The car ploughed into him, striking him just above the kneecaps, shattering the thigh bones of both legs as it whipped his torso forward against the back of the car. His face shattered the rear window and the rear window did the same to his face.

Then the impact threw him backwards into a wall of red Victorian brick where the back of his head erupted like a soft-boiled egg being hit with a sledgehammer.

Three seconds.

I stuck the car in drive and tore back across the forecourt to where the traffic warden was staring at me, motionless, open-mouthed, his ticket machine still in his hand.

I put the car into reverse, ready to go again.

But there was no need to go again.

Zero.

I slowly got out of the car.

People were screaming. Some of them were commuters. Some of them were the voices in my head. A dog, getting closer every second, was barking wildly.

One voice in my ear was shouting about gross misconduct and manslaughter. Another was shouting about murder.

‘Wolfe!’

Swire.

I tore out the earpiece and threw it away.

The man with the red backpack was sitting up against the brick wall, staring straight at me with a baffled expression on his ruined face. One hand still twitched with the surprise of sudden death. Both of his hands were empty.

I was not expecting his hands to be empty.

Suddenly there were armed men in balaclavas. Guns were trained on the dead man. Glock SLP 9mm pistols. Heckler & Koch submachine guns. Then I saw that some of them were pointing at me.

‘He was the target,’ I said.

Armed officers from SCO19 were everywhere. Commuters were running and crawling for cover. A lot of people were screaming and crying because these men with guns did not look remotely like police officers. They wore Kevlar body armour. They had metal carabiners on their shoulders so they could more easily be dragged away if they were down. The black balaclavas they wore had the eyes and mouths cut out. They looked like paramilitary bank robbers.

People thought it was to protect their identity but I knew it was to spread terror.

And it worked.

They were shouting into the radios attached just above their hearts. The masked faces were bawling at me to get down and stay down and lie on my face.

Now. Now. Now. Do it now!

Slowly I took my warrant card out of my jeans, showed it, and tossed it at them. Then I held up my hands. But I wasn’t getting on my knees for them. I wasn’t getting down on my face. I kept walking towards the man on the ground.

Because I had to know if I was right.

Last chance! Do it now!

Crouching above the dead man on the ground, I saw that the impact had not cracked the back of his skull. It had removed it.