The words on the banner kept edging into my mind: Justice for all animals. Who Will Be Next? Was Gary next?

Gary lived in Lower Gritton, the brick-terraced area we’d driven through on the way to Daniel’s caravan. Washing flapped and scruffy dogs barked in ragged gardens. As we neared the address we’d been given, we turned through open gates into a narrow street. I slammed on the brakes. The car slewed onto the pavement.

Jai grabbed the handle above the car door. ‘Glad to see the advanced driving investment paid off.’

‘What the hell …’

There was a throng of people in the road, merging into one red mass. Protesters wearing their unsettling meat-design clothing. The Animal Vigilantes. Shouting and waving banners. The mass of meat suits was obscene, and there were flies circling them as if it was real meat. The yelling blended into a wall of noise, but snippets were audible. ‘You’re evil … Animal abuse … We’re not fucking taking it any more!’

I spotted Gary, his back pressed against the door of a red-brick house, shouting back at the protesters. One double-crewed car was parked a few doors down and two uniformed officers were sprinting in Gary’s direction.

I turned off the engine and Jai and I jumped out of my car. The noise and the heat and brightness of the sun felt like being smacked on the head.

Protesters surged towards Gary. The meat suits en masse, writhing and pushing together, were truly repulsive. Like the difference between one squirming maggot and a thousand.

The shouting increased in volume and pitch, and someone pushed into me. A flush of adrenaline hit my stomach. If this all kicked off, we’d stand no chance with our Austerity Britain allocation of just two uniforms. These weren’t the skinny pacifists we normally found protesting about animal welfare. I sensed genuine menace.

I gestured to Gary to get inside his house, but he stayed put, standing solidly with legs apart, waving his arms and shouting back at the protesters. I pushed into the crowd, keeping my elbows firm, trying to get to Gary, to persuade him to go inside.

The protesters jostled me, forcing me into a man who stood a good foot above me and smelled of sweat and cannabis. He had a tattoo of a rodent on his cheek. A rat? I looked frantically for the uniforms. Others in the crowd must have picked up on the tension and there was an upsurge of noise and movement. A swelling of bodies towards me.