He stared at me in the mirror longer than I thought was safe. “You’re the only feller in here besides me.”

I mustn’t add to the distractions that might be brought to bear on him, and I stayed quiet until we approached a junction. “Straight on,” I said, and hastily “When the lights are green.”

This time his stare was even more prolonged. “Don’t need to tell me that, pal.”

I managed just to send him onwards at each set of lights, until at last we had to turn right. The road led to the station, and the taxi drew up outside it, not quite what I’d directed. “I’m just across the road,” I said.

“Good for you, pal.”

He either didn’t trust my guidance or had tired of it, and I’d had enough of him. Surely I could cross the street without being run over. I dug in my pocket for notes and handed them through the gap in the glass partition. “Sorry I’ve no less. Just give me six,” I said.

He glared at the handful I’d passed him and screwed his head around on his stubby reddish neck to train all the force of his disfavour on me. “Less of the laughs, pal. That’s no joke.”

“I’m sorry, what isn’t?”

He thrust his hand under the partition, and I saw he was holding torn scraps of paper. I recognised the writing on them – Lumen Scientiae’s script – and glimpsed the names Bal and Bel before the driver threw the handful out of his window. “Let’s have the cash,” he said, “or I’ll be calling the law.”

I fumbled money out of my pocket, or at least that was what it felt like. Yes, I’d found a scrawny wad of ten-pound notes, two of which the driver accepted with a display of ill grace. He passed me a pound coin and a crumpled grubby fiver, and as I climbed out I saw the fragments of the page under the taxi. I was loitering on the pavement to retrieve them when he moved off, and a trickle of oil from beneath the vehicle blackened every scrap. The sight infuriated me so much that I stalked across the road, and if I’d failed to notice any traffic I might well not have reached the other side. My survival only postponed the next attempt on my life.