Then Mr Muscles was off: sprinting away down Broomhill Road. Like the four horsemen were after him.
Shite...
Because that wasn’t suspiciousat all.
26
‘STOP, POLICE!’ Logan ducked out between two parked cars, heading for the other side of the road, legging it after Mr Muscles.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAArgh!
The Seat Ibiza barrelling up Broomhill Road slammed on its brakes, nose dipping as it left skidmarks on the tarmac, and the driver probably did the same in his pants. Eyes wide, mouth hanging open as Logan stared back at him.
OK.
That was close.
Logan forced a smile, then ran for the other pavement, heading after Mr Muscles, breath-and-blood whoomping in his ears, feet slapping against the concrete slabs.
A weird echo grew and grew, and there was PC Kent, raggity bun bobbing along behind. It might’ve taken her a while to build momentum – what with all full kit on – but she was motoring now. Doing that high-step knees-and-elbows thing sprinters did on the telly. ‘Who...who are...who are we...chasing?’
You’d think it would be sodding obvious. But Logan pointed anyway. ‘Arnold Bloody Schwarzenegger!’ Then pulled out his Airwave handset. ‘DS McRae...to Control.’
Mr Muscles went left at the junction, by the newsagent’s, abandoning Broomhill Road for the more genteel Balmoral Place. And they were gaining on him.
Logan and Kent motorbiked around the corner, momentum taking them out into the middle of the quiet street. Doing their best to break the twenty-mile-an-hour speed limit.
A voice burst out of the Airwave:‘Safe to talk?’
Mr Muscles jinked out into the middle of the road too – avoiding a pair of old ladies, blocking the pavement so they could shout at each other. Glancing over his shoulder as he drifted across the dotted line.
‘In pursuit...of I-C-One male...five nine...heavily muscled...tattooed arms...’
Mr Muscles hammered on, playing chicken with a black Porsche coming the other way.
Brakes screeched, the horn blaring as the car slithered to a halt – pretty much blocking the road – about three feet short of flattening him.
He didn’t even slow down.
Instead, Mr Muscles took a running leap, left foot landing square in the middle of the bonnet; the right whacking into the rubber seal at the top of the windscreen, sending cracks flashing across the glass; his left foot left a dirty big dent in the roof; and he was down the other side.
Still running.
The driver scrambled out from behind the wheel, shaking her fist and stamping her heels. ‘LOOK WHAT YOU DID TO MY CAR! YOU BLOODY IDIOT! COME BACK HERE!’
Mr Muscles...did not.
He kept going.
But Logan and PC Kent had to detour around, up onto the pavement, then back down again after they’d passed the dented Porsche.
There must’ve been an alley off to the side, because a pair of little girls shot out of it on their bicycles – one bike wrapped in rainbow-coloured tape, the other all pale-pink and sparkly,like aTwilightvampire. Both with tasselled handlebars and a plastic unicorn’s horn cable-tied to the front.
Mr Muscles clattered straight into the pair of them, in a flailing mess of arms and legs and chains and wheels and swearing. Tumbling across the tarmac.
Hallelujah.
Logan closed the gap. ‘I need...need backup to...Holburn Street and...Balmoral Place!’
