Jasmine was about to turn and inspect what it was when Ingrams jolted the gearstick forward into third and slammed down his right foot, pinning her against the seat and throwing her head back. In almost the same moment, so close to simultaneous as to sound like the sudden ferocious gunning of the engine had caused it, both of the rear side-windows exploded.

Jasmine felt fragments of glass spray and ping around the interior, like she was inside a violently shaken snow globe.

She looked left through her window and saw the Audi accelerate to come alongside again. The driver’s window was open and there was a passenger leaning across him, pointing a shotgun towards the Land Rover. She hadn’t noticed a passenger before. He must have been bent down, out of sight, then leaned across and taken aim as the vehicle overtook. If Ingrams’ sudden acceleration hadn’t jerked them forward a couple of seconds ago, her head would have been blown apart.

She felt an almost convulsive panic, a primal terror mixed with the coldest dread. Not disbelief, not confusion. She knew the man with the shotgun was real, the threat was real, that everything was exactly as it seemed. Once, she would have constructed a hundred alternative explanations in her head that avoided accepting that something like this was happening to her. Mum’s illness and death had completely changed her perspective. She knew that your worst fears could come true, and she knew that just because something awful happened to you, it didn’t mean you would be spared something worse.

The Audi was faster and more agile over short distances than the bumpy old Land Rover. Ingrams couldn’t possibly outrun it. She could feel shock turning very quickly to a helpless fear, the whimper of a lost little girl escaping from her mouth.

She was transfixed by the sight of the Audi pulling alongside, gaining excruciatingly incremental degrees of angle for the kill shot in what felt like slow motion. Then Ingrams jerked the handbrake, changed down again and turned hard on the wheel.

The Audi seemed to shoot forward out of sight like the Land Rover had opened a parachute. The world spun sickeningly before Jasmine’s eyes and she was tugged roughly towards Ingrams as their vehicle lurched and skidded across the narrow two-lane road. Ingrams wrestled the steering wheel and elicited pained screams from both the engine and the tyres as he pitted them both vainly against the laws of motion. The Land Rover continued its sideways skid across the tarmac and on to a narrow stretch of coarse grass before slamming to a halt against a tall hedgerow.