I can see the figures bunched up behind the patterned glass of Alannah's front door, but I'm hoping they can't see me, although that quickly turns out to be irrelevant because a split second later I hear the telltale bang and angry splintering of wood that tells me I'm not the only person who's got access to an Enforcer today. It's a cheap house made with cheap materials, so it's really no surprise that the lock gives straight away and the door flies open in one sudden movement, hitting the wall with an angry clap that sounds like a gunshot.
Ten feet separates me from the intruders; maybe twelve separates me from the back door. I turn to run, but then I think of Alannah. Can I really simply run out the back door and leave her here? I know she's been bullshitting me, but that doesn't matter. Earlier today, she saved my life. No question. And what if these guys are after her, not me?
With this in mind, I decide that rather than take route one out of here I'm going to be chivalrous, and I turn and run up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time. I hear the sound of footsteps in the hallway behind me, but no-one speaks, and that's what's really worrying, because it means they want to make as little noise as possible, and there's only one reason for that. They're here to kill.
I run onto the landing, keep going, and launch a flying karate kick at the bathroom door. It opens just as easily as the front door and makes pretty much the same noise.
The room's dark. And empty. The shower's going, but there's no-one in it.
'Oy, stop!' yells someone from the bottom of the stairs as I turn round and make a dash for the bedroom, the accent as cockney as jellied eels and Jack the Ripper, most definitely not Eastern European. 'Police!'
Jesus, what the hell are they doing here?
I run through the bedroom, fling open the window, and clamber out.
They're coming up the stairs fast, but the garden's empty, and for the second time today I slide down a wall until I'm hanging by my fingers, then jump the rest of the way, landing on my feet and rolling over. As I get up, I can hear the angry tugs of someone trying, without success, to open the back door, and I realize that if I'd gone that way I'd have been trapped, so clearly an element of chivalry pays.
I don't look back but keep running towards the seemingly impenetrable mess of brambles at the end of Alannah's garden. I charge straight through them, ignoring the scratches and the sound of the cotton of Lucas's polo shirt tearing. A set of rusty iron railings appears out of nowhere, and I vault over them, getting a faceful of brambles in the process.
I land on a narrow footpath that runs parallel to a high mesh fence topped with barbed wire marking the border of railway property. The fence is covered in tangled foliage and a sign says KEEP OUT in bold lettering with a picture of a menacing black skull on each side of the wording. There's no immediately obvious way in, so it becomes a choice of left or right.
Unfortunately, the choice is made for me when I hear the unmistakable sound of dogs barking – big dogs, too – followed a second later by the rapid tattoo of paws on concrete. Getting closer.
I just have time to bemoan the fact that even my favourite animals have now joined the ranks of my enemies, then I'm off in the opposite direction, knowing there's no way I'm going to outrun them. I run across the road the viaduct crosses and keep going along the footpath on the other side. It begins to rise steadily, which does not bode well, and I can hear the barking getting closer, partly drowned out by the sound of an oncoming train. Through the mesh in the fence I can see that it's a slow-moving freight pulling cart after cart filled with building aggregates. The path's getting pretty steep now and my lungs feel like they're burning up. I'm fast over short distances, even uphill, but I'm not going to be able to keep up this pace for much longer.
There are two young kids, barely ten, messing about with what looks like an old fridge on the strip of wasteground that runs alongside the track. They are doubtless up to no good, but I don't care about that. What I want to know is how the hell they got in there.
And then I see it, about ten yards further on. A small, kid-sized hole at the bottom of the fence. I force myself to slow down, the patter of angry paws right behind me, then at the last second I do a hard turn and dive bodily through the hole, scrambling to my feet on the other side and running wildly for the track. The freight train's almost passed now, but even above the steady, rhythmic clatter of its wheels I can hear the excited panting of a dog. He's feet away and gaining, and I know there's no way he's not going to get me.
As I reach the raised shingle on which the track sits, he lunges. His teeth get an iron grip on my leg, but I've still got just that little bit of momentum, and as the final cart passes directly in front of me I jump skywards, getting one flailing arm on the cart's lip, and a foot on the buffer. I swing round so that I'm hanging on to the rear of the train, and the dog, a big Alsatian, swings with me. But the thing is, he wasn't expecting this and I was, and he just keeps on going, releasing his death grip at the same time. He flies off, does a very effective rolling landing, then jumps to his paws and stands there with his tongue lolling out, watching me disappear slowly into the distance.
I look towards the fence and catch sight of several men running on the other side of it. They stop as they see me come trundling past at a leisurely twenty miles an hour or so, which is when I see that they're in uniform. I can't resist giving them a little wave, and then they're gone, as the train goes over the viaduct and starts to turn a corner.
Once I get my breath back, I decide that it's surprisingly relaxing hanging on to the back of a train on a warm summer's evening, with the breeze in your hair. Darkness is falling fast and a three-quarter moon the colour of melted butter sits high in the darkening sky. There are no stars, the haze of neon lights that spreads for miles around smothering them like a blanket, but there's something beautiful about the way the city seems to come to life at night, and something exhilarating too about outrunning people who want to do you harm. It seems right now that the whole world seems to want to do me harm, yet in those moments I feel the best I've felt all day.
But I've got another mystery on my hands now, because it's obvious that Alannah didn't call people to come and kill me. She called the police to come and arrest me instead. Which leaves two very important questions.
Number one: Why?
Number two: Just who exactly is she working for?
30
I'm on a quiet street in Kilburn roughly a mile or so from where I grabbed a lift on the train, and a few hundred yards from where I jumped off it. As I walk along it, Lucas's torn shirt flapping in the breeze, I review my options.
Time is not on my side. It's twenty to nine. Lucas dropped me at Holloway Road tube more than two hours ago. He will have spoken to the police by now, and after what I'm sure he's said, they're going to be looking for me with some urgency. So I really am going to need to make Eddie Cosick's acquaintance soon. In other words, tonight. The address book I discovered at Ferrie's place is still in the pocket of my jeans, thank God, and it seems that Ferrie knew about Cosick too, because when I look the name up I get an address in W8, which tallies with Alannah's description of it as being in Notting Hill.
But as I walk, I consider for the first time the possibility of handing myself in and actually telling the police the truth, the rationale being that they're going to catch me eventually so it would be better to pre-empt them. But I swiftly discount this. I'm too heavily implicated in the events of today: the shootings at Ferrie's place and the chaos at the brothel. As well as this, there's still the possibility that there are copies of the DVD out there linking me to Leah's murder.