I need a drink, he thinks, leaning over the passenger seat and opening the glove box. Pressing the mess of envelopes and bills to one side, he feels around for the quarter of Famous Grouse he always keeps for just such emergencies and, finding it, closes his fingers around it, rotating the metal screw-top between his teeth until it comes away and he can spit it out and hold the neck of the bottle to his mouth. A single drip makes its way onto his tongue. He holds the bottle out and shakes it, as if by doing that he could fill it up, but it remains empty. At a traffic light stop, he presses the window button and heaves the bottle out onto the pavement, finding solace in the crash of the glass as it splinters on the tarmac.

Sometimes, he thinks, I’d like to smash the whole fucking world.

Two men walk by, drunk, holding on to one another.

What the hell am I doing here, in the middle of the night? Then the light turns green and his foot jams the accelerator, leaving the question stranded at the lights for the next poor bugger to ask himself.