The Cadillac slows again and he wakes. It’s morning now. A thin line of warm sunlight falls across his face. He hears Gant say, “Excuse me,” very clearly, like he’s leaning out of an open window. Running footsteps approach. A woman’s voice. An early morning jogger.

A thought surfaces in the murk of Danny’s mind. The man in the car. The gunshots. A trail of carnage for Stephanie to follow.

“Run!” Danny screams. “Run! He’s going to kill you!”

He hears the woman’s voice. Not the words, but the tone – confused, suddenly wary – and Gant, trying to be soothing, trying to coax her closer. Then there’s a scrape of rubber soles on the road, and the woman is running and Gant is cursing. Car doors open. A gun fires twice. More cursing.

“Go!” Gant shouts, and Danny hears Jeremiah take off in pursuit.

Gant gets back in the car and they leap forward, tyres spinning. The Cadillac swerves violently and Danny hits his head and jars his shoulder. The world rattles and bumps around him. They’re off the road now, on some kind of dirt track. Branches scrape against metal. Water splashes. Another turn, and another, and for a moment they’re going sideways and Danny is sure they’re going to crash, but somehow Gant gets the big car back under control and they straighten out, picking up even more speed.

They take a long, wide turn, then brake, coming to a skidding, sliding stop, and the engine cuts out and the door opens and Danny hears the woman grunt. Something thuds heavily on to a crackling surface. Twigs. The ground is covered in twigs and old leaves and Gant and the woman are rolling around on it. The woman struggles fiercely. Gant curses. There’s a burst of snapping branches and trampled undergrowth and another thud, and Jeremiah’s heavy panting is added to the mix.

“Let go of me!” the woman shouts. “Let go! Let—”

There’s a gunshot.

Danny lies in the darkness, listening to Jeremiah getting his breath back while Gant mutters to himself. After a minute, Jeremiah gets to his feet with great effort. He sighs a few more times, grunts, and Danny hears something being dragged, getting closer. It moves round the car to the trunk. A rattle of keys.

The trunk opens and Danny shields his eyes. He hears Jeremiah’s cry of disgust as the smell hits him, and then Gant is saying something and Danny finally looks up.

“No!” says Danny, but Jeremiah drops the woman’s body on top of him and slams the trunk shut.

Danny screams, shrinking back from the tangle of limbs and long hair, trying to push the body away, but his hands are suddenly wet with something warm and sticky. There’s a new smell in the trunk now, the coppery smell of blood.