DARIAN WAS on his feet before Sholto, and after a glance confirmed his boss was okay he was off down the stairs after Dent. He could hear footsteps ahead of him, hitting each step at pace. This was where Darian could catch up because even in the dark the stairs were familiar to him but not to Dent. Darian could use instinct to move faster than his quarry. He felt he was getting closer and Dent felt it too because he started to gamble on the first-floor stairs, going down two at a time and risking breaking the only neck he had. Dent jumped the last five steps and landed hard. It must have jarred his ankles, but desperation can persuade you to ignore any pain that might try to slow you, so he bounded to the side door and out into the night, ahead of Darian.
As he came down the last of the steps Darian heard a noise outside, the sound of a person who had been hit by something they wished they had avoided, a wobbly shout smothered by the noise of the door banging shut. Darian pushed it open and ran out into Cage Street, nearly tripping over Mr. Yang. The restaurant owner was sprawled on his back like an upended turtle, waving his hands around as he tried to remember how to get up.
Darian shouted, “Are you okay?”
As Mr. Yang rolled over and raised himself onto his knees Darian saw the glint of a meat cleaver big enough to halve a horse lying in the street. Mr. Yang, in a tone of self-disgust, said, “I missed him. I swung and I missed him.”
Darian, who had stopped the chase to check on his friend, asked, “Did he hit you, are you hurt?”
“Shouldered me, that’s all, I’m fine. Go after him, Darian, go after him. He went up to Greenshank Drive, go.”
Before Darian could start to run the door behind him burst open and a red-faced Sholto wheezed out onto Cage Street. Under the streetlights he saw Mr. Yang on his knees, gasped and said, “Mr. Yang, he got you too, are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Don’t waste time with me, get after him.”
They began to run up the street, Sholto struggling to keep up. At the corner with Greenshank Drive Darian stopped to look for Dent and Sholto caught up with him, saying, “That Mr. Yang is a hardy old bugger, shame he won’t do what he’s told.”
Darian was ignoring him, looking up and down the road and catching a glimpse of a man who might have been Dent going round the corner with Morhen Road, the route you would take if you were aiming for Glendan Station and a train that could put meaningful distance between you and your crime.
Darian said, “There, Morhen Road. I’ll chase, you take the car. If he gets on a train I’ll call you and tell you where to go. If you corner him…”
“Don’t worry, I don’t corner bigger people than me without shouting for help first.”
Darian set off at a sprint toward the corner with Morhen Road, hoping to close the gap. By the time he reached it, Dent was nearly up at the opposite corner with Gallows View, the street on which the railway station stood. Darian wasn’t the natural athlete of the Ross siblings; that honor went to his older brother Sorley, an exceedingly good camanachd player who wouldn’t only have caught Dent by now, he would have battered every ounce of useful information out of him. Darian’s reaction to falling behind was to run with longer strides, right on the edge of his balance, which felt faster but perhaps only because of how close he was to falling over.
Up to the corner and onto Gallows View, the long curving road with the station to his right and more people around. He couldn’t see Dent, but that was because he was looking in the wrong place. When he looked away from the station entrance he saw a man running down a gap between two buildings, a travel agency on the ground floor on one side and an estate agent’s on the other. Behind the buildings was a large corrugated fence to block access to the railway lines, and Dent was going for it.
Getting across the busy road took thirty seconds, too many taxis threatening to run him over, and then he had to get down the alley and over the high fence. He quickly reached the conclusion that Dent had toes more pointed than his because Darian struggled to get a foothold, pulling himself up and feeling the metal at the top dig into his fingers. It hurt, but not as much as Dent getting away would, and he forced himself up and over, trying to lower himself carefully on the other side but eventually having to let go and drop into the long grass, the fence higher on the rail side.
The grass was tall and the embankment before him was a steep drop into darkness, a wide valley with the twin tracks leading into the tunnel on one side and the station lit bright on the other, the backs of buildings opposite visible as silhouettes. Darian moved to the edge of the drop, almost falling as his dress shoes had no grip. The only pair of nice black shoes he owned, cheap but presentable, were no better for stalking through wet grass than they were for sprinting, but he had to do all this in an outfit designed for a rich man’s party.
There was something there, a shadow that didn’t quite fit with its surroundings, and Darian crept closer. It was toward the tunnel mouth: Dent crouching in the grass at the top of the hill, hoping Darian would go the other way. Stealth suited Dent because he had darkness behind him but Darian was framed by the lights of the station and as soon as he started to walk toward him the driver made his move. He began sliding down the embankment on his backside, looking for more distance and taking risks to get it.
Darian shouted, “Come on, Will, we know it’s you, you can’t outrun this.”
Darian was about to slide down after him when he saw movement on the other side: Sholto at the top of the embankment opposite.
Sholto called out, “You’re surrounded, Will, just climb up and give up.”
Dent was down on the line now, standing in the middle of the westbound tracks, and a sense of terrifying inevitability grabbed Darian’s stomach and squeezed it hard. He shouted, “Come on, Will, come back up, we can help you. Come up.”
Dent was a shadow, standing looking back and forth between Darian and Sholto, and then his face became clear. Someone had shone a light on him and Darian could see the fury and desperation in his face. It wasn’t the light but the sound that made Darian turn and look, seeing the large freight train clear of the station and moving toward them, a blocky cabin and bright yellow front to make it unmissable. Dent saw it and stared, jerking as though he was about to take a step but then not moving.
Sholto screamed, “Will, please. Will.”
Darian screamed too but when he thought about it later he couldn’t remember what he had said and it was unlikely to have been anything more than a terrified shout. The train was close. There was a wail of brakes and a deep horn but it was too late to stop. Darian and Will Dent were looking each other in the eye, the driver not moving. The tension went out of him and his shoulders dropped. Darian forced himself not to turn away when the train hit him.