Ian Rankin - Tooth and Nail

'Can, I help?', said one of the security men.

'Malcolm Chambers,' said Rebus. 'He's a barrister. I need to see him urgently.'

'Mr Chambers? Hold on, I'll just check.'

'I don't want him to know I'm here,' Rebus warned. 'I just want to know where I can find him.'

'Just one moment.' The guard moved off, consulting with one of his companions,' then slowly going through a sheet of paper attached to a clipboard. Rebus's heart was pounding. He felt like he was about to explode. He couldn't just stand here. He had to do something. Patience, John. Less haste,' more speed, as his father had always said. But what the hell did that mean anyway? Surely haste was a kind of speed?

The guard was coming back.

'Yes, Inspector. Mr Chambers has a young lady with him at present. I'm told they're-sitting together upstairs.'

Upstairs meant the concourse outside the courtrooms. Rebus flew up the imposing flight of steps two at a time. Marble. There was a lot of marble around him. And wood. And glass. The windows seemed huge. Bewigged counsels came down a spiral staircase, deep in conversation. A frayed-looking woman smoked a cheap cigarette as she waited for someone. It was a quiet pandemonium. People were moving past Rebus, moving in the opposite direction from him. Juries, finished for the day. Solicitors and guiltylooking' clients. The woman rose to greet her son. The son's solicitor had a bored, drawn look. The concourse was emptying rapidly, the stairs taking people down to more glass cylinders and to the outside world.

About thirty yards from where Rebus stood, the two men were sitting, legs crossed, enjoying a cigarette. The two men Flight had sent with Lisa. Her bodyguards. Rebus ran to them.

'Where is she?'

They recognised him, seemed to realise immediately that something was wrong, and rose' to their feet. 'She's interviewing some barrister

'Yes, but where?'

The man nodded towards one of the courtrooms. Court Eight! Of course: hadn't Cousins been due to give evidence' in Court Eight? And wasn't Malcolm Chambers the prosecuting counsel?

Rebus pushed through the doors into the courtroom, but, cleaners apart, it was completely empty. There had to be another exit. Of course there was: the green padded door to the side of the jury-box. The door leading to the judges' rooms. He ran across the court and up the steps to the door, pulling it open, finding himself in a bright carpeted corridor. A window, flowers in a pot on a table. A narrow corridor, doors only on one side, the other wall a blank. Judges' names above the › doors. The doors; themselves locked. There was a tiny kitchenette, but it too was empty. One door eventually, gave, and he peered into ay jury room. Empty. Back into the corridor again, hissing now with frustration. A court usher, cradling a mug of tea, — was coming towards him.

'No one's allowed — '

'Inspector Rebus,' he said:' 'I'm looking for an advocate …

I mean, a barrister: Malcolm Chambers. He was here with a young woman.'

'They've just left.'

'Left?'-

She gestured along towards the far end of-the corridor. 'It leads to the underground car park. That's where- they were headed.' Rebus made to squeeze past her. 'You won't catch them now,' she said. 'Not unless they're having trouble with the car.'

Rebus thought about- it, gnawing at his bottom lip. There wasn't time. His first decision had to be the right one. Decision made, — he turned from the usher, and ran back towards the court, back across the court itself and. out into the concourse.

'They've gone!' he yelled to the bodyguards. 'Tell Flight! Tell him they're in Chambers's car!' And then he was off again, down the steps towards the exit, pausing only to grab at a security man's sleeve. 'The car park exit, where is it?'

'Round the other side of the building.' ' -

Rebus stuck a finger in the guard's face. 'Buzz down to the car park. Don't let Malcolm Chambers leave.' The, guard stood there dumbly, staring at the finger. 'Do it!'

And then he was off again, running, taking the stairs down three at a time, great leaps which almost sent him flying. He pushed his way to the front of the crowd waiting to leave.

'Police,' he said, 'emergency.' Nobody said anything. They were like cows, patiently waiting to be milked. Even so, it took a silent scream of an age, for the cylinder to empty its cargo, close its doors, then open them again for Rebus. -

'Come on, come on.' And then the door sucked itself open and he was out, out in the foyer, bursting through the main doors. He ran up to, the corner, took a right, and ran again along the face of the building. Another right. He was on the other side of the building now. Where the car; park exit was. A slope of road down into darkness. The car screeched as it came. to the surface, hardly slowing as it climbed the hill to Newgate Street. It was a long gloss-black BMW. And in the passenger seat sat Lisa Frazer, looking relaxed, smiling, talking to the driver, not realising.

'Lisa!' But he was too far away, the traffic around him too loud. 'Lisa!' Before he could reach it, the car had turned into a flow of traffic and disappeared. Rebus cursed under his breath. Then looked around him for the first time and saw that he was standing next to a parked Jaguar, in the front of which sat a liveried chauffeur, staring out of the window at him. Rebus yanked at the doorhandle and threw open the door, reaching in with one hand to pull out the bemused driver. He was getting to be a dab hand at, this: relieving people of their' vehicles.

'Hoi! What- the bleedin' 'ell — '

The man's cap rolled along the ground, given force by a gust of wind. For a moment, he knelt on the pavement, undecided whether to rescue the cap or the car. The moment was enough. Rebus gunned the engine and pulled, away from the kerb, horns' sounding behind him as he did so. At the top of the slight incline, he pressed his hand hard on the horn and careered left into the main road. A squeal of brakes. More horns. The pedestrians looking at him as though he were mad.

'Need lights,' he said to himself, — glancing at the dashboard. Eventually, he found the headlamp switch and flipped them to full beam. Then took a hard right to bring himself into the middle of the road, passing the traffic, scraping the passenger side against an oncoming red bus,' clipping a central bollard, uprooting the flimsy plastic construction and sending it flying- into, the path of the oncoming traffic

They couldn't be too' far ahead of him. Yes! He caught a glimpse of the BMW's tail-lights as it braked to turn a corner. He'd be damned if they'd lose him.

'Excuse me?'

Rebus flinched, startled, and nearly pulled the car onto the pavement. He looked in the rear-view mirror and saw an elderly gentleman sitting in the back seat, arms spread so as to keep himself upright. He appeared calm as he leaned forward towards Rebus.

'Would you kindly mind telling me what's going on? Am I-being kidnapped?'

Rebus recognised the voice before he remembered the face. It was the judge from the Watkiss case. Jesus Christ, he'd run off with a judge!

'Only, if you are kidnapping me,' the judge went on, 'perhaps you'd allow me to call my wife. She'll burn the chops otherwise.'

Call! Rebus looked down again. Below the dashboard, between the driver's and front passenger seats, there was a neat black car-phone.

'Do you mind if I use your phone?' he asked, grinning with a face full of adrenalin.

'Be my guest.'

Rebus grabbed at the contraption and fiddled as he drove, his steering becoming more 'erratic than ever.

'Press the button marked TRS,' the judge suggested.

'Thank you, your honour.'

'You know who I am? I thought I recognised the face. Have I had you before me recently?'