I can write about all this, I realised, as I came skipping and jumping to the top of the track. All those people, with their stories; I just wish I knew every one of them. There’s so much stuff, if you live here. So much (last time I’ll say the word, I promise) treasure.

I had to tell someone. Mum and Dad … I stopped yet again as I began slinging one leg over the rails. What would I hear when I got back to the farmhouse? What had they decided? I wasn’t sure what I wanted when I left there an hour and a half ago. But now I knew.

If I couldn’t share it with them, then — a girl’s face formed in my mind. Yeah, that girl. But I’m not mentioning her, remember?

A sound was coming from somewhere. A buzzing, howling sound, faint but getting louder. And getting closer. Someone else was flying a drone around? I shaded my eyes and peered upwards. Nothing, except for the hawk above the swamp.

Then two things happened at once. I dropped down onto the road at the start of the bridge. And the buzzing swelled into a roaring, as a car came rocking around the corner.

It was really hooning along. Stupid sods. After what happened to Aunt Maggie, didn’t they realise? Plus there were so many farm driveways with milk tankers turning out of them, stuff like that.

Next second, my mouth flopped open again. The car wasn’t just hooning; it was swerving from side to side, back end swinging so wildly that it almost ripped into the fence. It straightened up, hurtled towards me, swayed crazily once more. Smoke poured from the back of it. The engine was on fire!

Then I recognised it. The black car: the one with the two guys who had nearly run me down on the bridge. What were the morons doing now? I kept staring as they charged closer, motor roaring, the howling sound rising also. The car swung again, clipped a post, thundered on. More smoke billowed from the back.

No, not smoke. Something solid, shredding and spraying into the air. The rear of the car seemed to sag down onto the road. Sparks flew. Another burst of black, fountaining up above the roof, and I saw the remains of a back tyre go somersaulting into the ditch. The car raced on, fish-tailing as it came, wheel rim graunching along the tar-seal. I stood clutching the rail I’d just climbed over, stick in one hand.

It was only thirty metres away. And at that moment, the howling noise grew, and a police car skidded around the corner, lights flashing blue and red, siren shrieking. It straightened up and accelerated towards the bridge, gaining on the crippled black shape with every second.