Patrick drums his hands on the steering wheel and turns up the sound on the radio. But at the next roundabout, Chloe feels them take a left. She looks up – they’re heading away from the traffic that’s starting to move up ahead. This isn’t the usual route home. She looks at Patrick quickly, but he doesn’t return her gaze. Instead he pushes his foot on the accelerator, and as she feels herself pressing into the passenger seat, she grips the sides of the leather upholstery with both hands. Patrick’s eyes flicker down to the handbrake. Chloe moves her hand back into her lap.

‘Bloody traffic,’ he sighs.

She looks straight ahead. The windows have started to steam. Chloe looks to her left, but the fields beyond them are hazy. She skips ahead on their route – one mile, two – then remembers they are picking up fish and chips.

‘Is this the way to the fish and chip shop?’ she asks.

The sports results are on the radio and Patrick turns up the volume before answering.

‘I need petrol,’ he says after a moment. ‘There’s a place just up here.’

‘Oh right.’ Chloe tries to allow her body to sink into the leather of the upholstery.

Ahead, at the next roundabout, is a large village, and just before it, the petrol station Patrick had mentioned. He pulls onto the forecourt, and gets out of the car. Chloe sits, frozen, the sweet smell of benzene floating into the car when he opens the door to get his wallet. She watches him cross the forecourt. Just an ordinary man to everybody else. There is a long queue to pay inside, and Chloe makes the most of a few moments alone in the car. Her eyes flicker around, and she checks the back again, behind Patrick’s seat, just in case the gun is propped up there. But she finds the footwell empty. Her imagination is getting carried away. She looks up at Patrick again behind four or five other people. Just an ordinary man.

She sighs inside the car. The windows are still steamy. She watches him, though she knows he’d struggle to see her. And that’s when she notices the glove compartment in front of her. It has a tiny lock on it, one that fits a tiny key. She looks up at Patrick, still stuck in the queue, tapping the side of his leg with his keys. Chloe leans forward, restricted a little by her seat belt, but enough to try the tiny door – it opens. Inside, there is the usual paraphernalia you find in cars. She takes each item out in turn: screen wipes, a log book, a small first aid kit. And then, pressed tight against the bottom, something that seems unusual. Her fingers feel for it, fishing it out, and then there it is, exposed in her hand – a newspaper cutting she recognizes from her own collection at Low Drove: