‘I’m going to leave now,’ Frejah said. ‘I don’t like being in one place too long. Jeksid is somewhere near – he might still be using the tracker. He can pick out this car whenever it’s running.’

‘So why not turn off the engine?’

She waved at me with irritation. ‘I told you.’

‘If Jeksid doesn’t know where I am, how did you find me?’

‘I have a tracker too.’ She indicated the car’s bunch of antennae. ‘Mine’s better than his. Command and control, remember? But best not to take risks.’

She went around to the open door on the driver’s side, then began the awkward and obviously painful procedure of easing herself stiffly back into the seat. I stepped forward to offer help, but she jerked her arm away from me. She half rolled into position. As soon as she was seated she touched the control on the steering column and the gull wing door began descending smoothly. She revved up the engine, which gave out a terrible roar and a cloud of dark smoke.

I said: ‘But if you can locate me, why can’t you—?’

Over the noise she said: ‘You know too much, my friend. I will try to get to him first, but after that—’

The door thudded down gently into place.

A sudden, showy and unnecessary getaway followed: she accelerated hard, the drive wheels throwing up a cloud of grit and dust as they tried to find purchase on the road surface. I turned away defensively, rounding my shoulders, protecting my head. Gravel flew around me. There was a stink of burning tyre rubber. The sheer speed and acceleration of the roadster clearly took other drivers by surprise – it was being driven so hard that it snaked from side to side, at the outer edge of control. I saw one oncoming car swerve across the road to avoid a collision, lurching off the paved highway and on to the sloping sward that led down to the beach. The car braked on the grass, came to a sliding halt. People who had been strolling on the sward backed away, but no one seemed to have been hurt. Frejah’s car roared on. Within only a few seconds the roadster had turned a corner and disappeared from sight, but I could hear the disagreeable and impatient thrusting and thundering of the engine for some time afterwards.

Normality returned. I heard birds, the sea breeze moving through the trees, the relaxed sounds from the beach. The driver of the car on the sward restarted the engine and drove carefully back to the roadway.

Inevitably, thoughts on being threatened with sudden death followed.