I sent my new car roaring through the streets with a complete disregard for traffic lights, traffic laws, and any and all forms of road etiquette. Though strictly speaking, it wasn’t a new car. I’d had to abandon and destroy my beloved Hirondel during my time on the run, so I prevailed on the family Armourer to provide me with a new set of wheels. I was now driving a lovingly restored 1933 open-topped four-and-a-half-litre Bentley, in racing green with red leather interiors, and an Amherst Villiers supercharger under the long gleaming bonnet. The wind slapped at my hair as we roared along, and I changed gears more than was strictly necessary, just to show off. It was a great green beast of a car, stylish as all hell, and calmly glamorous in that way that modern cars don’t even aspire to anymore. I slammed her into top gear and put my foot down, and the Bentley surged forward like a hunting dog let off the leash. Molly whooped with joy, exhilarating in the speed and acceleration.

“This is one hell of a car, Eddie! Where did you steal it?”

“It used to belong to my uncle Jack,” I yelled back over the roar of the engine. “Back when he was charging around East Europe in the fifties, at the height of the Cold War, stamping out bush fires with extreme prejudice. They say he personally prevented three world wars, and very nearly started one, when he was caught in bed with a politician’s wife. And his mistress. Uncle Jack moved on to faster and flashier cars, of course, but he always had a fondness for this one, and kept it going for years. He customised the hell out of it, of course. As family Armourer, he always had to have the best toys.”

“Such as?”

I grinned. I couldn’t help myself. “Bulletproof chassis and windows, silicon-gel-filled tyres so they’ll never go flat, machine guns fore and aft firing explosive fléchettes at two thousand rounds a minute . . . EMP proof, spell proof, curse proof, plus all the usual hidden extras. The operating manual is the size of a phone book. All of us kids used to pore over it in the library, dreaming of the day when we’d be field agents and drive cars just like it. And by the way, don’t try and use the cigarette lighter. Flamethrowers.”

“Groovy! Let’s try them!”

“Let’s not. We aren’t supposed to draw attention to ourselves, remember? Wait till we see a traffic warden. Or a street mime.”