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Out of the deep darkness behind them came the sudden glare of headlights.

‘They ram us again, Guv, and we’ve had it,’ said Sam, hauling back the hammer of the Magnum with his thumb.

‘How many in that motor, Sam? Did you count ’em?’

‘Three with sawn-offs, one at the wheel. I’m guessing Gould’s driving, but I couldn’t see for sure.’

The inside of the Cortina was filling up with the harsh light of the headlights. They were like football floodlights, blinding to look into.

‘Four blokes then,’ growled Gene. ‘Odds of two-to-one. We’ve faced far worse than that in the past, Sammy boy,
far
worse.’

‘Something tells me the odds are stacked against us far more than two-to-one, Guv.’

‘Damn it, I need my lads!’ Gene cursed, pushing the Cortina to breaking point. ‘Ray, and Chris, half a bloody world away, when we need right ’em alongside us! Four against four,
that
we could handle, Tyler. That we could handle, easy as pissing on your shoes in the dark.’

‘Brace yourself!’ Sam suddenly cried out as the headlights roared up, heading straight for them. He aimed the Magnum, dazzled by the glare but ready to shoot blind, but the sudden impact of the Sceptre threw him against the passenger door. The Magnum tumbled from his hands and disappeared somewhere amid the broken glass on the back seat.

The Cortina took the blow like it was a
coup de grace.
Its tyres howling in their death throes, the car veered wildly off to the right and hit the raised grass verge, Gene fighting the wheel in vain. It struck the rise at ferocious speed, rode up, and flipped, crashing down on its roof in a great eruption of jetting steam and exhaust fumes. Sam found himself upside down, crunched in a ball, the ceiling beneath him, his feet tangled in the remains of the dashboard, broken glass everywhere. His dazed, spinning brain was dimly aware of the Sceptre tearing past and screaming to a halt somewhere ahead in the darkness.

‘Guv? Are you okay?’

Sam craned his head round and saw Gene upside down right next to him, his eyes wide and furious, his mouth drawn into a thin line.

‘Guv?’

‘They killed my motor …’

‘We’ve got to get out of here. Can you move? Can you get your door open?’

‘They killed my bloody motor …’

Sam punched at the door on his side. It gave an inch, gave a little more, and then, with effort, swung open. As he forced himself out through the compacted door frame, his nose and mouth were filled with pungent stink of petrol. Crawling out onto the road, he felt the tarmac wet beneath his hands.

‘Guv, get out, quick, quick, don’t fanny about, just get out of the car!’

He clambered to his feet and glanced ahead. All he could see of Gould was a demonic set of red taillights burning in the darkness twenty yards away.

There was a noise from the other side of the wrecked Cortina and the driver’s door clattered open. Glass tinkled against the road. Gene Hunt emerged, battered, bleeding, bruised, but undefeated, his eyes filled with ungovernable rage. He stood tall, his shoulders back, his head aloft, and aimed a finger in the direction of Gould and his lackeys.

‘
Nobody kills my motor!
’
he bellowed, and reached under his camel hair coat for his Magnum. But all he found was an empty holster. ‘Damn it, Tyler, give daddy his baby!’

‘I dropped it!’ Sam said. ‘Forget it, Gene. There’s petrol all over the place. Let’s get out of here before it all goes sky high!’

‘You dropped it ...!’ Gene sneered, his appalled disbelief almost as powerful as his rage. ‘You
dropped
it ...?!’

Flames jumped up from beneath the crumpled, upturned bonnet of the Cortina.

‘Gene, for God’s sake, get clear!’

Sam ran back, away from the crashed car, away from the taillights. Glancing back, he saw no sign of Gene. Where the hell had he gotten to? God Almighty, he surely hadn’t crawled back inside for his gun?

‘Guv!’ Sam bellowed, the flames now spreading across the Cortina. ‘Guv, get out of there! Guv!’

The flames reached the petrol tank, and the Cortina went up like a bomb. A great ball of fire rolled upwards into the night sky. Glass blew out in every direction. A burning tyre shot away like a comet and soared across the night sky.

And just for a moment, Sam witnessed an extraordinary sight. There was Gene, standing silhouetted against the inferno, larger than life, his feet firmly planted on the tarmac, his hands held at his side like a gunslinger ready to draw. And beyond him on the far side of the raging flames, a monstrous black shape was looming up, inhuman, unfathomable, darker than the night sky behind it, darker than the smoke pouring from the burning Cortina. For a moment – perhaps no longer than a single heartbeat – these two implacable protagonists stood facing each other, the Guv’nor on one side, the Devil in the Dark on the other, a wall of fire blazing and burning between them. It was like a glimpse of the End of Days, as if the terrible trumpets of the Apocalypse had been sounded, and all the forces of Good and Evil were unmasked, unveiled, unrestrained.

And then the flames fell back. All Sam could see was the burning body of the Cortina lying upturned like a dead beetle, Gene racing towards him, and somewhere beyond the flashes of shotguns being discharged.

Without a word, Gene powered up to Sam at full speed, grabbed him by the collar, and carried him clear over the dry stone wall.

The shotguns blazed, and chunks of stone flew from the wall. But Sam and Gene were already halfway across the open field, running. In the corner of his eye, Sam could see the Guv’s coat-tails flapping like huge, fag-stained wings, his off-white loafers catching the moonlight as they pounded the grass.

Up ahead, visible as a spiky black shape against the night sky, stood a knot of trees. They made straight for it, as behind them shotguns roared and flashed. Panting, gasping, and drenched in sweat, they threw themselves down amid the trees, and at once the guns fell silent.

‘They – can’t see – here,’ Sam panted.

Gene hawked up half a lungful of congealed tar dislodged by the sprint, and managed to say, ‘They’ll – be – after – us.’

Through the branches of a low shrub, Sam peered out. He could see the open field, lit by the rising moon, and the dry stone wall beyond which the flames of the overturned Cortina flashed and flickered. A great column of smoke was rising from the wreckage. The motionless headlights of the Sceptre could be seen, glaring angrily.

‘Well?’ Gene asked, his voice husky and bubbling with phlegm.

‘I can see their car, but there’s no sign of … wait.’

There they were, three shadowy figures, almost invisible in the darkness, moving in a wide line towards them across the field.

‘They’ve fanned out, Guv. Ten yards between them. Sweeping the field.’

‘Then we gotta keep moving. Damn you, Tyler, that’s the last time I trust you with my beautiful baby boy.’

‘Let’s argue about that later,’ Sam whispered back at him. ‘The Magnum’s gone, so forget about it. What matters is we find Trencher’s Farm and Annie.’

‘What matters, Tyler, is we don’t get a dozen shotgun bullets shoved up our arses.’

They crept from the cover of the trees, scrambled over a wall, and hurried down a grassy slope that lead towards rough, uncultivated land. They were soon swallowed up by trees that grew along the banks of a small stream that sparkled in the moonlight. Gene crouched down on all fours and stuck his face into the water, sucking it up like a horse. Smacking his lips, he raised his face and dashed water from his chin, then washed down his drink with
real
drink – a hefty slug from a hip flask that he pulled suddenly from the deep and secret recesses of his camel hair coat. He offered the flask to Sam, and for once Sam took it. God, he needed it. He didn’t even bother to wipe the Guv’s spittle from the spout.

‘We need to keep moving,’ Gene said. ‘We’ll head for them lights. We’re safer in town than mucking about in the woods like a couple of shite-arsed sheep.’

Civilization was visible as an array of lights in the darkness, glittering welcomingly but two or three miles away. To reach them, they would have to clamber over God knew how many walls, scramble through God knew how many woods, dash across God knew how many open fields.

‘It’s going to be a hard slog,’ said Sam. ‘And a dangerous one. Every time we break cover we’re taking a risk.’

Gene hooked his thumbs into his belt and adopted a manly stance, one loafered foot planted on a rock that jutted from the stream, his eyes glittering dangerously in the darkness.

‘This Gould joker, he must be right off his bleedin’ rocker,’ he growled. ‘How many coppers does he think he needs to whack to stay safe?
All
of ’em? The whole of CID? He’s barmy, Tyler – killing officers left right and centre to cover up for
one murder
ten bloody years ago! If he’s so shit scared why don’t he just bugger off to sun, sand and sangria like that slag Ronnie Biggs?’

‘He won’t find what he wants in Spain,’ Sam said, almost to himself. ‘What he wants is here … in Trencher’s Farm …’

Gene shook his head: ‘It don’t make no sense. Gould’s officially dead. All he needs is a dodgy passport and the world’s his oyster. And dodgy passports are ten a penny, Tyler – God knows, I know enough blokes who could rustle one up for him for a few quid.’

‘He doesn’t need a passport, not for where he’s going. He just wants Annie.’

Gene looked at him, waiting for him to elaborate, but instead Sam crept over to a tree and, using it as cover, looked back up the slope.

‘I can’t see them … but they’re there. I can sense them. We’d better get going, Guv. We’ll get across the stream and head through them woods, keeping out of sight.’

‘Them lads comin’ after us,’ Gene said. ‘They had stockings over their heads.’

‘Yes, Guv, they did.’

‘Why?’

‘Let’s worry about that later, shall we?’

‘But
why,
Tyler? They weren’t on their way to a bank job. And if they’re out to kill us, what difference does it make if we see their boats or not?’

But Sam was ignoring him. He clambered across the stream, using rocks as stepping stones.

‘Come on, Guv, don’t hang about.’

Without elegance or grace, Gene stomped and teetered and swore his way across the rocks and jumped heavily to the far bank, nearly losing his footing altogether and tumbling back into the water.

‘I ain’t built for this!’ he grunted. ‘I’m a city boy, Tyler, not Farmer ruddy Giles.’

‘Weren’t you in the Scouts as a kid?’

‘For about ten minutes. A bloke in shorts tried to stick his hand up me dib-dib-dib so I bust his wrist.
And
his nose. They don’t give you a badge for that, Tyler.’

‘So you joined the police. It all makes sense to me now.’

They picked their way awkwardly through a confusing thicket of spiny branches and brambles, every step of the way making more noise than a herd of elephants. Sam cursed every snapping twig, every rustling branch. At one point, a startled bird burst from the darkness and went squawking and cawing up into the night sky.

‘That flamin’ budgie’s going to give us away like a ruddy distress flare!’ Gene hissed. ‘Sod this, Tyler, I’m getting right cheesed off.’

‘Tough. We’ve got no choice but to keep moving. Look – the ground slopes up ahead of us, and it looks like there’s a road or a path at the top. Once we reach that, we can –’

Gene’s hard-as-iron hand clamped itself over Sam’s mouth. Sam fell silent, his ears straining for a sound. For several moments there was nothing. And then, some distance behind them, came the unmistakable sound of a twig breaking.

Gene released Sam and stood there glaring about, bracing for trouble. He was sick of running. He was getting ready to fight, regardless of the fact that it was suicide.

Sam glanced at the slope ahead and the road running along its top. The moon was bathing it in cold, clear light. If they ran, they’d be slowed by the gradient, bogged down by the mud, and left sitting ducks for Gould’s men.

Away to their left, just visible between the trees, a ruined stone building could be seen, some sort of cottage or barn, standing beside a meandering bend of the stream. It was roofless, but the walls were still standing and they were surely strong enough to deflect shotgun blasts. They were surely safer holed up inside than being picked off as they crossed open ground. And maybe, if they kept their heads down, Gould’s men would pass by without noticing them.

Sam tapped Gene’s shoulder and pointed silently at the ruin.

Gene pulled an expression.
What are you on about, Tyler?

Sam pulled an expression back.
Come on! Let’s get in there!

Gene:
Are you out of your tiny noodle?

Sam:
For God’s sake, Guv, we don’t have time to discuss this!

Gene cocked his head and listened. Somewhere out there in the night, a branch rustled. Seconds later, something crackled beneath a foot.

It was enough to make up Gene’s mind. Without a word, him and Sam hurried across to the ruin and slipped inside. The wooden door had long since gone, as had the window frames. Inside, they found a jumbled heap of rotting timbers, presumably the remains of the long-since-collapsed roof.

Keeping low, they ducked behind a wall and looked out through one of the gaping windows. Outside, they could see nothing but dark trees and hints of cold moonlight.

‘Is this it then, Sam?’ Gene whispered. ‘Is this our last stand?’

‘Hopefully they’ll miss this place and go past,’ Sam whispered back.

‘And if they don’t? What we gonna do, sit here while they take pot shots? Damn it, Tyler, this empty holster’s like a hole in my heart!’

‘Ssh! Look!’

Something was moving out there. Coming through the trees, twenty yards away, was a man, a sawn-off shotgun cradled in his arms. He was little more than a black shape against the night, but as he passed through a stray beam of moonlight Sam glimpsed the man’s face, flattened and distorted by the stocking mask. His heart froze. He held his breath.