The reaction was swift again as an inch of tarmac exploded next to Laing’s prone body. It was a clear warning shot to Knox to stay exactly where he was.

‘Help Jack,’ he called out to Bennett as he ducked back behind the car.

By now, Williams had almost reached the MG and Bennett, taking advantage of the birdwatchers’ focus on Knox and Laing, had already moved forward to the front tyre. As soon as Williams reached the square nose of Bennett’s car, she reached up and pulled him down, rolling him over her to land behind the rear wheel.

They were all pinned, and Laing was still stuck in the open, grimacing as he held his leg that was seeping blood, and staring at the trickle of petrol that was inching closer and closer to him.

Knox looked past Laing to Bennett and Williams. She signalled that they were fine, then gestured towards their attackers, silently asking what they should do next. Knox could only answer by shrugging his shoulders. He raised his head to take another look at the birdwatchers, but before his eyes were level with the glass of the window another bullet had slammed into the Consul’s engine, eliciting a shriek from Laing and turning the trickle of petrol moving towards him into a stream.

The wind shifted and suddenly the row of cars became engulfed in a bubble of silence. Knox and Bennett could still see shrubs that had managed to grow taller than a few inches being battered by gusts of air, but all they could hear were Laing’s groans and the constant drip of engine fluid.

‘Are you okay?’ Bennett whispered to Williams.

He didn’t reply. She shoved his shoulder, trying to provoke some kind of response, but he just stared dead ahead, as if he was spellbound. She hit him again, but he didn’t seem to feel it.

Knox was watching, and he was as scared by Williams’s lack of reaction as he was at not knowing what the birdwatchers were doing. For all he knew, they were creeping across the shingle, their footsteps muffled by the wall of wind Knox and the others were trapped behind, ready to flank the row of cars and pick them off one by one.

He slid down onto the ground to look under the Jaguar’s chassis but couldn’t see anything other than car tyres, tarmac, and shingle. The temptation to stand up was overwhelming, but he knew that would probably result in a bullet in himself or Laing. His only option was to wait.

Wait until the man with the binoculars suddenly appeared at the rear of Bennett’s car and the woman stepped between the MG and the Consul, with her rifle trained on Knox.