtaking, which was comprised almost exclusively of big and expensive SUVs, and darted left into the empty section of road. ‘Maybe now we can get somewhere — oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!’ What she had hoped would be an escape route came to a sudden end not far ahead. ‘It’s like two hundred feet long! That’s it? London, you suck!’ There were no spaces in the line of 4x4s to her right, and even with repeated shrills of the horn, none of the drivers were willing to clear one for her. ‘Come on, someone get out of my way!’
‘Welcome to Chelsea,’ said Roy acerbically.
‘Don’t stop!’ Eddie shouted. The Range Rover was gaining.
Nina grimaced, then spun the wheel. The bus scythed into the traffic, sideswiping an Audi Q7 driven by a rail-thin blonde in oversized sunglasses. ‘Comin’ through! Yeah, I learned to drive in New York, lady. Don’t try to block me.’
The Range Rover closed in, its front passenger leaning out of his window. ‘They’re gonna shoot!’ Eddie cried. ‘Roy, get down!’
Roy hurriedly ducked — as the man opened fire with a handgun. Shots tore across the gap, the Routemaster’s back window shattering.
Eddie dived through the open rear doors to land flat on the boarding platform. The Removal Man’s gun swung towards him—
The Yorkshireman had already lined up his sights and pulled the trigger. The other man jerked back as blood burst from his shoulder, his gun falling to the road.
Eddie had no time for relief. The bus jolted with an impact, the shrill of metal on metal rising behind him—
He rolled back inside — as they whipped past another bus, the two double-deckers scraping noisily against each other. Pieces of both vehicles’ mirrors showered over him. ‘Christ! Could you get any closer?’
‘I could try,’ Nina snarked. ‘Roy, are you okay?’
Roy looked up from the floor. ‘Yah, yah,’ he gasped.
‘And the laptop?’
‘What? Wait — you care more about the laptop than me, don’t you!’
‘What I care about most of all is not getting killed! Is it still working?’
He retrieved the machine. ‘Yah, it is. And it’s still on ninety-eight per cent, since I’m sure you want to know!’
‘Just keep it running!’ Nina glanced at the left-side mirror, only to find nothing there. That would make judging her manoeuvring room even harder — but a quick look in the other mirror revealed a more urgent danger. A man was leaning out of the Range Rover’s rear window, holding something larger than a pistol. ‘Eddie, gun! Bigger gun!’