The wet cobbles had started to dry and it only took Anna a few moments to skip over to the south side of the market. She was heading back to Durrants, but not directly.

It wasn’t until she’d turned into Southampton Street, which led down a short hill to the Strand, that she saw another person—a tall man in a dark greatcoat—walking towards her. She stepped to the right, out of his way, and he stepped left, back into her path. She stepped left and he matched her again. She smiled at him, he smiled at her. Then they both stopped, six feet apart.

‘Can I help you?’ Anna asked, drawing out the syllables of the question.

She couldn’t make out much of the man’s features—he was lit from behind by the streetlamps on the Strand and his coat obscured the shape and size of his body—but she could see two very large ears poking out of his hair, and two even larger hands sticking out of his sleeves.

‘No,’ he replied, undoing the buttons of his coat so it hung off him, and twisting his body. He moved his right foot back and shifted his weight into a boxer’s stance.

Anna didn’t say anything else. She didn’t cry out for help, or even pretend to look dismayed. She just matched the man’s posture and waited for him to make the first move.

They stared at each other for a long, tense moment until the man lunged at her, his right hand balled into a fist. Anna easily deflected his cross-punch, but was surprised when he pivoted away from her instead of being carried forward by momentum, and her own jab missed his body and was lost in the folds of his coat.

She spun on the ball of her foot as they switched positions, him higher up the hill and her back to the Strand. The man now loomed over Anna, but she was happy to use that to her advantage and threw out another fist, aimed square at his stomach. Yet he managed to dodge her once more, floating left then right to avoid her punches.

The man smiled at her again. He seemed to be enjoying their little sparring session. Anna wasn’t. She’d already had to deal with one surprise this evening; a second made her think that Line Z had got sloppy with its planning, and she didn’t like sloppiness. At least this man, whoever he was, seemed to be a more worthy adversary.