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    Joserand pressed the phone against his ear and tried to follow the instructions DS Chisholm was giving him. While the voice on the end of the phone was comforting and giving what seemed like good advice. It was a different matter for him to hear it.
    Pretending to be talking to a family member he willed himself not to turn and look at the woman eyeing him with disgust as she typed into her mobile. Instead he did as instructed and browsed a magazine or two before using the reflection in a window to identify his follower.
    It was a chubby woman whose hair was scraped back into a ponytail so tight it doubled as a face lift. She was a familiar face on the street and he knew she lived four doors along from the house he’d been put in. She spent most of her days shouting at her kids or pushing a double buggy back and forth. Tracksuits and slogan-bearing t-shirts were her clothes of choice. Each item straining at the seams as it tried to contain her glutinous bulk. A mobile phone was always clutched by meaty fingers as if it were a winning lottery ticket.
    Eager to leave the shop as soon as possible, Joserand turned for the door. He half considered grabbing her mobile to deprive her of her means of communication but he thought better of it. He wasn’t a thief and there was no way he was going to give her any possible reason to further brand him.
    As he walked from the shop he sent a text to Chisholm, informing him as instructed, which way he was going and a description of the clothes he wore.
    The thud of heavy footsteps sounded in his ears as she tried to keep pace with him. He lengthened his stride but did not start to run or jog lest she call in reinforcements.
    Following Chisholm’s suggestion, he made his way towards Wigton Road, towards bystanders, towards witnesses.
    The hoodie he wore was a double-edged sword. While hiding his identity, it also restricted his peripheral vision, preventing him from seeing any potential attackers. Aware of the chubby woman following him, he dropped the hood down his back and used his increased vision to scan the road ahead. Chisholm had told him to watch for a red M3 ‘driven aggressively by an angry bald man’.
     
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    Lauren stayed quiet as Evans ranted about the slow moving car in front of them. The country lanes they’d been forced onto afforded no overtaking opportunities. The driver of the car in front wasn’t in any hurry and the way they drove with exaggerated care made Lauren suspect they’d been drinking.
    Evans’s phone rang so he hit a button on the steering wheel. The display in the central console showed Janet’s name.
    ‘Hello is that Harry Evans?’ The female voice was unfamiliar to Lauren, who felt her heart sink.
    ‘Yes, who’re you, and why are you calling from my wife’s phone?’
    ‘It’s Dr McAdam. I work with your wife.’
    ‘Is she OK?’
    ‘She’s going to be fine.’ There was a measured calmness about Dr McAdam’s voice. ‘She collapsed with a raging infection. We’ve got her prepped for surgery and she’ll be going down to theatre in a few minutes.’
    ‘Surgery? What are you doing to her?’ The panicked stress in Evans’s voice made Lauren wince in sympathy for him. Evans had tried to carry on as normal since Janet had lost their baby, but his brave face had slipped from time to time, while the team had had to tolerate him being even more irritable than usual.
    ‘She needs an emergency hysterectomy. Don’t worry, she’ll be fine.’
    ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can. Fifteen minutes tops.’
    The car in front turned off allowing Evans to bury his right foot to the floor.
    ‘You okay guv?’
    ‘I’m Harry Evans. The He-Man. Of course I’m o-fucking-kay.’ Evans’s aggravated tone exposed the lies of his words.
    ‘If you’re going to the hospital, shall I call Chisholm so he can have someone else collect Joserand?’
    ‘No need. There’s enough time for me to get to the hospital and then you