Chase the Morning

Jyp’s directions were straightforward enough. Which was just as well, for there was nobody else to ask; the streets still seemed to be deserted. I saw the bonded warehouse ahead the moment I rounded the corner, a louring mountain of a place that had once been imposing; now eyepatches of rusty corrugated iron filled its lower windows, and barbed wire crawled about the broken crenellations of its outer walls. First left was obvious enough, too, but it didn’t look – or smell – very prepossessing; even as alleys went this was the dregs. I hesitated, could he have forgotten this, and meant some broader way further on? But when I stepped back to look I saw there wasn’t one; the road curved around to the right. Holding my breath, I was just about to take the plunge when I heard a slight scrape, and a flicker of motion caught my eye, back at the corner I’d just turned. But when I looked around there was nothing, and I thought no more about it. The alley was as foul as I’d expected, the water that plashed around my hapless shoes awash with pale shapeless things half floating, its muddy shallows releasing a terrible stench as I disturbed them. Fortunately it wasn’t long. When the puddle ended I stopped for a moment to tip the foulness out of my shoes and scrape them clean. But as I leant one-handed against the grimy bricks I heard that sound again, echoing slightly down the alley. Forgetting my squishy feet, I turned and looked suddenly back almost frozen to the spot. There came just a whisper of movement, no more than a flicker; but it seemed as if for one moment some huge bulky shadow had filled the alley’s other end, blocking off the light. Though it was gone almost at once, there was no way I could deny it, search though I might for such a shadow among the broken cobbles. I swallowed. Somebody didn’t want me to see them. Why? Because they were following me, that was why; it had to be. But who? Jyp, maybe, seeing his guest safe – no, hardly. But I could find out easily enough. All I had to do walk right back around that corner and confront – him? Them? Or … what?

Except, fortunately, that I wasn’t quite that stupid. I thought of Wolves; but there was no scaffolding here, hardly even an unbroken brickbat, let alone Jyp with his sword. I turned and hurried as quietly as I could out of the other end of the alley. In the street beyond, turning right, I stopped a moment, listening for the splash of that inescapable puddle. There was nothing – which meant they either weren’t coming, or they were coming with greater stealth. I swallowed and strode on. Just as I reached the next corner, another right turn, I dared to glance back again. Nothing – except –

A sudden tremendous splashing erupted from the alley, as if something was charging headlong through that puddle, charging with heedless ferocity. Perhaps I yelled; certainly I fled. Down the street I pounded, noticing only that it was mercifully wide and short on shadows, and had smooth cinder pavements that scuffed muddily under my feet. My breath seemed to go shallow very suddenly, and bands of agony sprang up around my head; my injuries were beginning to tell. Where now? Where next? I couldn’t even remember. I stopped, bewildered, panting, and looked up at the skies. And what I saw there drove out all other thoughts, even of what might any moment round that corner behind me.

The moon was afloat, it seemed, sailing above a sea of cloud. By its light the clouds were transformed, spread out beneath it into a landscape of shimmering night-bound beauty, low hills and the sea beyond, the sea and islands. But that alone could not have held me, in the state I was. What bound me to the spot was the almost tangible shock of recognition. Beyond all possibility, yet equally beyond all doubt, it was the same landscape the sunset had shown me, at least three hours earlier. The same, yet – as you might expect – seen from a slightly different angle. I began to shake; had the blow affected my brain? Yet I’d never felt more sure of anything; both visions burned together in my brain, the seas of gold and silver. Bewildered, I looked down, and saw, above that landscape mirrored in a stagnant gutter, a sign on the grimy wall. Beneath the gutterings of spray paint it read, quite clearly, Tampere Street. I ran forward wildly, and there, not a hundred yards from the corner, was my car.