I’m halfway up the road before I turn to look. And there it is, a faint yellow glow amid the trees. Vomit courses up my throat and fills my mouth. It’s watery, but incredibly acidic. A little bit trickles out through my nose. But I sniff it back up, clamp my mouth shut and swallow. After all this planning, I’m not going to spatter the road with my DNA.

Head down now, racing mode. I get to the main road. The traffic is light, and I don’t see any cameras, although I know that there must be some. My legs are pumping like pistons, but I never let up. A couple of miles on the main road, then I turn off, still pumping, full-tilt. I’ve planned the route carefully, a series of winding country lanes that lead me all the way to safety. I don’t stop pedalling, not for a single second.

Home. First thing: I wash my hands for traces of petrol. I drink a glass of water. Then I go outside and peel all the tape off the bike, rolling it into a ball and stuffing it into the kitchen bin. I put all my clothes in the washer on a sixty-degree cycle and have a shower.

Wrapped in a towel, I go through into the living room. I sit on the sofa and check my emails, searching for a flight to Paris, a hotel on Tripadvisor… Could be anywhere, anything. Just to make sure I’m digitally engaged. An old episode of House is coming to an end. It started at nine. Luckily I’ve already seen it. I make a mental note, just in case anyone asks.

Finally, I lay back and close my eyes, feel the cold air on my body.

It’s over.

I never asked for this to happen. But it did. And I made it right.

A dead drug dealer?

One down, is what I say.

I can’t stop now.

Friday

7

He followed a double-decker as it stop-started its way up towards the Headrow. There were massive, glass-fronted office blocks on both sides of the street, plus an array of older, more ornate buildings, each one pristine, the Victorian brickwork dazzlingly bright. The city of Leeds was resplendent and bustling, a place that managed to be shiny and smart, going about its business with a minimum of fuss.

Not like Manchester, just fifty miles away, with its irritating self-regard, still twatting on about a handful of bands it once had, and a nightclub that’s now a block of yuppie flats. If a city could be an aging, loud-mouthed bore, Manchester was it. Quite literally the Liam Gallagher of cities, a pimped-up Subaru of a place, a cronut covered in cream. And don’t even mention the football…