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no complaints about his treatment, but he’s keen to put on record those events which occurred outside the Sergeant’s field of view aNd misled him as to the author of the attack on him.’
    â€˜By the way, Mr Shapiro,’ interjected Mikey, ‘how is Mr Donovan?’
    It was, so far as Shapiro could tell, a genuine enquiry and he answered in the same vein. ‘He’s fine, thanks, Mikey. He’s back at work, you’ll probably see him later.’
    â€˜I was never so glad to see him as Sunday night.’
    â€˜In the garage?’ Shapiro prompted innocently.
    But Mikey didn’t need his London brief to field that one. He smiled impishly. ‘In the van , Mr Shapiro. After I crashed the van.’
    Shapiro hadn’t really expected to trip him that easily. Mikey Dickens might only have been nineteen but he’d done this before. ‘All right, Mikey, tell it from the start.’
    It was the cold weather, said Mikey; possibly also the springs on the van, which needed work, but mainly the cold weather that got to his bladder something rotten. He was only five minutes from home but he didn’t think he’d make it: he stopped on the garage forecourt, left the van running and dashed round the back. When he returned—
    â€˜Much relieved?’ suggested Shapiro, and Mikey grinned.
    When he returned, much relieved, he noticed a motorbike at one of the pumps; and when he got in the van he found his keys were gone. He was still wondering where they’d got to when someone in a long dark coat and a ski mask ran out of the shop, snatched open the door of his van and leapt in beside him.
    â€˜You don’t keep the passenger door locked?’
    Mikey was scathing. ‘Who’d steal a heap like that?’
    â€˜Somebody making a getaway from an armed robbery?’
    Mikey nodded thoughtfully. ‘Right enough, Mr Shapiro.’
    â€˜This long dark coat,’ said Shapiro. ‘Anything like the long dark coat you were wearing?’
    â€˜No,’ Mikey said firmly. ‘Mine was navy blue. His was a sort of charcoal grey.’
    When he turned to remonstrate the first thing he saw was the gun; so Mikey thought he’d save the lecture on private property. The second thing he saw was his own keys being dangled under his nose. ‘I went where he told me. He said to get off the main road so I headed for Chevening. He had me scared shitless, Mr Shapiro, honest. I’m not used to guns.’
    â€˜Not that end, anyway,’ murmured Shapiro.
    He saw the single headlight behind him, had no idea if it was pursuit or just a fellow traveller. But the man beside him told him to go faster. He saw the white car enter the roundabout, but his passenger jerked the gun at him and told him to beat it. ‘I think he thought we’d make it but Mr Donovan would have to stop.’
    â€˜You knew it was Donovan, then. When did he mention that? – this passenger of yours who was wearing a coat very like yours but in charcoal grey.’
    Mikey shook his head patiently. ‘I didn’t know then it was Mr Donovan. Now I know that’s who it was.’
    Everything after that happened very quickly but seemed to happen in slow motion. He couldn’t beat the white saloon across the roundabout, but he felt to be waiting forever for the crash. As the van rebounded into Fletton Road he saw the digger but there seemed to be plenty of time for the van to stop. Even the collapse of the front half of his cab seemed to happen slowly enough for him to get his legs clear. But when the van stopped the front doors were compacted to a couple of letter-boxes.
    â€˜Thin chap, was he?’ asked Shapiro. ‘This passenger of yours with the gun and the charcoal coat?’
    Mikey frowned, puzzled. ‘Didn’t really notice, Mr Shapiro.’
    â€˜Only he seems to have got out through some aperture that wasn’t big enough for you to follow; and without