‘You’d better watch it, Bax,’ Francis said, sniggering. ‘I think the prof is going to drop you in a vat of acid now. He knows all the tricks, don’t forget.’

Baxter smiled at the joke but Grant sensed the policeman wasn’t in the least amused. Quite why he’d felt the need to belittle Grant, he didn’t know.

By the end of the sixth hole Grant’s golfing rustiness was showing: he was already several shots behind the other three, and feeling more and more riled by his poor game. His mood wasn’t helped by the fact that he was becoming increasingly alienated from the group who were often left chatting among themselves while Grant was off trying to find his ball.

The others said nothing about Grant’s poor game. At least not initially. But then the inevitable comments started. Your knees are too bent. Your back’s not straight. The club’s too far away. Your feet are too wide.

Grant was getting more and more angry, not just with them but with himself too. This was the very reason he’d stopped playing golf regularly in the first place. Despite his introvert nature, Grant was a massively competitive person and he couldn’t stand that he wasn’t as good as he wanted to be at the game. Some people were able to scuttle around a golf course with the worst-looking swing in the world – a real hit and hope style – and still record scores way better than Grant, who’d taken lessons for years to try to develop a swing that resembled ‘correct’ form. He just couldn’t get it right though. At least not to his satisfaction.

On the twelfth hole Grant’s second shot landed in a deep bunker next to the green and his heart sank.

‘Hard luck, mate,’ Francis said.

Grant prepped himself for the next shot while the other three stood over their balls, each of them already on the green.

‘Make sure you take a lot of sand,’ Wilander called.

‘Nice and hard,’ Francis said.

Baxter said nothing, just stared.

Grant looked down at the ball and imagined the little puckered object was Francis’s head. Then he swung the club down at speed and crashed the club face into it. He topped the damn thing. The ball jumped up the side of the bunker, sped across the green, rolled up a ridge on the other side and landed straight in another bunker.

There was an awkward silence from the other three, who must have by now sensed that Grant was about ready to explode. He stomped his way across the grass, not looking any of them in the eye.

‘More sand this time,’ Wilander said.