Last time someone had told Kate to ‘pull herself together’, she had not left her bed all day. It had been better to waste a whole day than approach something that scared her, especially for the sake of a person who didn’t know how anxiety worked. That morning, on the abandoned M1 in the midst of her grief, she was taking action just by getting out of the car.

The war against Nicholas Grant had changed her instincts. A year ago she chose ‘flight’ every time without fail. Nowadays she could fight, even after losing somebody she cared about.

Kate stepped out of the car into the morning light, and followed Simon to the grass bank. Mark stayed at the car for a few moments, busying himself with the petrol cap.

She followed Simon until they reached the other side of the bank. Now on foot, they could get to some proper shelter: even the best aim from a tank wouldn’t kill them if they hid behind a small hill.

Next to the car, Mark had removed his shirt. He produced his bottle of whisky from somewhere – the same whisky that had spent a year in his Oakenfold locker awaiting his return – doused the lower half of his shirt with it and stuffed the dry half into the petrol tank.

Kate had expected Mark to reach for his lighter without incident, but he leapt suddenly at the sound of a horrifying ptat-ptat-ptat, followed by what looked like miniature fireless explosions spreading across the cars around him. The muzzle flash behind the dust cloud revealed that the Challenger’s chain gun was firing blindly, and its huge bullets were ripping apart the abandoned cars.

Mark – crouched low, for all the good it would do against chain gun bullets – tore the pocket fabric out of his trousers, brought out his lighter, and turned the bottle of whisky into a Molotov cocktail which he hurled straight at the tank.

The tank got through the dust cloud not one moment before its sight was lost again, as the bottle struck not far from its visor and spread flames and smoke across their field of vision. Mark used the distraction to run from the car, out of the way of the random path of chain gun bullets, and arrived behind the peak of the grass bank alongside Kate and Simon. He even found the time to put his hoodie back on along the way.

Kate focused her eyes on the petrol tank, as if trying to force the flames to do their work by willpower alone.

A n exploding car won’t be enough to destroy a Challenger 2. Even if it goes off right next —

Their vehicle blew itself apart, spreading its burning shrapnel across the M1 and flames over its injured chassis. The tank, still fifty metres away, was unaffected. A white cloud burst from the visor, as one of the crew took care of the whisky fire with an extinguisher.