‘We’re having to move you at short notice to protect you, as your identity has been partly compromised. I don’t think it’s safe to remain here. In a moment we’re going to leave, do you understand?’

He looked up at her and felt reassured. The sun behind her had produced a fiery shimmering halo around her hair. She was a saint from a stained-glass window, a woman who had come to rescue him. ‘You are really quite beautiful, do you know that?’ he said. ‘Like an angel.’

‘I’m no angel, I can assure you,’ she said, gathering her bag and mobile phone.

He wasn’t used to the beer, and his head was swimming a little. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I think I’m a little bit drunk. Must be out of practice. I used to be able to handle three times that, easy.’

‘Listen carefully.’ She instructed him as if he was a child. But then at the moment he did feel as if he was a child. ‘Stand up gradually, Neil, I don’t want you falling over and making a scene.’

He untangled his legs from the bench and stood up. He definitely felt woozy. ‘I need to go to the toilet. All that beer.’

‘No, not here,’ she said firmly, sliding her own arm through his to steer him. ‘We’ll stop somewhere behind a hedge for you.’

He nodded. She guided him into the car park, and to her car, parked right at the far end. She opened the door and helped him slide into the passenger seat. She took her place behind the wheel and leaned across to do up his seat belt. The smell of her hair was intoxicating. Banana, avocado?

‘You’re lovely,’ he said, as she began to reverse the car out. That sceptical eyebrow again, twitching. She seemed to be breathing heavily. Her diaphragm was moving. It was the kind of thing he had trained himself to notice, inside. To detect liars and to predict imminent attack. But that was inside, and he was out now. He trusted her. God, she was lovely.

They drove for only a few minutes before she took a left turn down a narrow country track.

‘You can pee behind the hedge here,’ she said.

He scrambled clumsily out of the car. For some reason he had trouble with his flies, and settled for undoing his belt and letting his trousers fall to his ankles. Hot urine poured out of him into the nettles behind the hedge, splashing his trainers. It took a while for him to hoist his trousers back up, and somehow he made a mess of getting the belt hitched correctly.

As he turned back to the car, he saw she was standing by the open boot.