He hadn’t gone far when he noticed a car in his mirror, following him along the twisty, otherwise empty road. The chunky Audi four-wheel-drive seemed to have appeared out of nowhere – but then Ewan hadn’t been paying a lot of attention. Now that it had caught his eye, he watched it in the mirror and thought it was following him much too closely, like fifty miles an hour on these tricky little roads wasn’t fast enough for this guy, and he was aggressively trying to get past. Okay, okay, you pushy bastard, Ewan thought, slowing to forty and edging a little to the side to let the guy overtake.

But instead of passing him, the big Audi slowed down too, matching his speed and remaining right on his tail, almost bumper to bumper. What was this clown playing at? Not liking this one bit, Ewan sped up again to widen the gap between them. Like before, the Audi stayed right with him, accelerating at the same rate he did. Ewan didn’t want to take his eyes off the twisty road for too long, but kept glancing in the mirror. All he could see were two vague shapes behind the Audi’s rainy windscreen. ‘Come on, then, do you want to overtake me or not?’ he yelled.

Then, suddenly, the Audi swerved out to one side and came surging by him with a roar. Just as he was feeling glad to be shot of this tailgating hooligan, the Audi abruptly sliced across his path and its brake lights flared crimson through the rain.

With his heart in his mouth Ewan stamped on his own brakes and twisted the steering wheel to avoid a rear-end collision. But the road was slippery, he was travelling too fast and he felt his wheels lose traction. He cried out in panic as the van went into a skid. The verge flashed towards him. His front wheels hit the grass with a thud and the nose of the van ploughed through several feet of dirt before smashing hard into the drystone wall that divided the verge from the neighbouring field.

The force of the impact threw Ewan violently forwards in his seat and the exploding airbag punched him in the face. Dazed, he saw stars. He was only dimly aware that his engine had stalled and the front end of the van was a buckled mess embedded in the remains of the drystone wall. Through a mist of confusion, he sensed someone approaching; then his driver’s door being wrenched open and the cold air flooding into the cab. The shape of a large man leaned down towards him and reached inside the car. Ewan heard the clunking sound of his seatbelt clasp being released. Next thing he knew, two strong hands grabbed him by the collar and he felt himself being hauled roughly out of his seat.