The watcher turned away from the road, avoiding a fresh wave of vehicles released by the nearby traffic lights, but as Hawkins jumped clear of a cyclist and stumbled, almost falling but managing to stay upright, he made a kamikaze bolt between two cars for the opposite side of Oxford Street.

Tyres screamed as a taxi slewed into the oncoming lane, smashing into a dark BMW, which was then rear-ended by a truck. Alarms erupted as Hawkins skidded around behind the taxi, hands out in case the driver behind it hadn’t seen her. But the tiny white vehicle pulled up, leaving enough of a gap for her to slide through and resume pursuit.

She emerged on to a less crowded section of pavement, catching sight of the watcher disappearing behind a stall filled with tinsel and trinkets.

‘Ma’am?’ she heard Chris pant when there was a lull in the noise. ‘What’s going on?’

‘He crossed the road,’ she yelled into the handset, frantically searching for a street sign, catching nothing but large hoardings. ‘We’re in an alley opposite House of Fraser.’

She lowered the phone without waiting for confirmation, reducing the strain of running with only one arm in motion. She flashed past the stall, shouting an apology to the suited man she was forced to use as a brake.

Daylight seemed to disappear as she entered the narrow lane, a street lamp just inside coming on as she ran to it and stopped, its glow not yet sufficient to aid her view. Above her, tall buildings seemed to lean inwards, crowding the thin avenue that disappeared into the distance. There was no sign of her man, but the road was too long for him to have run its length in the time it had taken Hawkins to get there.

Which meant he was hiding nearby.

She took a step forwards, trying to block out the noise of blood thumping around her system, to pick up the erratic breaths of someone who had just risked his life to escape. But the sounds from the main road, no doubt augmented by the chaos she and her quarry had left in their wake, interfered.

She assessed the area for potential cover. To her right, the strains of construction work ebbed out through hoardings around the corner property, but she couldn’t see a way in. Further down, a shop with large flags suspended above the entrance appeared to be open, but it was unlikely her quarry would have chosen that over the deepening shadows outside. Near the opposite pavement, two cars and a Transit van hugged a thin yellow line, their owners risking tickets in exchange for convenience.

Hawkins moved left, checking behind the row of vehicles before crouching to look for feet between or bodies beneath. She stood, watching her breath curl away into the chilled evening air, now looking at the sunken doorways in the opposite wall.