I climbed into the driver’s seat, pulled the door shut by the red leather tongue, pushed in the ignition key, and turned it. There was a deep clunk sound, followed by a rapid ticking sound, and the gauges in front of me began to quiver with life. I pulled out the choke and waited for the fuel pump to finish its ticking. I pressed the starter button. There was a woosh from the air intakes followed by a boom from the twin exhaust pipes as she fired first time. She sat, vibrating with energy, engine thumping on full choke, sounding a little lumpy, as she usually did until she warmed up.

I removed some dust from the boss of the four-spoked steering wheel, a thick conical boss that would have made a hole in my chest the size of a cannon ball had I been flung against it in an accident, but then this gorgeous brute had been built in the days before padded dashes and collapsible steering columns, and progressive body crumple. She had a solid steel chassis, and the theory was that if anything got in her path once she was under steam, she would shunt it clean out of the way, or cut it in half like a battleship slicing through a smuggler’s yawl. I let the choke in a little, pushed the clutch pedal down hard, pushed the short thin gear lever into first, let off the handbrake, and we moved forward. I stayed in first gear as we went up the steep ramp. The guard just inside the metal gate pushed the button that sent it clattering upwards, and nodded me a goodnight; I waved a finger back at him in reply.

The Jag is not the best car in which to try and follow someone discreetly, but it was dark, and I didn’t feel like driving one of the department’s dreary machines tonight. I felt, it being my birthday, I had a right to some compensation for missing what had promised to be, as Gelignite had put it, an ‘interesting’ celebration. Since she had an extremely fertile mind regarding pastimes not unrelated to the reproductive processes, I had a feeling that I was going to be missing out on something that ought not to be missed out on.