Abs couldn’t help but reply, an instinctive reaction: ‘How you doing?’

‘Is it you?’ said the man in the back. ‘You’re that bloke off the telly called, whatsit, Pecs.’

‘Abs,’ he replied, but didn’t slow his pace.

‘It is you.’ The man in the car laughed. ‘My girl loves you, she’s always going on about you, it’s all Abs this and Abs that. I can’t compete, mate.’

‘Sorry about that,’ said Abs, walking quickly.

‘Come on, Abs, help me out. I’m going to get it in the neck if I say I’ve seen you and I don’t come home with an autograph.’

Abs didn’t slow. ‘Sorry, mate, I’m in a hurry.’

‘Do me a favour.’ The guy waved a pen and paper out of the window. ‘Or my head is going to be in a noose.’

‘Sorry.’ Abs didn’t like the way the car kept pace with him, or the fact that he couldn’t see who was in the front. But it was also true that he could do with some money to get home. Maybe he’d be able to get the guy to pay for an autograph, even enough for a cab home. So he stopped walking, and the car slowed to a stop.

‘Mate.’ Abs walked to the window, where the man grinned up at him. ‘It’s late and I just want to get home, but I’ve no cash on me, so if you want an autograph I’m going to have to ask you for a tenner.’

‘Hop in,’ suggested the man helpfully. ‘We’ll give you a lift.’

Abs leaned into the window to get a better view of the men in the front but all he could see was the back of their heads. ‘Nah, I don’t want to bother you.’

‘It ain’t no bother.’ The guy grinned. ‘You’re a celebrity.’

‘No, it’s okay.’ The whole situation didn’t feel right to Abs. ‘I’ll give you an autograph and then I’ll get on my way.’

Abs reached for the pen and paper, but the man pulled them away and said nastily, ‘I’m going to have to insist.’

And in that instant, he grabbed Abs’s arms and pulled him through the window. Abs screamed in shock and tried to break free from his grasp, but he was grabbed from behind – he glimpsed the front doors were wide open, heard the ding ding ding of the seat-belt alert – and his head was forced down as he was bundled into the back seat.

‘Help,’ he screamed. ‘Help me!’

But the street was empty; there was nobody to hear him. He took a punch in the ribs from the man beside him, who raised his fist again.

‘Not the face!’

The two men climbed back in the front, the doors slammed and the car roared up the street. Then the guy in the front passenger seat turned to glare at him, and it was with a sickening realization that he recognized him as the man who had been watching outside the QuidStore yesterday.