It was, or had been.
He’d driven in a circle: the length of Windmill Road, then, pleasingly, left onto Sunset, which made him feel all Hollywood. He was now heading back up Parkside, whose trees hid the common from view. Louisa was out there but couldn’t offer clues as to where precisely, beyond feeling she’d run in a curve since leaving the car—nobody steered by the stars anymore, or not in London, where light pollution swaddled the city like a tea cosy. And there were two men out there with her, also following de Greer, and if they weren’t Park they could be anyone. It wasn’t so long since a pair of Russian hoods had toured Britain, leaving mayhem in their wake . . .
But once you started a hare, you had to follow it to its den. Louisa was out in the dark because of him, which meant he had to be ready to help her if needed. All those times he’d been inside the van, admiring the way the guys watched each other’s backs: here those moments were, like an immersive flashback. But he had to find her first.
He turned onto Windmill Road again. “You still with me?”
Louisa’s voice was laboured. “Uh-huh.”
“Are you on a path?”
“Not anymore.”
“Do you know what direction you’re heading?”
“I think back the way I came. But I’m not positive.”
Lech rubbed a hand across his cheeks, a gesture that had changed meaning in the past year. Once, he’d have been checking whether he needed a shave. Now, he was verifying that his face remained a welter of crazy scars.
“Can you see the road? Or any road?”
“A road. Dimly.”
It was a difficult distance away, difficult to estimate and difficult to keep in focus, and Louisa had other things to worry about, such as the way the ground dipped and lurched with every step. The two men in front had moved further apart, gaining ground on de Greer, and even as she watched they were putting a spurt on, as if this were their optimal moment; the darkest patch of ground between here and the world. She didn’t think they knew she was there. She’d turned her headtorch off, shrouding herself in darkness, which meant she wasn’t moving as quickly as them: the ghostly number eleven floating easily over the stumbly ground, the green trainers an effortless rise and fall, closing the gap between themselves and the orange piping on de Greer’s tracksuit. Only Louisa felt like a whole person; a solid figure in a murky landscape.
One thing was clear, though. Whoever these comedians were, they weren’t innocent souls on an evening run. They were closing in on de Greer the way dogs move in on prey, or the way Louisa imagined they might; with extra sudden speed, and joy coursing into their tastebuds.
She heard a woman gasp: de Greer realising she wasn’t alone.
And then the world grabbed Louisa by an ankle.
Like most falls, this one took forever, and she was already counting its possible cost before she hit the ground: she might break a bone, or mash her face into something unforgiving. But instinct reached out a helping hand: she was halfway curled into a ball before she landed, taking the brunt of the impact on her right shoulder.
She put a hand to her shoulder, gripped hard, and felt tomorrow’s bruise taking shape. But only a bruise. Nothing serious.
What mattered more was—
She’d dropped her mobile.
“She’s stopped moving,” Roddy said.
The pulse on his screen was stationary, as if Louisa had come to a halt out there in the dark.
They’d made a U-turn after spotting Lech, and were heading that same direction now, up the main road. To their left, hiding behind a screen of trees, lay the common. The thought of it had Shirley wriggling in her seat, as if, deep in its shadows, lay something to satisfy the restless cravings which were creeping up on her again. Which were always creeping up on her.
“How close is she?” she said.
“Dunno. But we’re nearly parallel.”
