direction the sound of running footsteps originated from. Had Kooi known the city then his chances of escape would have been good, but Kooi was a tourist who had spent his days exploring the unfamiliar. He didn’t know Algiers. He didn’t know where to run to. He didn’t know where to hide. He was attempting to create enough distance to lose his pursuer. He was trusting to speed and stamina in an attempt to outrun Victor. He didn’t yet know such a thing was impossible.
Victor ran into a small arcade, dodging past men and women amused enough by the spectacle to helpfully point out which way to go. The arcade opened out onto the seafront. Kooi was out of sight and the road was wide enough that his flight had not disrupted the foot traffic sufficiently for the wake to mark his route. He could have gone either left or right but Victor should be able to see him easily enough in the sparse crowd. But he couldn’t. Kooi must have backtracked.
Victor turned around and dashed back the way he had come, picturing Kooi running along a parallel route, perhaps even slowing to a walk to attract less attention. He reached an intersection and glanced both ways down the perpendicular thoroughfare. If Kooi had retraced his steps along a parallel route he would appear after Victor, who had only had to run in a straight line, whereas Kooi had gone in an L shape having fled a little way first along the seafront.
He appeared, to the left, and Victor was sprinting after him before Kooi realised he had been spotted. The Dutchman ran again, but now had a lead of less than five metres.
After Victor chased him down another alleyway, Kooi ran across a wide French boulevard, in a straight line through the sparse and slow-moving traffic. He slipped off the cinnamon-stained shirt and tossed it aside, because at some point he would want to hide, to blend in, and the shirt would hamper that. He had a white undershirt beneath.
Victor followed, running behind a backfiring car Kooi had run in front of. He headed into an alleyway that was barely shoulder width, scuffing and tearing his own shirt at the shoulders and elbows and scraping the skin beneath. Kooi took a corner eleven feet ahead, using his hands as brakes to pivot him ninety degrees and prevent him crashing into the wall. Victor did the same, gaining on Kooi because he knew what was coming.
The paved ground sloped upwards in a series of long, low steps and then opened out onto a wide residential street where window boxes bloomed with colour and bright doors had grilled security windows. Kooi leapt up and vaulted over a wall. Victor did the same seconds later, landing on his feet in a courtyard filled with tall potted plants. Kooi shoved them aside and knocked them over as he ran. Earthenware cracked apart, spilling soil. Victor dodged around the debris, again closing on Kooi, who had to create the path for Victor to follow.
Kooi ran at the wall at the other end of the courtyard and used the ball of his leading foot to catapult him upwards, pulling himself up and dropping down to the far side. Victor heard a yell and a crash and as he landed on the street on the other side of the wall he saw Kooi scrambling to his feet and a man on the ground, cursing and rubbing his ankle. Victor swerved around him as Kooi jumped onto the bonnet of a parked taxi, receiving a blare of horn in return from the driver, who got out of his vehicle to yell abuse. Victor had to shove the driver out of the way, and followed Kooi over the bonnet and up another set of long low steps.
At the top an elderly woman was exiting the front door of her home. Kooi threw her aside and disappeared into the building. Victor heard his footsteps dashing up the stairwell as he entered the cool interior. Ceiling fans thrummed overhead. He raced after Kooi, not concerned about an ambush because he could hear his target’s echoing footsteps ascending above him.
Victor reached the four-storey building’s top floor, rushed through an open doorway – the only way Kooi could have gone – and into a small apartment where a family sat on the floor, shocked and scared at the intrusion upon their afternoon meal. Glass smashed further inside and Victor found a balcony