‘Jesus...’ Olafson said in a lisped whisper.
The sound of the horn rose in volume and frequency.
Then a flash of light.
Banquo automatically glanced to the side.
Caught a glimpse of the back seat in the car, the cheek of a sleeping child, resting against the window.
Then it was gone, and the dying tone of the horn sounded like the disappointed groan of cheated spectators.
‘Faster,’ Banquo said. ‘We’ll be on the bridge in no time.’
Angus jammed his foot down, and they were back in the cloud of exhaust.
‘Steady,’ Banquo said while aiming. ‘Steady...’
At that moment the tarpaulin on the back of the lorry was pulled aside, and the Transit’s headlamps lit up a flatbed piled with plastic bags containing a white substance. The window at the back of the driver’s cab had been smashed. And from the top of a gap between the kilo bags pointed a rifle.
‘Angus...’
A brief explosion. Banquo caught sight of a muzzle flash, then the windscreen whitened and fell in on them.
‘Angus!’
Angus had taken the point and swung the wheel sharply to the right. And then to the left. The tyres screamed and the bullets whined as the fire-spitting muzzle tried to track their manoeuvres.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Banquo shrieked and fired at the other tyre, but the bullet just drew sparks from the wing.
And suddenly the rain was back. They were on the bridge.
‘Get him with the shotgun, Olafson,’ Banquo yelled. ‘Now!’
The rain pelted through the hole where the windscreen had been, and Banquo moved so that Olafson could lay the double-barrelled gun on the back of his seat. The barrel protruded above Banquo’s shoulder, but disappeared again at the sound of a thud like a hammer on meat. Banquo turned to where Olafson sat slumped with his head tipped forward and a hole in his jacket at chest height. Grey upholstery filling fluffed up when the next bullet went right through Banquo’s seat and into the seat beside Olafson. The guy on the lorry had got his eye in now. Banquo took the shotgun from Olafson’s hands and in one swift movement swung it forward and fired. There was a white explosion on the back of the lorry. Banquo let go of the shotgun and raised his rifle. It was impossible for the guy on the lorry to see through the thick white cloud of powder, but from the darkness rose the floodlit white marble statue of Kenneth, like an unwelcome apparition. Banquo aimed at the rear wheel and pulled the trigger. Bull’s eye.
The lorry careered from side to side, one front wheel mounted the pavement, a rear wheel hit the kerb, and the side of the ZIS-5 struck the steel-reinforced fence. The scream of metal forced along metal drowned the vehicles’ engines. But, incredibly, the driver in front managed to get the heavy lorry back on the road.
‘Don’t cross the bloody boundary, please!’ Banquo yelled.
The last remnant of rubber had been stripped from the lorry’s rear wheel rims and a fountain of sparks stood out against the night sky. The ZIS-5 went into a skid, the driver tried desperately to counter it, but this time he had no chance. The lorry veered across the road and skidded along the tarmac. It was practically at the boundary when the wheels gained purchase again and steered the lorry off the road. Twelve tons of Soviet military engineering hit Chief Commissioner Kenneth right under the belt, tore him off the plinth and dragged the statue plus ten metres or so of steel fencing along before tipping over the edge. Angus had managed to stop the Transit, and in the sudden silence Banquo observed Kenneth falling through the moonlight and slowly rotating around his own chin. Behind him came the ZIS-5, bonnet first, with a tail of white powder like some damned amphetamine comet.
‘My God...’ the policeman whispered.
It felt like an eternity before everything hit the water and coloured it white for an instant, and the sound reached Banquo with a slight time delay.
Then the silence returned.
Sean stamped his feet on the ground outside the club house, staring out through the gate. Scratched the NORSE RIDERS TILL I DIE tattoo on his forehead. He hadn’t been so nervous since he was in the hospital delivery room. Wasn’t it just typical that he and Colin had drawn the short straw and had to stand guard on the night when excitement was at fever pitch? They hadn’t been allowed to string along and collect the dope or go to the party either.
‘Missus wants to call the kid after me,’ said Sean, mostly to himself.
‘Congrats,’ said Colin in a monotone, pulling at his walrus moustache. The rain ran down his shiny pate.
‘Ta,’ said Sean. Actually he hadn’t wanted either. A tattoo that would stamp him for life or a kid he knew would do the same. Freedom. That was the idea of a motorbike, wasn’t it? But the club and then Betty had changed his notion of freedom. You can only truly be free when you belong, when you feel real solidarity.
‘There they are,’ Sean said. ‘Looks like everything’s gone well, eh?’
‘Two guys missing,’ Colin said, spitting out his cigarette and opening the high gate with barbed wire on top.
The first bike stopped by them. The bass rumbled from behind the horn helmet. ‘We were ambushed by the cops, so the twins will come a bit later.’
‘Right, boss,’ Colin said.
The bikes roared through the gate one after the other. One of the guys gave a thumbs up. Good, the dope was safe, the club saved. Sean breathed out with relief. The bikes rolled across the yard past the shed-like single-storey timber house with the Norse Rider logo painted on the wall and disappeared into the big garage. The table was laid in the shed; Sweno had decided that the deal should be celebrated with a piss-up. And after a few minutes Sean heard the music turned up inside and the first shouts of celebration.
‘We’re rich.’ Sean laughed. ‘Do you know where they’re taking the dope?’
Colin said nothing, just rolled his eyes.
He didn’t know. Nobody did. Only Sweno. And those in the lorry, of course. It was best like that.
‘Here come the twins,’ Sean said, opening the gate again.
The motorbikes came slowly, almost hesitantly, up the hill towards them.
‘Hi, João, what happ—?’ Sean began, but the bikes continued through the gate.
He watched them as they stopped in the middle of the yard as though considering leaving their bikes there. Then they nudged one another, nodded to the open garage door and drove in.
‘Did you see João’s visor?’ Sean said. ‘It had a hole in it.’
Colin sighed heavily.
‘I’m not kidding!’ Sean said. ‘Right in the middle. I’ll go and see what really happened down on the quay.’
‘Hey, Sean...’
But Sean was off, ran across the yard and entered the garage. The twins had dismounted. Both stood with their backs to him, still wearing their helmets. One twin by the door leading straight from the garage into the club’s function room held the door ajar, as though not wanting to show himself but seeing what the party was like first. João, Sean’s best mate, stood by his bike. He had removed the magazine from his ugly-looking AK-47 and seemed to be counting how many bullets he had left. Sean patted him on the back. That must have been quite a shock because he spun round with a vengeance.
‘What happened to your visor, João? Stone chip, was it?’
João didn’t answer, just appeared to be busy inserting the magazine back into his AK-47. He was strangely clumsy. The other strange thing was that he seemed... taller. As though it wasn’t João standing there, but...
‘Fuck!’ Sean shouted, took a step back and reached for his belt. He had realised what the hole in the visor was and that he wasn’t going to see his best pal again. Sean pulled out his gun, released the safety catch and was about to point it at the man still struggling with the AK-47 when something struck him in the shoulder. He automatically swung the gun in the direction from which the blow had come. But there was no one there. Only the guy in the Norse Rider jacket standing over by the door. At that moment his hand seemed to wither and Sean dropped his gun to the floor.