‘If you’d used your imagination-’ Rachel said.
‘I came, didn’t I? I’m here. Look, I’m really sorry-’
A noise made Rachel spin round. Connor was climbing out of the car.
‘Oi,’ she said, ‘get your hands on your-’
He dived at her, the light glinting on a wide arced blade that he swung at Rachel, cutting through her sleeve, her right arm. And he legged it.
Janet shouted, ‘Throw the gun into the car!’ Then to Connor, ‘Stop! Stop now!’
He was halfway down the street.
Rachel ran.
Unable to move her left arm like a piston as she normally would, she found herself lurching to the side and almost stumbling into the walls and railings that fronted the Regency properties. She saw Connor dive into an alleyway. She could hear Janet behind her, the ring of her heels on the pavement and her voice shouting details of their location for the back-up.
The alley joined a wider passageway that ran behind the houses. Connor turned left. Seeing him increase the distance between them, Rachel willed herself on. Her head was thudding, the air in her lungs burned as though she was breathing fire, her eyesight kept blurring.
Wheelie bins, blue, brown and black, were dotted along the path in twos and threes. A cat skittered out of the way, as Connor belted along. Sirens were upon them.
Rachel looked ahead to the end where the alley met the road and saw vertical lines. She blinked and realized it was a gate. The alley was gated as a safety measure. Connor was trapped.
He hurled himself at the wrought iron and tried to get a purchase, to climb, but slithered down again and again.
Rachel was closer. Ten yards, five. A stitch crippling in her side. When she stopped running, just feet from him, he turned, the knife shiny and speckled red where it had sliced into her arm.
‘Drop the knife,’ she gasped.
He was panting, sweat on his skin, his face reddened with exertion.
Rachel saw Janet beyond the gates, she must’ve gone round the other way. The sirens were too loud for Connor to hear her approach.
‘Drop the knife,’ Rachel said.
‘You want it? Come and get it.’
Rachel’s breath caught, she felt the world tilt. She bent slightly, putting her right hand, the one she could still feel though sticky with blood from the cut, on her right knee for support.
Janet reached the far side of the gate. ‘Connor,’ she shouted behind him. He twisted round and she squirted his eyes with CS gas.
Connor screamed and dropped the knife, raised his hands and rubbed at his eyes.
‘Put your hands through the gate,’ Janet yelled.
‘My eyes,’ he squealed, ‘I can’t see! My fucking eyes.’