Unease was making him speed. He was impatient to get home to his own daughters, to make sure they were safe. As he drove, he wondered what had made the poor kid crack up. He couldn’t imagine growing up with parents like Val and Guy: she was flaky and uncertain while he seemed untroubled by any sense of affection or warmth.

At that moment, Guy shifted in his seat, letting out a loud belch into the cabin. Mark exhaled with annoyance – he could smell the bilious odour, and lowered his window. Behind him, Abi complained of the draught but he didn’t care. Guy was moving in his seat again, clearly discomforted by the big meal he’d just consumed, all that wine. Swearing under his breath, he unclipped his seatbelt, and Mark snapped:

‘Put that back on.’

But Guy grumbled incoherently, trying to stretch out his belly to relieve his discomfort.

‘Put your seatbelt on, Guy, now,’ Mark insisted, the car’s sensor bleating out a warning.

He turned his head, glanced across at the man wincing in pain, and Mark half-leaned towards him. He was reaching to grab the seatbelt—

‘Watch out!’

The shriek of Abi’s voice rang in his ears as he felt the impact of the blow to the bumper and slammed on the brakes. Beside him, Guy jolted forward, his head glancing off the dashboard, before he was flung back against his seat. Movement streaked through the headlights – a fleeting glance of tusks and the reddish hue of animal hides within a rising cloud of dust. The car swerved and skidded to a halt. Wild boars – Mark counted five of them, as they raced across the road in the light of the car’s headlamps before disappearing into the darkness. For a moment, Mark just sat there, his heart pummelling his chest. Abi was already out of the car.

‘Can you see any damage?’ he asked as he joined her by the bumper. She was hunkering down, running her hands over the frame.

‘A dent. There’s blood. Ugh,’ she said, her fingertips glossy with gore. Quickly she stood up and wiped her hand on her dress.

Val had joined them and was looking anxiously from the car to the black field. The air was still sultry with heat from the day, but out here in the middle of nowhere, with only the moon casting its light, it felt lonely and remote.

‘We shouldn’t stay out here,’ Val said, nerves in her voice. ‘Boars are dangerous. They could come back.’

‘What about the one you hit?’ Abi asked him. ‘It could be lying there half-dead. Shouldn’t we check?’

‘And what if it is? What do you propose I do? Finish it off with the tyre-iron?’ The adrenaline rush and the strangeness of the incident made him tense and snappish.

‘I’d just feel better if we looked.’

‘Fine.’