Either the remote had chosen that exact moment to break or the electrics in my car had been nobbled – no prizes for guessing which. And that meant the fucker had disabled the Asbo while me and Guleed had been upstairs in his daughter’s room. My guess was that in his head I was going to point my fob at the car, it would fail, I would click it again and again before futilely trying the door handles.

How he would chuckle as puzzlement turned to stricken realisation, I would look over at him and our eyes would meet. Then he would strike, nothing fatal to start with, so probably impello to knock me down, or something fancy and fifth order that I’d not even heard of.

The way the Asbo was parked meant that there was a two metre gap between the driver’s side door and the corner of the house. So two metres to put us out of his line of sight. Once we’d managed that, I’d worry about what do next.

I picked up my pace. I didn’t want our friend getting impatient and kicking off early.

I called out something to Guleed but I can’t remember what I said. It was enough to get her off the bonnet and meet me in front of the car. There we stopped as if having a quick chat before leaving.

‘Martin Chorley is the Faceless Man,’ I said.

Guleed’s eyes widened and her head jerked back as if trying to escape the news, but she kept her body language neutral and disguised her reaction with a tolerably convincing laugh.

‘Shit,’ she said. ‘Nightingale is an hour and a half away. Does Chorley know we know?’

‘I think so,’ I said.

‘Plan?’

‘I’m going to walk to the car,’ I said. ‘You keep going round the corner until you’re out of sight, then chuck the screamer and run like crazy.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’m going to do exactly the same thing but in a different direction,’ I said. ‘I’ll keep him occupied. You organise the perimeter.’

If Guleed was going to say anything along the lines of ‘No, no, I can’t let you sacrifice yourself for me,’ it was too late, because we’d reached the car and in any case she knew it had to be this way.

Careful not to look, I heard the tempo of her sensible shoes as, once out of Mr Chorley’s sight, she took off towards the treeline.

I took out my key-fob and pointed it at the car. Nothing happened. I made a show of trying it a couple of times more, tried the handle and then, with a quick prayer to Sir Samuel, the patron saint of policemen, I looked back at Mr Chorley.

He was still standing in front of the garage, hands casually in his pockets.