Mickey stared in at a serious-looking man in his thirties in a business suit. In broken English, the man said, ‘Hello, excuse me, I’ve come from the ferry but think I have taken a wrong turning. Would you know the direction towards London?’

Mickey slammed his fist into the side of the man’s neck, aiming it directly at the one place that would knock him unconscious instantly. He opened the door, unclipped his belt and shoved him, with some difficulty, across into the passenger seat. Then he jumped in, familiarizing himself in an instant with the left-hand driving position, and accelerated hard away, ignoring the insistent pinging of the alarm telling him to fasten his belt.

Something more insistent was pinging inside his head.

Get home to Stuie before the police get there.

In his red mist of panic, he figured so long as he got home, everything would be all right. He and Stuie, they were good. They were a team.

‘I’m coming,’ he muttered. ‘Stuie, I’m coming. Going to scoop you up and we’ll head north up to Scotland, lie low for a bit. I got friends there on a remote farm. We’ll be safe there.’

And maybe safe in this car. Had anyone been close enough to see him taking it? He’d have to chance not. He’d call Stuie, who always slept the sleep of the dead, and tell him to get up, pack a bag and be ready to leave the moment he arrived. The way to get him to move fast would be tell him it was a game and that he could bring his chef’s hat!

He put his hand down to the front pocket of his jeans to tug out his phone.

It wasn’t there.

6

Monday 26 November

Shit, Mickey thought, trying to concentrate on driving, panic rising again. Shit. What numbers did the phone have on it? It was a burner he’d bought a couple of weeks before the start of the trip.

There was a groan from the passenger seat, which he ignored as he concentrated on navigating through the outskirts of the town, away from the harbour and towards the A26.

A couple of minutes later, driving like the wind, he shot out of the industrial area and onto the long, twisty, rural part of the road, checking his mirrors constantly. There was nothing so far. Just more of that darkness.

A bus-stop lay-by loomed up ahead. He braked hard and swung into it. Then he ran round to the passenger door, bashed the German unconscious again and dragged him, out of sight, into dense undergrowth. Not great but the best he could do, short of killing him. Returning to the car, he drove on at high speed. Thinking.

What a mess.

All his great plans down the toilet.

Jesus.

The boss was going to be furious – but that was the least of his problems right now.