Clearly, Tattoo was in radio contact with the F-Type, because as Lucy closed on Mill Lane, which separated Redman’s Field from the open gates to Queen Alexandra Park, the car ballooned out of the darkness on her left, barrelling straight for her. Lucy evaded it with inches to spare, tyres shrieking, and then jammed her brake on, sliding sideways across the road, before righting again, mounting the kerb and shooting through the park gates.

The F-Type growled noisily as it tore around in a U-turn, but Lucy was already flying along the park’s main drag. Only now, because there were no lamps inside the park, did she realise that she’d lost her headlight. She had a vague idea of lawns and flower beds spread to either side, but at least the walkways here were broad and smooth, the one she was following spooled out ahead of her like a moonlit ribbon – though she saw it all the more clearly when a powerful cone of light pulsed up at her rear, throwing her shadow far ahead.

In her nearside wing-mirror, Lucy spotted the Thundercat. It was gaining steadily, with the F-Type not far behind. Thoughts racing chaotically, she was flummoxed as to what her next move should be. If she stuck to this route, she would emerge from the park at its southeast end, where there were more housing estates to negotiate before the town centre, but at this rate they’d be within shooting-range before she even got close.

Abruptly, the children’s playground loomed up ahead of her, the drag diverting two ways around it via a T-junction. On a whim, Lucy opted to go straight across, leaping a small, grassy bank, landing in the sandpit, which initially gave her no traction, its contents rising in plumes as her back wheel churned, but then she was out of it, carving her way across the rubberised surface, swaying around the swings and roundabout, before hitting more grass, ripping through a wall of desiccated autumn vegetation, and heading up the slope of the railway embankment.

‘Lean forward!’ she shouted back to her mother. ‘Right forward!’

Cora, still adhered to her daughter’s back as if she’d been glued, did precisely as instructed, allowing Lucy to take the terrifying incline at full speed, burning uphill, only the night sky in front of them – until they were on the level again, snapping left at the top and running on gravel. With shrapnel machine-gunning behind them, Lucy realised that they were riding alongside the actual railway line.