‘We found it months ago,’ Boggle explained. ‘Me and my best mate, Robbie. A big Range Rover. We’d been looking after it. He named it Raymonda. No one else knew about it, you see. Still don’t. Robbie was worried that Justin would take it for himself if he found out.’

At first Ed had been deflated. That meant Robbie and Maeve and Ella and Monkey-Boy could be miles away by now. They could be halfway to Wales. But then Boggle explained that there hadn’t been that much petrol in it. Only enough to get out of town, about twenty-five miles. Their plan had been to take the car as far as it would go, straight west on the motorway, and then look for some other kids.

‘So if you get yourself a car,’ said Boggle, ‘with enough petrol, you can go twenty miles, maybe thirty. You can look on the dial to see how far that is, or, you know, like, get a map and draw a circle or whatever, and search around there.’

Of course Boggle didn’t have another car himself. That would have been too easy.

‘So where do I get myself another set of wheels?’ Ed asked.

‘Ryan’s hunters. They find things. They’ll maybe barter with you. If you got something to barter with.’

It all came back to Ed, getting rescued by Ryan Aherne and his gang near the Houses of Parliament the other day. Ed remembered thinking that he was glad that Ryan’s hunters were on his side. They were an ugly bunch, street-hard, heavily armed and with a pack of mean fighting dogs. Some of them wore masks – ski masks, leather gimp masks – and Ryan wore one made from a human face he’d carved off a dead sicko.

The hunters worked the local streets and traded between the various camps. Ed had to wait a couple of days for them to come past and Ryan seemed pleased to see him again.

‘Thought you was gonna die in the badlands, dude.’

Ed explained what he needed – a reliable car with at least twenty miles of gas in the tank, preferably twice that, so he could get there and back.

‘If I could get you a motor,’ said Ryan, ‘what can you offer me for it?’

‘Can you get me one?’

‘I can get anything,’ said Ryan. ‘But there’s a price, soldier. I mean, what you got? Apart from that face that got stomped on?’

One step forward. Two steps back. Ed knew he couldn’t rely on Justin to give him anything. And then he had an idea.

‘How about alcohol?’ he said. ‘What if I got you as much booze as you can carry?’

‘Then, my friend, we have a deal.’