The two bikes were still with me, a steady pistol shot behind; the visored BMW rider let them keep pace, a constant twenty metres further back. Another kilometre. South-east. Due south. And then, in seconds, on to Avenue des Gobelins. From there it was a direct, wide run south-east to Place d’Italie, along a street I’d first walked with my father as a teenager. Now I gunned it at ninety, straight towards the 13e arrondissement. Past a supermarket, over a broad junction – weaving through unsuspecting traffic crisscrossing me on their green light. A blacked-out police van, a blue light flashing on the dashboard, swerved to hit me but missed, T-boning a garbage truck exiting Rue Le Brun with a bone-cracking bang.

And all the while the chopper shadowed me. I jumped the kerb, dropped the revs and zapped down the pavement. At my three o’clock one of the police bikes shadowed me along Avenue de Gobelins. I dodged Sunday strollers who unfailingly dived in the wrong direction, and zoomed over the zebra crossing at Rue du Banquier, sticking to the sidewalk.

Rue du Banquier. Shit.

It was too tight to turn. I pulled out into the street, over the crossing that cut Gobelins, straight into the motorcycle cop who’d been on my right. SIG drawn, arm out. But my sudden move had wrong-footed him. I veered left, towards him. He fired. The round snapped across my face. As our bikes closed, I leaned out with a straight right. I caught him under the chin, into his neck. His pistol discharged again, high this time; as he toppled backwards, his Yamaha slid out from under him. I looped around him. His stray shot had shattered a pharmacy window. Passers-by lay flattened on the street.

And then the rev-roar of the second police bike coming at me from the south-east. I’d not seen him pass me. As I doubled back on myself to leave him behind me, the plainclothes rider pulled up ahead. I stopped. He stopped. Blue jeans, black biker’s jacket, mirrored full-face visor. Five-eleven, maybe, and wiry with it. I watched his hands. Tactical Kevlar gloves. Behind, the police Yamaha closed in. I flattened myself against the tank, right hand opening up the revs, left hand on the clutch lever. As I ducked down, I looked around. The motorcycle cop was on me, SIG up. I was stuck there on the street, sandwiched between two would-be killers. I was finished.