Lucy, ears ringing to the roar of discharge, could only press herself harder into the bricks, more feverish sweat seeping from her brow. The shooting stopped and she heard him fumbling with something. A metallic click indicated that an empty clip had just been disconnected. With a louder clack, a fresh one was slotted into place. Then his feet stumped away across the kitchen. With a banging and smashing, the exterior kitchen door juddered in its frame.

She spun, looking for another escape route.

A wooden fence stood beside her. This too had seen better days. It wasn’t just rickety; when she threw herself at it, it fell apart like wet paper. The yard beyond was empty. Frantic, she dashed to the open gateway, and through it into a narrow backstreet.

She veered left and ran as hard as she could. But litter was strewn all along the alley: paper; beer cans; bits of carpets; more broken, scattered furniture. She wove between these obstacles with a speed and agility not just born of her years on the hockey fields and squash courts, but also from sheer, blind desperation. When survival was in doubt, it was amazing what physical reserves you could call on.

Unavoidably, she glanced over her shoulder again. He was coming in swift pursuit, so determinedly, in fact, that it looked like he was actually gaining on her. Even in this gloom, the red blob of his head became clearer and clearer. She could distinguish the sub-machine gun clasped horizontally to his chest, the way a paratrooper would carry it on manoeuvres.

He’d be in shooting range in less than a second.

Lucy swerved left into another backyard, with some vague idea that if she could work her way through this house, she’d be on Jubilee Gardens. From there, she could make it to Felton Lane and her car. But this time, where the house’s back door and kitchen window stood, there were slabs of perforated steel fixed with brackets.

A moan of horror wheezed from her chest. She again heard the approach of his feet.

She cast around – and spied a coal shed, its door closed but hanging on a single latch. She yanked it open and set it swinging, before turning, bombing back across the yard and vaulting over its five-foot brick wall. She landed in what had once been a flower bed, but was now a tangle of thorns and desiccated weeds. As she did, she heard him enter the next yard and, taking in the swinging door, open up on the shed with everything he had.

Lucy scurried towards the rear of this latest house. There was no metal on the doorway here, only chipboard again. To bludgeon her way through that would alert him, but with no choice, she charged at it. However, before she reached it, she kicked an old metal watering can, which bounced across the yard.