Shit, shit, shit—so much for keeping it in the family. Nightingale was way ahead of me. He pulled an airwave set out of the glove box and punched in a number—impressive, given that I’d taught him how to do that only a week ago.

“Follow her,” I said. “But stay on the phone and don’t take any risks.”

I risked waiting until Marble Arch to turn east—Oxford Street is restricted to buses and taxis only and I was counting on it being quicker to go straight down it than to plow through the weird one-way systems around Bond Street.

“Stephanopoulis is on her way,” said Nightingale.

I asked Ash where he was.

“I’m just coming out of the club,” he said. “She’s fifteen feet in front of me.”

“Heading which way?”

“Toward Piccadilly,” he said.

I worked out the location in my head. “Sherwood Street,” I told Nightingale, who relayed it to Stephanopoulis. “Going south.”

“What do I do if she starts in on her boyfriend?” asked Ash.

I swerved around a bus stalled in the road with its emergency lights flashing. My spinner blued the faces of the downstairs passengers as they watched me slide past.

“Stay away from her,” I said. “Wait for us.”

“Too late,” said Ash. “I think she saw me.”

The instructors at the advanced driving school would not have been happy with the way I put the Jag through the lights at Oxford Circus and skidded into a right turn that had me going down Regent Street with blue smoke coming from my wheels.

“Steady on,” said Nightingale.

“The good news,” said Ash, “is that she’s let the poor guy go.”

“They’re almost on Denham Street,” said Nightingale, meaning local plod. “Stephanopoulis is telling them to secure a perimeter.”

I almost screamed when an obviously deaf and blind driver in a Ford Mondeo decided to pull out in front of me. What I shouted at him was fortunately lost in the sound of my siren.

“The bad news,” said Ash, “is she’s coming toward me.”

I told him to run.

“Too late,” he said.

I heard a hiss, a yell, and the distinctive noise a mobile phone makes when it’s hurled against a hard surface and breaks.

I did half a bootleg turn into Glasshouse Street, which I swear got me applause from the pedestrians and a startled yelp from Toby as he slammed into the passenger door. There was a reason the Jaguar Mk II was the favored getaway car for blaggers and the Flying Squad, and Nightingale’s Jag had definitely been modified for pursuit. Which is why once her backside had stopped swinging I could put my foot down and be doing sixty before I was level with the Leicester Arms on the corner.