But it was far from easy, especially when almost at once we encountered gridlock on Balham High Road, which I knew would delay us getting to the hospital.

The medic told me he’d heard there had been another incident in which shots were fired, and I immediately jumped to the conclusion that it must be connected to what had happened to us. Surely it couldn’t just be a coincidence.

Had the assailant been caught or shot? Or had she shot someone else while making her escape?

By now I was convinced that the shooter was a woman and that I hadn’t imagined it. The more I conjured up the image of the person I saw fleetingly in the garden, the clearer it seemed to become.

And it wasn’t so much the face. It was more the hourglass figure. The defined waist. The curved hips. No man was shaped like that.

These things must have registered in my sub-conscious in that moment of sheer terror. And now they were coming to the forefront of my mind, details emerging through a mist whipped up by shock and panic.

A female assassin, for Christ’s sake.

The same person no doubt who had murdered Dave Prentiss and Marion Nash.

I had been the next target on her list. Only she’d cocked up and shot Aidan instead.

That told me something really important about the bitch. It told me she wasn’t nearly as clever as she thought she was.

42

Rosa

Rosa got quickly lost in the streets of South London. But that was OK because it gave her time to regain her equilibrium and refocus her mind.

She stuck to the side roads as much as possible to avoid traffic cameras.

She made her first stop soon after leaving Balham. She put on the helmet and took one of the fake stick-on number plates from the saddlebag and stuck it on the bike. A short while later she stopped again to replace the plate with another.

Her aim was to make it impossible for her progress to be recorded on CCTV and number plate recognition cameras.

She stopped a third time and used her phone to pinpoint her location. She was in Putney, about five miles from Vauxhall. She worked out the best route to the hotel and got moving again.

It was almost seven o’clock and the city was still full of life. Sirens wailed constantly and several police cars whizzed past her with their lights flashing.

It had been a close call but she’d survived it. There would be time later to analyse her mistakes and berate herself for making them. But right now her priority was to get back to the hotel as fast as possible.