Wrapping her fingers around the door handle, she carefully pulled it open. And as she did so there was a sharp electronic ‘ping’.

It was the bell, triggered by the automatic sensor, that informed the maître d’ whenever someone entered or exited the restaurant.

Shit. She’d forgotten all about that.

She froze and looked over her shoulder. And saw that Rick was staring directly at her. His jaw dropped open in disbelief.

Bollocks.

He drew breath. ‘It’s that fucking bitch!’ he roared.

The race was on.

She wrenched open the door and sprinted down the marble steps, looking around frantically for Rick’s Range Rover. But she couldn’t see it parked out in front of the restaurant. But then, of course, it wasn’t going to be there. That would have given the game away when she’d arrived with Dale. She would have recognised it immediately. No, it had to be somewhere else. There had to be some other parking area. Out the back.

Adrenaline driving her forwards, she ran towards the corner of the restaurant, the sharp stones of gravel biting into the soles of her stockinged feet. Seconds later the Molloy entourage spilled out of the restaurant in pursuit, panting and shouting, their breath frosting in the cold night air.

‘There she is!’ she heard someone shout.

‘After her!’ shouted someone else.

But she had already rounded the corner and was racing along the side of the building, praying that she was heading in the right direction.

The path she was running along suddenly gave out into a small open area behind the restaurant in which several cars were parked, among them, to her great relief, Rick’s black Range Rover Velar.

She made a beeline for it, pressing the button on the key fob as she did so. The car lights flashed as the door unlocked and a fraction of a second later she was there, yanking the driver’s door open and climbing inside.

When being in the car previously with Rick, she’d noticed that, as well as the fact that it was an automatic, it was also one of those vehicles where you didn’t need to insert a key in order to start it. She pressed the ‘start/stop’ button and the car started immediately.

Flicking the drive selector into reverse, she jammed her foot on the accelerator, the large vehicle jumping backwards. Almost immediately, she felt a juddering crunch as the rear of the Range Rover ploughed into the side of one of the cars parked behind it. Whoops! She swung it round, dialled the selector into the ‘drive’ position, and sped forwards, clipping the front of another car before hurtling back down the path to the front of the restaurant and the road beyond.

Rick’s men scattered aside as she cannoned forward in the heavy vehicle. She wasn’t stopping for anyone.

The tyres skidded loudly on the loose gravel as she aggressively steered the powerful car through the front car park in the direction of the trackway leading to the main road. There ahead of her she saw Rick standing by the open boot of one of the cars holding something in his hands. Something long and sticklike…