Alfie and the officers all spin round. The kite has broken one of its lines. Like a guided missile, it’s aimed at where they stand. It’s coming down fast.

‘Move!’ the policeman shouts.

Will turns round.

‘Fuck’s sake! Move!’ the officer shouts again.

Will jinks to one side, the kite howling past him. The officer chases it down, grabbing it by the corner before it can cause any more havoc. The female officer leaps into the road, frantically stopping cars before they run her colleague over.

When someone shouts ‘Move …’

Will feels a burst of adrenaline.

You’ll come to no harm …

He is Alfie’s only hope, he knows it.

Run as fast as you can. No stopping to think. Just run …

It’s a snap decision, no time to analyse, apply logic. This is the right thing.

Will stares wide-eyed at Alfie. ‘Later,’ he mouths.

And he’s off.

He’s leaping over the kerb at the far side of the road when he hears the policewoman shout after him.

He’s in the alley next to the fish and chip shop.

He squeezes through the tiny gap between the filthy industrial bins and the roughcast wall opposite them. Glancing back, he sees both the officers are only now crossing the road after him. The male officer shouts back at Alfie to wait where he is.

Behind the parade of shops now, Will sprints along the overgrown service road. Rusting scrap slows his progress, almost taking him down several times. The long, high wall to his left, capped with mounds of seagull crap, tells him he’s behind the Palace Hotel now. Grabbing an iron drainpipe, and using it as a pivot to take a tight right turn into a narrower pathway, he looks behind him. No sign. There are shouts and the sound of bins being wrestled. He’s made good ground on them.

Slowing, he looks for the two lock-ups with maroon doors. They’re further along than he expected, but he knows where he is now. A stitch burns in his chest as he fights for breath. His mouth is like dust. He forces himself into the gap between the two scruffy units. His hair rubs along the wall behind him, his nose almost in contact with the dimpled asbestos of the facing wall. His heart thumps between the two like a pendulum. He sidles ever closer to the daylight at the far end, only confident he won’t get stuck because he’s squeezed through here before.

‘Willy boy!’ Mick Touch shouts. He draws on the stub of his roll-up, pinched between yellow fingertips. ‘By my maths you’re twenty-four hours early for your shift.’