A truck crossing the bridge behind him provided enough competing sound and light and James spotted a concrete path and an inviting stretch of parkland just as it was lit for a moment. He judged where and when to start running once the grass fell into shadow again, and, keeping the pathway on his right, he ran with every shred of energy he could muster, dragging air into his nostrils and pushing it out, not looking back.

If he remembered this park correctly, a weir cut across the river not far ahead. On the far side, street lights glowed between low branches higher up at the back of the supermarket.

His assailant might be on his heels, but James didn’t stop until he saw the glint where the water dropped no more than a metre, making a rushing sound that might cover his footsteps as he crossed.

His feet got wet, but in less than ten steps he was on the other bank, before he turned to see the kid already halfway across.

‘Keep running, faggot!’ he shouted, and there was enough light for James to see the round hole of the mouth, but not the eyes. They were buried beneath a black hood.

He struck up the steep riverbank, but veered away from the abandoned feel of the shopping centre. He didn’t want to be trapped against the wall of rubbish skips.

The car park ran another hundred metres towards a new source of light, filtered by more vegetation. The place only revealed what it was to James once he’d passed the first few darkened caravans and noticed the park’s toilet lights shining onto a barbecue area.

He switched back past the coloured lights of an open-air laundry area and found the back of the toilets, completely in shadow but penned in by a high mesh fence with vines growing up it.

Judging it safe to pause, James tried to swallow his exhalations and leaned tight against the wall, watching and listening for his pursuer, but all that came back to him was the distant noise of a television.

After a minute he pushed deeper into the narrow space, wincing as he kicked over what might have been plastic garden pots. On the other side of the fence, a paddock stretched across toward small homes, lights showing here and there around window blinds. In between, the odd reflection came off pools of water interspersed by neglected swathes of long grass.

Where his hideaway ran out, a largish hole in the fence revealed itself, so he pushed through. The lights across the field drew him, only because the chance of being beaten with the pipe or the bat or whatever it was diminished with every inch he drew closer to them, even if he was followed across this final stretch.