The Anywhere Delivery Brothers’ offices are located out of Streatham in a remote site off the A23. Archer sees a spiral of black smoke above a row of abandoned boxy one-storey office buildings.

‘It’s one of those,’ says Quinn.

‘I don’t like the look of that smoke,’ says Archer.

‘Me neither.’

Archer jolts back as Quinn steps on the accelerator. She grips the dashboard, unhooks the car radio and calls for backup. Quinn steers the speeding car around a tight bend and up a bumpy, gritty slip road. Ahead, parked outside an office at the far end of the road, Archer sees an Anytime Delivery Brothers delivery van and two other vans engulfed in flames. Through the office windows she sees smoke billowing inside. Quinn skids the car to a stop and they both jump out. The stench of kerosene fused with an unsettling burnt pork smell fills the air. She notices that one of the van’s windscreens is shattered with a small hole at the centre.

A bullet hole.

‘Someone’s in the van!’ shouts Archer.

Quinn rushes to the police radio and calls for an ambulance, but Archer knows it’s already too late. She hurries to the rear of the van and tries to open the doors, but the fire has spread inside and they are too hot to touch. Above the flames she hears a harrowing scream from inside the burning building. She looks around and through the window sees a shadowy figure limping blindly through black smoke. Archer sprints toward the office, pulls open the front door with the cuff of her coat and is punched by a giant fist of heat and smoke from the flames blocking the doorway. Coughing, she backs away as the door slams closed.

‘Hello!’ she calls through the window.

The fire crackles and spits and within seconds it seems to roar in fury.

‘Help is on the way!’ shouts Quinn.

‘Someone is inside!’

Quinn is suddenly beside her. ‘There’s nothing we can do.’

Archer steps back, shielding her eyes from the heat and smoke. She hears a thudding sound and looks across to see the blackened figure of a man pounding at the windows. A shudder surges through Archer’s body at the sight of his face. Fire has engulfed his whole body and has disintegrated his lips leaving him with a ghastly grimace; his terrified, pleading eyes widen with pain in the searing hot temperature. The heat causes the windows to blow, one by one. Quinn rushes forward and with his hands tucked into his sleeves hauls the man through the shattered pane. He falls to the ground like something inhuman, his flesh charred, his jacket and trousers ablaze.

Fire extinguisher.