I didn’t pause nor lift my foot off the throttle, and we thumped our way through the roadblock, sending the two cars flying into the ditch. This was the reason I’d brought the Sportina, after all. We carried on, this time with cars in pursuit and with the harsh ring of bullet hits striking—but not puncturing— the heavy steel of the Sportina. The manufacturers of the car had worked not only to a longevity criterion but to a military one—all Griffin motorcars could withstand a standard-velocity round from fifty yards.

“Should we stop and see what they want?” asked the righteous man. “Those gentlemen seem very upset about something.”

“They’ve been paid money to kill us,” I said, negotiating a tight corner. “I don’t think talking is high on their agenda—or skill base.”

“Oh, dear,” said the righteous man, “how frightfully disagreeable. But I forgive them. Probably the result of an unhappy childhood.”

The cars behind had been gaining on us, then abruptly stopped as we passed a pole with an amber flag attached to it. I wasn’t sure why this was so until we passed a red flag a few hundred yards on, and the reason they’d stopped became apparent. We were now in the Smite Zone of complete destruction, and there was less then thirteen minutes to go. As far as any of the guards were concerned, we were dead meat, and they were, too, if they followed us in. I didn’t stop, took a left through a gate, bumped across a field and then found a particularly dilapidated section of the perimeter fence and drove through it, the broken wire clawing long scratches in the car’s finish.

The large marquee that contained the sinful was in the center of the deserted runway, and we pulled up outside the tent with nine minutes to go. The sky had darkened more by now, and the brightest part of it was the circular hole in the clouds through which a beam of sunlight was shining vertically downwards illuminating the center of Swindon as a graphic precursor of what was to happen next.

“Do I have to do anything?” asked Tim.

I told him he just had to be himself, then jumped out of the car to make sure I hadn’t been hoodwinked. I hadn’t. Through a gap in the tent, I could see a group of dangerous-looking men, all in their own clear plastic cells watching TV and seemingly unaware of the fate that until recently had been about to befall them. There was a sudden shower of hail, and I looked up. The hole in the clouds had widened, and the clouds around it were beginning to rotate faster.

Despite the success of my mission, my heart sank. Most of the financial district of Swindon would be annihilated, and the cathedral, and, worst of all, Joffy.