As Dani moved slowly forwards, her senses on high alert, she heard sounds from the flats above. TVs blaring. Babies crying. Talking. Shouting. A door banged, off to Dani’s left. She felt herself jump and readied for action but then a middle-aged woman appeared. She looked at Dani suspiciously then carried on her way, walking off in the direction Dani had just come from.

Dani was by now nearing the junction by the garages up ahead. She wondered whether she’d been too hasty in stopping running. Had the man already scarpered, off to the right?

And where the hell was Easton?

That same ominous feeling crept over Dani again, her heart racing for a different reason now. She was scared.

Then she spotted movement ahead. A looming shadow. Her heart raced.

Easton.

Dani would have felt a rush of relief, but he wasn’t where she’d expected him to be at all. He was on a higher level. Not alongside the garages where she was, but on top of them. How the hell had that happened? He was no longer running either, as though he’d come to the same conclusion she had; that the man was now hiding.

‘Anything?’ she shouted out to him.

He shook his head. Dani made it to the intersection and quickly scanned left and right. Off to the left the row of garages formed a closed loop that connected to the tower block itself, which explained why Easton had been forced to come up over the top. Off to the right, where the row of garages ended, the tarmac gave way to a large patch of grass, a children’s play area in the near distance.

‘Dani, there he is!’ Easton shouted.

As the words passed his lips Dani saw him, peeling away from where he’d been hunkered by a garage door, and making a mad dash for the grass ahead of them.

‘Shit, it’s a dead end up here!’ Easton shouted.

Dani growled in frustration. She bounded after the man. She wasn’t letting him get away. The man hurdled over the low fence into the play area, and Dani felt sick as tension suddenly filled her. Mums and dads in the play area turned to take notice, concerned looks on their faces. The children carried on, oblivious to the threat.

Please, not that, Dani willed.

She felt relief when the man ran right past the tiny toddlers and jumped the fence on the other side. Dani followed and by the time they were both running down the hill across the open grass, she’d managed to close the distance again, with less than ten yards between them now.