‘You still there, or what, Joy?’

‘Yeah,’ she’d said, ‘just someone passing by.’

‘Well, look, it’s happening tonight. You’d best be ready.’

‘What d’you mean tonight? Am I supposed to just –’

‘It’s not my problem. Work it out. You’ll need the first three parcels. Leave the last one where it is for now.’

‘Why not the other one?’ she’d said, pretending ignorance.

‘Because I say so.’

‘All right, Mal. It’s just a question.’

‘Well, I’m getting tired of them.’ He’d huffed. ‘You’ll need to drive to Streatham Vale.’

‘In what?’

‘I’ll have a car for you, don’t worry.’

‘Where?’

‘Can you just bloody listen for a change instead of badgering?’ His voice had fuzzed inside her ear. ‘Here’s what you’re going to do …’

Now she could see it, up ahead. The shape of it, at least. A Vanguard parked around the bend. Her fingertips were numb, no matter how much air she blew on them or rubbed. Her handbag beat against her hip like stirrup leather as she walked. The mulch smell of the fields was neither sweet nor sour and not exactly foul. In the stillness of the night, she felt as though she were the only thing alive for miles. Her panting breaths, her footsteps – there was nothing else to hear except her own mad rhythm.

When she reached the car, she touched the bonnet and the radiator grille – a simple test she’d learned from Mal to check how long it had been sitting idle – and she found them tepid. He must’ve left the car here, slanted on the verge, no longer than an hour ago. She panned her eyes across the distance, thinking she might catch his bald scalp dipping underneath the hedgerows. But there was just a waxing moon, a spread of clouded-over stars, and bony silhouettes of trees, unmoving, far away. One thing Mal was wrong about: the pale green paintwork of the car was obvious up close, reminding her of bathroom suites she’d seen in magazines, the better brands of soap and tooth powder. It wasn’t what you’d call discreet, but she was lumbered with it.

The door came open for her nice and easy, and she dropped into the driver’s seat, jamming her fat handbag in the space beside her. She rummaged blindly in the glovebox, reaching till her fingers found the keys. And there they were – a pair of them, connected on a ring. The big one turned in the ignition. She switched the headlamps on. The tarmac glazed before her and the tall grass on the verge went blue. She checked the map, where Mal had charted out the route in pencil. It’d take the best part of an hour to get to Streatham Vale, another hour to the meeting point in – where exactly was that? – Oxted? It looked as though she’d have to do a loop round the east end of Surrey, taking in a bit of south-west London. She’d be on the road most of the night. No curfew was a blessing, after all. She tied the headscarf underneath her chin. The tyres skidded on the grass as she pulled off the verge, turning back in the direction she’d just walked.