At last, O’Grady allowed himself to relax, but only a little. He turned and peered through the back window. Like all the others, it was ingrained with dirt, but he could just about fix on the entrance to the arched passage he’d emerged from. There was no one there. Likewise, he hadn’t heard anyone else climbing aboard while he’d been waiting here in his seat. The bus jolted again, vibrating noisily as it ascended through the gears, picking up speed along the empty road. His relief grew. Inevitably, it slowed again as it approached the first set of lights, but he was already several hundred yards from where he’d begun, and anyway, the light changed to green as they drew close, and they rumbled through, picking up more speed.

O’Grady had no clue which direction they were headed in. This was one of the night services, so no doubt its final destination lay in some distant part of Greater Manchester. But he was okay with that. Anything to get away from the centre of Crowley.

The problem was, now that he considered it, what did he do afterwards?

Feeling rested a little, he tried to get his thoughts in order. Grabbing himself a taxi, assuming he could even find one at this late hour, would probably be a no-no. As an ex-copper, he knew that many organised crime groups had their hooks into mini-cab firms, so that would be a trail they could follow. He thought about catching a train, though again that depended whereabouts on the outskirts of town he finished up.

He glanced through the window, unable to identify the route. They were still in the town centre, passing Crowley Little Theatre on the right, and then Telson’s Van Hire. He sat back, still trying to think. There’d be no local trains running until six o’clock at the earliest, but that wasn’t a disaster. There were plenty of unmanned stations in Manchester’s suburbs, and if he ended up near one of those, there’d be nothing to stop him going onto the platform, crashing on a bench and grabbing the first service that came along, riding whichever way it took him and hooking up with a national line later on. He’d be down at the other end of the country by noon.

O’Grady had now earmarked a couple of country hotels where he might lie low. Places down in the Cotswolds and the West Country, where he’d spent time as a boy. Fleeting memories of happy holidays during his youth came back to him – only for the bus to lurch violently as it swung a right-hand turn, almost toppling him into the aisle.