Lucy swore. She could have overhauled this suspect in any normal circumstances, but it was typical that she’d wound up chasing her in what had to be the only place in Crowley where the speed and power of her Ducati were nullified. At the same time, she found herself having to duck, as missiles came flying back from the fleeing form: bricks, discarded bottles, wooden laths heavy with cement. At least her adrenalin was up, dulling the thudding impacts on her body, the blows of bricks and cans, the crunch of smashing glass on her visor. But Lucy knew that she wasn’t immune to this punishment. If her headlight was taken out, that was it; she’d be marooned in this unlit maze, at the mercy of whoever this maniac was, and with a mountain of mouldering brickwork overhead, there was almost no chance that she’d be able to get a phone or radio signal out.

That didn’t happen, but she was constantly impeded in other ways, the twosome emerging into rooms at such speeds and angles that the bike would lose traction, slewing sideways through tangles of trash and filth, always allowing the fugitive to stay ahead, turning corner after corner, again swooping down to grab more projectiles that she could pitch over her shoulder. Lucy followed stoically, her headlamp reflecting kaleidoscopically from cracked walls, rotted ceilings and stretches of opaque, ankle-deep water that exploded from her tyres as she blasted through.

She’d now lost all sense of direction, but it felt as if she ought to have passed through the entire undercroft of the industrial complex. And as this occurred to her, she sped out into a much larger space, the floor changing from rubble-strewn cement to well-worn timber. There was light in here too, that milky combination of moonlight and streetlight filtering through a row of square apertures high up on a distant wall; some looked like the openings to outdoor chutes, though a taller, broader one was clearly a doorway, possibly for the use of small vehicles like forklift trucks. Lucy wasn’t immediately able to focus on this because she had to evade all kinds of immediate obstacles: boxes, crates, the blackened hulks of skips filled with refuse. She twisted and turned deftly to avoid headlong smashes, and so never even saw the heavy hanging chain with the huge rusty hook at the end come rushing at her head.

It struck the side of her helmet with a BANG! like a hand grenade.

The impact was so forceful that not only did it half dislodge her helmet, the visor breaking loose at one side, it sent her skidding out of control. The shock and concussion were terrific, but she clung to consciousness just sufficiently to attempt a controlled crash, sliding on her side through rivers of rank, desiccated newspaper.