Jilly responded to the Cavalier, pushing the MG down a gear and hitting the accelerator. They were running now, careering past parked cars, braking hard to take an almost impossibly tight turning into a two-way street. Hepton held on, teeth clamped together. Jilly was a good driver, but not good enough. They weren’t going to shake the Cavalier. It was mere yards behind them now, and he peered through its black-tinted windscreen. Two men. Definitely men, though he couldn’t have said more than that. Not Harry, then.

The extended blaring of a car horn brought his head round to the view to the front of the MG. It took him a moment to realise that the horn was their own, and that the heel of Jilly’s left hand was hard against it. She had turned the headlights on full-beam, too. The traffic was becoming clogged. She scraped past a bus, paintwork peeling like confetti, but ahead the lights were at red, and the traffic was at a standstill in both directions.

‘Hang on!’ Jilly yelled, throwing the MG to the right, braking hard as she did so and spinning a full one hundred and eighty degrees. On the other side of the road now, the Cavalier roared past them, braking hard itself. There was a squeal as the driver threw his wheel round, bumping onto some central bollards. These stopped him, and he reversed, the traffic cursing angrily all around him. Jilly glanced back to see that the Cavalier had lost a lot of ground, and let out a whoop.

‘Where did you learn a stunt like that?’ Hepton gasped. His heart felt like a bird in a cage too small for it, fluttering against the bars. The breath came from him in short bursts.

‘I didn’t,’ Jilly answered, clearly enjoying every moment of this. ‘Put it down to instinct.’

‘Fine. But every traffic cop in the area’s going to have our description and registration in about five seconds flat.’

‘Five seconds? Don’t talk daft.’

‘Haven’t you heard of car phones?’ Hepton yelled. ‘Half those BMWs you just nearly totalled will be on them right now.’

‘What are you saying, Martin? That we ditch the car and walk?’

‘Just get us away from here,’ he said, looking back again. ‘And fast.’

Jilly looked in her mirror and saw that the Cavalier was not about to give up the chase. In fact, it was gaining at a steady rate.