With another shattering BOOM!, a hail of shot ripped through the few fragments of door left, obliterated the banister and peppered the stairway wall with holes. Lucy returned fire as she and Cora backed down the hall, this time one-handed, pumping three more rounds into the smoke-filled blackness outside. The revolver now empty, she tossed it, then turned and shouldered her mother through into the kitchen.

‘My God,’ Cora moaned, on sight of the destruction there.

‘I need that baton,’ Lucy said.

Cora pushed it into her hand, and she snapped it open before unlocking the back door and barging out into the night. The third attacker would still be out here somewhere, but they had no choice. At least Lucy had disarmed him.

‘Who do we call?’ Cora asked again, staggering in pursuit.

‘Never mind that …’ Lucy pivoted, scanning the whole yard. ‘If the neighbours haven’t called someone by now, God help us! Oh shit … run!’

She pushed her mother to the back gate. Cora, whose eyes hadn’t properly adjusted to the night-gloom, hadn’t seen the hellish shape ballooning towards them from the shadows alongside the broken kitchen window.

‘I’ll go next door,’ she suggested.

‘Don’t go next door, Mum! Just run!’

Cora lurched to the back gate, yanking it open, as Lucy moved to meet the tall, rangy figure with the blistered face and slit neck. One hand was still clasped to his wound, but with the other he’d drawn an immense knife, something like a small machete.

Lucy drew her baton to the shoulder, as per the manual.

Even so, it ordinarily would be no contest – but the guy could barely see where he was going. She ducked his first clumsy swipe, and caught him across the left knee with a furious thwack. He swore in Spanish as he tottered past her. She straightened up behind him, the manual now going out of the window as she delivered a huge, two-handed stroke to the back of his skull.

He plummeted to the flagstones, landing face-first with an echoing smack.

One eye still on the kitchen window, Lucy hobbled across the yard to the shed, and opened it.

Her Ducati M900 glimmered in the shadows. As always, it was fully fuelled and primed, just ready to go. She grabbed her helmet, but as she only had one, she didn’t put it on, but hooked it over a handlebar, saddled up and backed the machine out.

The would-be house-invader still lay prone. Lucy spared him one last glance as she turned the bike around, shifted gear and throttled out into the alleyway running parallel at the back. Her mother had progressed about forty yards along it on the left, but only slowly, glancing constantly over her shoulder. When she heard the bike, she stopped and turned as Lucy rode up behind her.

As such, Cora failed to notice a car pull into view at the far end.