‘Adam!’ they exclaim together as the car passes him. James stops and starts to reverse, but Adam is already beside the car and opening the back door and jumping in. He is breathing hard.

‘Editor,’ he gasps.

James turns round and stares at him. ‘More bad news?’ he asks. He sounds calm, almost thoughtful, like a Stoic contemplating his end.

‘They are there. They said they’ve a warrant to arrest you, sir,’ Adam pours out, like a mortally wounded, faithful messenger delivering his message with his last breath. But he does not fall down and die. He goes on: ‘I think you should move from here, sir. They may come out any moment and maybe recognize…’

‘Oh, don’t be so chicken-hearted,’ James snaps, exposing for a moment his chafed, frayed nerves. But he starts the car and reverses in the direction they’ve come, then makes a U-turn. They drive in the thickening gloom in silence. Adam keeps wiping his face with a dirty white handkerchief, and looking over his shoulder through the rear windscreen. He is sitting forward in his seat, behind Lomba, his forearm on the back of Lomba’s seat. He still has more to say, ‘Also, Editor, they said they’ve arrested the editors of the Concord and The Sunday Magazine. Today.’

‘All today?’

‘Today, sir. You were next in line, sir.’

‘Now I’ve spoilt what would’ve been an excellent day’s work for them,’ James says, aiming for light-hearted sarcasm, but not quite succeeding.

Adam, who has not a drop of humour in his body, answers dutifully, ‘Yes, sir.’

Lomba feels like snapping at him to shut up. ‘What are we going to do now?’ he asks James.

‘Drive around. See the sights.’

‘Also,’ Adam goes on like a broken record, ‘I left them burning the hard copies of our next edition, and all the copies of the last edition. I think they came because of the caption on our last cover…’

‘They’d have come anyway, caption or no caption,’ James interrupts him and comes to a stop at the kerb. Lomba looks out at a huge neon sign before a burger shop. They are on Allen Avenue. The neon is dark red, ox-blood, like the sun above it. A lot of the shops have their lights on because of the thickening gloom. People are standing by the roadside, staring fearfully at the low, dark sun – it looks like a balloon that is fast losing air.