Here I paused and tried to subdue my breathing so I could listen for any sound below. It remained quiet. Reluctance to move on to the edge of the roof rained down on me like treacle. The longer I cowered in the dubious shelter of the roof’s damp valley the harder it would get. I wanted this done, I wanted to be away. Above all, I wanted to be down. I pushed along to the furthest corner. In front and above me the grey giant of the scaffold stood ready to swallow me. I could not afford to stand on the edge of the market roof, in full view of anyone on the ground in the car park, and dither. I’d simply have to do it instantly: line up opposite the hole in the tarpaulin and jump across. Jump. Jump across. Jump across the gap. I stood and stared down into the canyon into which the weight of the sculpture on my back would pull me if I stumbled. The level of the scaffolding was higher than the roof on which I stood, not much but it was enough to make the jump look impossibly hard. Hard. So hard. Too hard. I’d need wings to get up and across with this sodding lump of metal on my back. Unslinging the rucksack I briefly wondered how resilient bronze was — didn’t they once make swords from the stuff? — got a good swing on it and flung it across the gap on to the scaffold. It disappeared into the dark beyond the tarp with a reverberating bang.
‘What? No, I heard something. .’ Voices below and to the left, coming nearer.
‘Check the back entrance to the market.’
‘I already did.’
‘Well, check it again.’
‘Yes, sarge.’
At this distance the combined noise of the wind, rain and river might mask my jump, if I let them come any closer it might no longer. It wouldn’t be long before they got men and lights on to the roof. I could hear a surge of engine noise from the direction of Grand Parade.
‘Super’s just arrived,’ said the first voice.
I jumped. Before I knew it I’d landed awkwardly on top of the unyielding rucksack. During the jump I had the briefest impression of torches being waved about to the left.
‘Did you just hear something?’
I lay very still. My jump had been in the darkest corner of the yard, where the two buildings met. I had been heard but not seen. Now I had to move on before they got bodies down here. The Super? What on earth was Needham doing down here in the middle of the night? They couldn’t have got him out of bed and down here from his house in Oldfield Park this fast unless these days he travelled with a rocket pack. Perhaps he’d been at Manvers Street anyway working on something else. Perhaps he was one of the Friends of Victoria Art Gallery, if there were any. Or perhaps he’d been expecting me.
It is hard to shrug off your paranoia standing three floors up on a narrow scaffold in the dark with a stolen Rodin on your back and police running around below. I moved slowly, setting my feet carefully each time, until I reached the ladder. I was safe from view and the snapping tarp and drumming rain helped mask my descent. No more voices, no sounds at all while I worked my way steadily down the levels.
The sudden shout close by nearly made me fall off the last ladder. ‘It’s secure, sarge, padlocked! They didn’t come through here.’ A constable rattled the cage.
Bending down, hanging on the ladder, I watched his legs move away. I stood and panted in the dark at the foot of the ladder, getting my breath back and my nerve up for the next lap. Keeping my body as far back in the shadows as was possible I pushed my hands through the grid of the cage, got the key into the padlock, let it snap open and unhooked it from the latch. The constable had moved off to the left. My route of escape lay more or less straight ahead: through the wrought-iron gate on the opposite side and down the slipway. There was no point in delaying. I had no idea where the constable had gone nor if there were any other bodies in the car park, but every second would make the situation more dangerous. I expected at any moment to hear the cry go up as someone discovered Annis clinging to the landing stage.
I opened the wire door wide, took a deep breath and loped across the car park like a demented Quasimodo. My legs ached and the lump of bronze on my back seemed to try and push me into the ground. Just as I reached the slope of the slipway that would take me out of view of anyone searching the car park the beam of a torch swept across the back of the Empire Hotel’s walls and passed over me.
‘Hey, stop! Police!’ The shout I had feared went up as I dived into the darker slipway and shouldered open the door. I fumbled for the next bicycle lock to close the gate against my pursuers but when I heard the pounding of police boots echoing towards me I panicked and ran on, down the narrow canyon of the alley, dodging the stacks of crates and rows of empty beer kegs. I could hear the clang of the gate opening behind me as I strained to reach the little door at the other end.
Unencumbered by any Rodins the constable gained on me quickly, no longer shouting but saving his breath for the sprint and leap. I skidded against the little gate and had to step back to give it room to open and squeezed through. The dark shape of the officer filled my vision as I put the gate between us and fiddled the bicycle lock through the iron staple. He threw himself against it, breathing hard, just as I managed to shut the lock and twist the combination lock. He reached through the bars of the gate and made a grab for my jacket but I yanked myself free and staggered on along the colonnade, with the shouts of police and the roar of the weir in my ears.
Annis was waiting for me at the end of the walkway. ‘You got the damn thing then. You’ve been ages,’ she hissed and vaulted lightly back over the balustrade. I didn’t dignify her comment with an answer since, as usual, I didn’t have the breath to argue. I clambered over and gripped the handrail hard to steady myself. Everything seemed to be moving in the wind, the dinghy bucked, the river swirled. I practically fell into the boat and simply wanted to lie where I was but had to shrug out of the rucksack to untie the painter. Annis pulled the starter on the engine. There was no time to fiddle with the knot so I cut the rope. Annis pulled the cord again. Nothing. I lunged at the landing stage but it was too late, we were slipping away, accelerating fast in the current. Annis ripped the starter cord ever more frantically, again and again. Against the backdrop of the thunderous foaming of the weir it looked a soundless, futile exercise. The boat started its unstoppable race. It slewed sideways towards the drop of the weir. There were two paddles at the bottom of the boat. We both grabbed for them simultaneously while exchanging monosyllabic comments on the situation and started shovelling at the black water.
‘Not upstream, that’s hopeless!’ Annis called. ‘We can’t get away, the current’s too strong. We’ll have to go over the weir, but bow first or we’ll capsize!’
She was right. Without engine power we had no hope of fighting the greedy suction pulling the boat into the dark. We had to ride the chaotic white water that boiled and thundered and waited to engulf us.
It happened in a matter of seconds. Both of us paddled on the same side now, trying to point the boat bow-first at the weir, but we were carried across the side of the horseshoe before we had managed to change direction even a fraction. It felt like being swallowed by a screaming monster with an excess of saliva. For a moment I was deaf and blind and the boat appeared to be completely submerged. I gasped for air, swallowed water instead and reappeared coughing and spluttering, with a coughing and spluttering Annis next to me. By some miracle we were both still in the boat. Then we seemed to skate across the surface, the swirling waters twirling the dinghy round and round until we hit a calmer stretch alongside the bank of Parade Gardens. The boat was brimful of water but still floated on.