“Which way?” de Gier asked. Grijpstra pointed as he ran.

“Let’s try the alleys.”

De Gier jumped ahead, veering toward the protected side of a side street while the wind howled along store-fronts, pulling at signboards and gutters. A lid of a garbage can obstructed his way and he jumped and shouted a warning, but the adjutant had seen it and kicked the rolling disc so dial it shot off at a tangent. A few cardboard boxes followed the lid and the policemen avoided them, turning into a passage that would take them to the main shopping center of the Kalverstraat. Grijpstra stopped running.

“In here somewhere,” he panted. “He is bound to be somewhere around here. In the Kalverstraat he can be seen-the stores all have glass porches. Let’s go.”

“Wait,” de Gier said softly and put out a restraining hand.

“Whatr

“I think I saw a head pop out, over there. I’ll go.”

Grijpstra grinned as he watched the sergeant’s progress.

De Gier was sliding with slow, exaggerated movements. His tall slim shape merged with the alley’s shadows. The hunter, the deadly hunter. But Grijpstra stopped grinning. He was sure that de Gier would make his kill. Ferocious, he thought. Very.

As de Gier jumped ahead and flattened himself against die aged, crumbling front of a small house, Grijpstra stepped back and drew out his heavy service pistol, loading it as he jerked it out of its cracked holster. He shook his head. There had been times, not so long ago, that he wouldn’t have thought of drawing his gun, but thieves were changing. Hit-and-run thieves were usually armed these days, with knives mostly, with firearms occasionally if they were desperate enough, because the drug habit was forcing them to be desperate.