‘I know, I know,’ he said, feeling immediately wretched. ‘What do you see?’

‘I called the police,’ she said with an almost distracted air. From the sound of her voice she was walking fast.

‘That’s good,’ he said, thinking, The police. Did he want Tess in the hands of the police? ‘But I need to know what you see.’

At the other end of the line she took stock. ‘OK, well, there was a guy in the car park. He was behaving a bit strangely. So rather than go to my car, I headed for the street. Up there, I saw another guy looking a bit like the first guy. It’s all too much of a coincidence. That’s why I called the police.’

‘Do you see him now?’

She glanced behind. The street was not busy but some way back she could see him. He was on his phone, just the same as she was, but not looking her way. Not for the first time in the last ten minutes or so she wondered if she were simply having an attack of the heebie-jeebies. ‘The guy’s still there, Alex,’ she told Abbott.

‘What’s he doing?’

‘Just on his phone.’

‘But he’s still following?’

‘I mean, in the sense that he’s behind me, yes.’

‘They’ll have more than one man on you,’ he told her. ‘Look to your front, probably on the other side of the street. Look for either a guy by himself or in a pair.’

She did, and sure enough, across the road were two men, both in suits, one on his phone and the other . . .

Looking right at her.

Quickly averting his gaze.

‘Yes,’ she told Alex. ‘Two of them up ahead.’

‘OK, the chances are that they were planning to take you in the car park.’

‘Take me?’

‘We can assume that’s what they want to do. They’re not following you for any other reason.’

‘Oh my God,’ she said, and she heard the shake in her own voice. ‘Should I just approach a random stranger? Get him to help?’

‘No, because you’ll have to stop. If you stop then they’ll move in. They’ll have medical or law enforcement credentials and they’ll have you out from under the nose of the Samaritan before he even knows what’s happening.’

‘What if I go into a shop? A pub? A restaurant?’

‘Same. For now, until I say any different, just keep moving. If they break into a run then you do too. Head for a Tube station. If you see a police car in the meantime, flag it down. But listen, Tess. Only a uniform. Not a plainclothes copper with a badge. Just a uniform.’