The road was quiet and then I heard the soft clink of a car door closing. I turned quickly, but couldn’t see anyone. I stood still for a second, focusing on the road behind me, and saw in the distance the guy in the light jacket who’d said hello. He was nearly over the bridge now. I turned and hurried on, but still I felt uneasy pinpricks on the back of my neck.

Cars and vans were parked along the side of the road and the sidewalk was quite narrow. For a moment I thought of walking in the middle of the road, but then a car drove past and I stayed on the relative safety of the sidewalk. The car slowed down and took a left turn farther up the road and for a few minutes everything was quiet again. The turning for my road was several hundred yards ahead. Then there was the sound of another car coming up the road behind me.

It was only after it went past that I realized it was the same car that had gone past me just minutes earlier. It was silver, quite big, but I couldn’t tell the make or model. I could see it was a five-door and had a dual exhaust. When I saw it drive past the second time I saw the number plate started with MW. Once again, it took a left turn farther up the street.

I frowned. Why would the same car come past twice? And then I felt panic rising in my chest. I was walking down this road on my own. There had been no other cars, just this one.

It was as though all my senses were heightened. The sky looked darker; any stars had disappeared. The lights from the shops seemed more sinister, as they cast shadows on the sidewalks. And my hearing was sharpened: I could hear the sound of the breeze in the trees and the thrum of distant cars. Just then I heard the sound of a car coming up the road again.

And suddenly I was terrified. I couldn’t look behind; I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. My eyes flickered from right to left and ahead again. There was nobody else around.

I slid my phone out of my bag and held it tightly. When the car went past for the third time I registered the color: silver, the exhaust: double. The number plate starting with MW. And then it slowed down ahead of me. My eyes nearly popped out of my head as I saw it stop in the middle of the narrow road. Its hazard lights started to blink.

I stopped dead in my tracks. There was no way I was going to walk past that car. Both of us were still, like adversaries waiting to see who made the first move. Then the driver’s door opened.