‘Maybe. If anyone comes after the letter tonight, it could be someone’s in deeper trouble than … than people have guessed.’

  ‘Except you. You know who’s going to turn up.’

  ‘I have an idea, yes. I could be totally wrong.’

  ‘I doubt it, Mr Treasure, sir,’ said Tracy with confidence. She was a discriminating reader of detective fiction. ‘If we’re in for a long wait, could we have some of whatever’s in that Thermos now?’

  ‘Hmm. May not be enough for two,’ he said sternly. Dung shuffled on his other side. ‘Or three,’ he added.

  It was just after midnight when it happened.

  Later Treasure couldn’t recall which registered first — the constable’s shout or the sight of the firey torch.

  ‘Stop the bike,’ yelled Stock, but the swish of the wheels on the drying tarmac was then already echoing off the house.

  Treasure and the girl broke cover as the hooded figure on the racing bike hurtled past. They saw the crude, flaming petrol bomb fly accurately at the living-room window. The bottle bounced hard against the wooden frame but didn’t go through the glass. It shattered with a blinding flash. In a second everything outside seemed to be alight.

  ‘Garden hose round the corner,’ shouted the policeman pounding down the drive.

  ‘Get inside. Phone the fire brigade. Then come out quick.’ Treasure had to make a fast decision. Tracy already had the key in her hand.

  Dung had been asleep. He leaped up to follow the others, scrambling into the open. Terrified by the fire burst, he scuttled up the drive and tripped up Stock, who came down heavily.

  ‘Bugger,’ cursed the policeman. He got to his feet and hopped painfully towards Treasure who was already advancing with the turned-on hose. ‘Give chase, sir. She and I can handle this. Not as bad as it looks.’ He snatched the hose. ‘Take my bike. Not the road,’ he added breathlessly. ‘The footpath. I saw. Go left at the top. Oh, my ankle.’ He was standing on one foot directing the hose with one hand while beating at the radio attached to his tunic. ‘Bust most probably. Bloody dog.’ But Treasure was already too far away to hear.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The footpath was narrow, straight for some distance, and overgrown. The surface was uneven. There was a ditch at the side — and the bomber was in it. Stock had been right about the route: pursuit was worth the try.

  The police bicycle was built for endurance not speed. But Treasure covered half the distance that separated him from his quarry before the other had remounted and got moving again.

  It was years since he’d been on a bike. They said you never forgot. He hadn’t — except about the gears. The going was easier after he found he had three speeds. The fancy contraption ahead would have five, perhaps ten gears. They couldn’t be much help on this short cut. He felt the straggling bramble tear his cheek, then claw across his jacket. He hardened his grip on the handlebars. Keeping your balance here was all.

  He saw the chestnut branch in time, ducking quickly. When he looked up the bike ahead had disappeared. He pedalled harder. Then he could see it was a bend ahead. He knew the road where the footpath joined it. It was on the hill down to Tophaven, a quarter of a mile below the crossroads.

  Now he was certain, too, the fugitive was the same cyclist who had passed the phone-box after lunch. The racer was well in sight. There was no mistaking the black clad rider and the yellow machine. The fitful moonlight had been enough. And now there were street lamps. The built-up area had started.

  Soon the going was flat. The distance between the two bikes widened — but not so much as he’d expected. The rider in front had the faster machine. But Treasure sensed he was fitter. If he could count on his own deduction, the banker knew he was the fitter of the two. He crouched lower over the front wheel.

  As yet he couldn’t vouch for even the sex of his quarry, let alone true identity. The cover-all track suit, the Balaclava, the goggles — the outfit had looked just seriously sportive in the day: now it was plainly sinister.

  The terrace houses and corner shops, the billboards, side streets, parked cars and pedestrian crossings — they were all there, lining the way, the standard fitments of the urban scene. Only the people were missing: only the responsible human beings he needed to shout out to bar the way, call for assistance, summon the police.

  But in all the distance he had come not a solitary figure had appeared along the way: not one. And it was Saturday night! If provincial Britain withdrew at seven, the population of Tophaven might have emigrated en bloc at midnight.

  ‘Stop thief! Help! Police!’ he hollered. At least it liberated an inhibition: it did nothing else. Whoever he was chasing glanced back once. There were perhaps three hundred yards between them. He had to close the gap.

  He wasn’t losing — but he’d gained nothing either over the last half-mile.

  In a minute or so they’d be in the town proper. He didn’t know the layout well enough. A local could lose him — shake him off in the back streets near the centre.

  The grassed and rose-bedded roundabout ahead was huge. There were five exit roads leading off it. He ignored the direction signs. Concentrate on the racer, the rear light: was he closing the gap now? He thought so.

  Then he saw the lighter bike mount the roundabout itself and streak across the centre. It slowed slightly at the raised middle, then raced smoothly between the flowerbeds, bumped on to road level again and spurted down the High Street.

  He couldn’t imitate that circus act. There was nothing else for it — just keep pedalling like mad; hope to make up the lost distance. At least he knew which exit. He was nearly there. He swung across the road with a dangerous rake. It was then the pedal scraped the tarmac. He thought he was coming off — wobbled, lurched, then righted the machine. Now he too was in the High Street.

  Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Currys welcomed him in lights. ‘Say the Leeds and you’re smiling’ flashed the sign in the building society window. But nothing else was moving: no cars, buses, vans, lorries — worse, there was no other bicycle in sight either.

  The two policemen emerged from checking the doorway of Barclays Bank. Treasure braked. ‘Chasing a racing bike. Incendiarist. See which way?’ he shouted, starting to pedal again.

  ‘Second left,’ responded the cadet constable as surely as if he were directing someone to the post office. His voice and features suggested early promotion from the boy scouts.

  ‘Your name, sir?’ demanded the senior officer. Both the men in blue were now incongruously sprinting beside him. He was moving well.

  ‘Treasure. Can’t stop,’ he called as the distance between them began to increase. ‘Come from Colston. This is Cliff Stocks’s bike.’

  The older policeman fell back, talking into his radio. ‘That road’s closed lower down, they’re …’ It was all he heard of the cadet’s earnest intelligence as he too gave up the unequal challenge from a Sturmey Archer top gear on a 27-inch-wheeled Raleigh Roadster determinedly propelled.

  Adare Street, the second turning, was indeed closed half way along — except that hardly anything stopped a bike. There was a planked walk-way up some steps on one side. ‘Pedestrians Only’ the notice read. He could see all this from the end — also the fugitive dropping the racer, from a shoulder carry, back on to the road the other side of the excavations.

  He waited only to mark his quarry’s subsequent turn to the right before carrying on himself down the High Street. He had no chance if he tried humping his heavier machine over what looked like fifty paces. Better to take the next turning — a wide one: it was the Parade, the shopping street that ran parallel with the Esplanade. The sea was only a hundred yards south.

  He must have covered the distance from Adare Street in the same time as the criminal if they were on parallel courses. If the other bike was making for the sea it had to cross the Parade in the next second. The banker raced along it: nothing crossed in front of him. Half way down he turned left.

  He had walked through the section between Adare Street and the Parade on his way back from the library. It was the oldest part of town. Alleys and lanes crisscrossed between the two thoroughfares. Treasure did the same. Whoever he was following was counting on local knowledge now. What else was left for the pursuer than getting it right by accident?

  If the fugitive lived here then all was lost: even a familiar bolt hole …

  The collision happened at right angles, at one of the completely blind corners. Treasure had been moving fast and was hit broadside. He came down with both machines on top of him.

  There was no chance to grab his assailant who, still upright, threw a dustbin at him and ran.

  Treasure was dazed by the fall, and he took a glancing blow to the head from the lid of the bin. Dizzily he got to his feet. He covered one smarting eye with a hand. Through the other he watched the black-clothed figure dash south down the lane and across the well-lit Parade.

  Where were those policemen? ‘Police!’ he shouted.

  His hand was moist. He pulled it away from his forehead. Water, not blood: he was seeing through both eyes. There was nothing else for it. He pulled the racing bike upright, got on, and started pedalling. A light came on in an upstairs window: what was the betting it wouldn’t open? He didn’t wait to find out.

  He was unsteady for a few moments. After that, compared with his experience on PC Stock’s mount, he felt nearly jet-propelled.

  The policemen weren’t in the Parade when he crossed it. He dared not divert to look for them. The running figure was still in view, crossing the Esplanade. The big house on the left was Pitty’s. He passed it at top speed.

  And there on the sea front was a moving police car: a white Rover with all the trimmings — facing the wrong way, already a quarter of a mile off and moving well in the general direction of New York.

  He might be on his own but he was damn nearly on top of the enemy who was now at a side gate to the pier. It had to be locked surely? — except it was being opened with a key. He could even hear the click.

  Time later to question whether local ratepayers got value out of the local constabulary. He shouldered the bike up the steps to the wide promenade, jumped on again and pedalled hard straight for that gate. It was made of stout steel bars and it was slammed hard on to the front wheel as he got to it.

  He was shaken by the sickening jar: his head just missed one of the bars. But this time he was still upright, able to force the bike forward. He’d stopped the gate slamming shut on its lock.

  ‘You can’t get away,’ he rasped huskily at the figure pushing on the other side. His throat was dry as parchment. His heart was beating to burst. ‘Police are behind me.’ For the moment the claim was self-evidently metaphorical — but they had to be here soon.

  ‘Police!’ he shouted, making a nonsense of his last statement.

  Suddenly the pressure from the other side gave way entirely. The bike was going through. Too late he realized it was a feint. A split second later the gate was swung back at him with terrible ferocity. He pulled his hands back in time to stop them being squashed.

  ‘Swine!’ he swore at his retreating assailant. He lost precious seconds disentangling the front of the racer from the gate. The mangled wheel had temporarily jammed the closure — but the lock was still open.

  He clambered over the useless machine on to the wooden broadwalk. At the same moment the moon went behind cloud. There had been bright lights on the Esplanade, but none on the pier, save for a red navigational beacon set high at the very end. Sydney Marshford hadn’t legislated for the pier.

  The best Treasure could do was jog into the blackness. He should soon get used to the dark: so should the fugitive, of course.

  Was a pier a dead end for a felon? In the films, it was high buildings that signalled the terminal retreat for fleeing criminals. You knew they were trapped when they started to climb. He jogged on. Come to think of it, piers were different half the time. You could get off a pier — climb down to the beach, where he had been today — half the time. Right now there’d be no climbing down. Right now there was angry water lapping below him, and not far below him. The tide was right in.

  He jogged faster, and now he could see his quarry. The figure was further ahead than he’d expected — abreast of the open-air theatre built on the bulge of the pier at halfway point. There was a roofed stage, that was all, with an area in front for a deckchaired audience.

  The sighting had been fleeting. The fugitive had disappeared behind the stage. There was a way of escape with a head start if the banker went the wrong side.

  ‘Police!’ he shouted again, but he was only checking. As he expected, the wind carried his voice in the wrong direction — far off to the right.

  He lifted the metal inset from the slatted wooden trash basket fixed to a stanchion. With all his might he hurled the canister to the left of the stage, then raced hard to the right.

  He heard the clatter of the metal as it hit the decking on the other side. He rounded the stage. The decoy had worked. The two came nearly face to face — and the one being chased was armed.

  The narrow wooden board should have caught the side of Treasure’s head. He ducked at the right moment and kicked out at the wrong time. The crack to his knee was excruciatingly painful. He rolled over massaging his leg. For heaven’s sake, why was he here?

  He picked himself up. The board was under him: it was split at one end. There was painted lettering on it that he could easily decipher. It bore the legend GENTLEMEN: they’d need a new one for next year.

  In a way he was winning. The villain had gone on, not back. The red beacon was casting an eerie light ahead. The dark figure was running for the shelter of the enclosed theatre at the very end of the pier — passing a line of side-show shacks.

  So it would be hide-and-seek again, but this time he had the weapon. And he didn’t intend to be surprised, hit or handicapped ahead of any race back to the Esplanade. He could leave now of course without risking the ignominy of getting locked up for the night on an empty pier — and probably losing the criminal in the process. Bitterly he considered the chances of help being at hand as definitely remote: he had come this far, so …

  ‘Skittle Alley’ proclaimed the sign over the first narrow building, positioned dead centre where the pier broadened out for the last time. The tarpaulin front was firmly battened down. ‘Five balls for 20p’ read the blazoned message at the side. And there were the balls; dozens of them. They looked like rubber cricket balls and they were stored in boxes against the first window Treasure came to.

  He smashed out the glass with the wooden sign, pulled out one of the boxes, and tucked it under his arm. Then he helped himself to another — they were cardboard apple boxes; easy to handle.

  Hurrying along to the right of the skittle alley, he darted across at the end to check the other side. The east wind was blowing hard so far out from the land: this time it took his breath away as he came from cover.

  The enemy wasn’t in sight behind him: there’d been no doubling back. Moving as well as he could, clutching his boxes, he passed an amusement arcade that was glazed on both sides down to the deck. All the time he watched for movement on the far side.

  The shuttered dodgem car arena came next: plenty of cover on two blind sides here. He spurted round two of them ready to drop everything except the wooden board if it was a case of confrontation or pursuit.

  The figure jumped back into the darkness — well ahead. Treasure was just quick enough to see.

  Only the concert party theatre was left now. It was big and it was wide — and it offered the best escape cover yet. He’d planned for this, without being certain they’d get so far.

  The open deck on both sides of the building was narrow. He dropped one box of balls on the windward side and ran with the other, well covered, to the right-hand corner of the theatre.

  Immediately he heaved the contents of the box he was carrying along the boards towards the end of the pier. Fifty hard rubber spheres bounced fast down the deck. He was counting on their echo in the sheltered area to sound like someone advancing in a hurry.

  Three seconds later he was emptying the second box of balls down the windward side. The noise would be obliterated by the wind — like the sound of his own movement right behind them.

  Could he count on his adversary now making the dash down the apparently clear, windy side?

  A moment later, Treasure knew he had got it right.

  The figure in black came as though from nowhere. He was sprinting towards the banker and then, in the same second, he was flying through the air as one foot, then the other, had come down unevenly, disastrously, on a scatter of rolling, unyielding rubber balls.

  Treasure had five yards to cover. Heroically, he leaped the last two — to land flat on his face on the empty deck, empty except for three skittle balls, all in uncomfortable places.

  The enemy hadn’t gone over the side as he thought — though the disappearance had been almost magical. The tell-tale gap in the balustrading marked the top of a straight steel staircase. He grasped the handrail and humped his aching self down the steps.

  Below he could just make out an angler’s gantry. It circled the end of the pier at the lower level. It was slippery: there was lashing spray everywhere, and a weird howling.

  The figure in black must have rolled to the bottom, then struggled upright and now, pursued by Treasure, was blundering along with one leg trailing. An icy wave whipped by the wind roared across the gantry — blurring everything, freezing movement, soaking the exhausted adversaries.

  There was a matching steel staircase on the leeward side. The fugitive glanced back, tearing off the useless goggles. Treasure was too close. The steps were too far. There was no fight or energy left.

  It wouldn’t have been a dive — just a jump from the rail: possibly a jump to freedom for an immensely strong swimmer — certainly a plunge to a battered demise for one that wasn’t.

  Treasure was in time to grasp the expended, unprotesting figure round the waist, pulling them both down to the open steel decking. Another wave hit them as he tore at the Balaclava.

 

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