She steered back onto the road, darting between slow-moving vehicles. Horns blared and people shouted, but she kept going until the road ahead was clear.

She eased off the throttle, feeling safer, knowing that all she had to do was disappear down a quiet street where she could pull over and catch her breath. She would also check her phone to get her bearings, and then look for the quickest way back to Vauxhall and the hotel.

There were traffic lights up ahead, showing green. But just before she reached them they changed to orange, then red. Rosa did not want to stop so she gave it some revs and tore into the junction. But it proved to be a costly mistake on a day of costly mistakes.

A sleek black Mercedes sports car shot out from the road on the left as though from a racetrack grid.

Rosa didn’t see it until it was too late. She tried to veer away from it but the front fender caught her rear wheel and sent her into a wild spin.

A cry erupted from her throat as the bike hit the kerb and she was flung into the air.

She landed on the road with a painful thud right into the path of a pair of fiercely bright headlights that were bearing down on her.

39

Laura

I finally stopped screaming, but only because I suddenly realised that Aidan wasn’t dead.

The bullet had gone clean through his left shoulder, making a large hole and producing lots of blood.

But he was still breathing, still conscious.

‘You need to stay awake,’ I pleaded with him. ‘I’m with you. You’re going to be OK. An ambulance is on its way.’

It seemed obvious, even to my untrained eye, that no vital organs had been damaged. But the loss of blood worried me. It needed to be stemmed, and quickly.

I was on my knees cradling his head in my lap. His eyes were open and he was looking up at me, but I could tell they weren’t focused.

He tried to speak but no words came out. The panic was swelling in my chest, and awful scenarios were racing through my mind.

I couldn’t believe that this was happening. That the man I loved had been shot, hit by a bullet that had been meant for me.

I was only half aware of the commotion that was going on around me. Shoes stamping across the kitchen lino. Loud, strident voices. Police radio static.

My mind flashed on an image of the assailant in the garden as the patio light came on.

It had been so fleeting that very little had registered. Just what looked like a shiny black body suit and dark woollen hat pulled down across the assailant’s ears and forehead.

And the revolver that had been held in both hands and aimed at the kitchen door. And me.