12

I DROVE PAST Ascari’s.

Maybe it would have made sense to sell the 911 a month ago, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I’d enjoyed fucking off the salesman when I bought it, and I still enjoyed the mere fact that I owned it. I’d wandered into the showroom in my stinking trainers and running kit and the fucker had sneered when I asked how much it cost. I’d pulled out my wallet and asked if he was OK with cash.

And, anyway, I wasn’t too sure what was going to happen with me and Anna. Maybe she’d seen the light and was ready to fuck me off already. After all, I was punching above my weight and she wasn’t in any rush to get back to Moscow. I wasn’t too sure how I felt about that, so I immediately told myself: Fuck it, so what? I didn’t own the woman.

But going back to a life of Saturday mornings on my own in a café? I suddenly realized I was too old for that shit.

At this time of night there wasn’t much traffic once I’d got out of town, especially on the route I was taking. Rather than use the main drags and the motorway, I was going to go via Pontralis, into Wales, and then on B roads to Chepstow, before crossing back into England on the Severn Bridge.

I knew I’d be able to get my foot down this way. The speed cameras had sprung up like dandelions over the last few years, but I had a detector. I could do this route blindfolded. I used to fast-drive it day in, day out, in another lifetime. Bristol was used as a training ground for covert operations in Northern Ireland. The little B roads were where we’d practised our fast-driving skills. Sometimes you could make it door-to-door in under an hour.

The roads were narrow and bendy, with high hedgerows each side. Ant and Dec were going to have their work cut out to keep up, though the geography would help them. Each time I went up a hill, they’d be able to see my full beams.

Now and again I saw headlights behind me as I hit a long stretch of straight. I didn’t blame Frank. I’d probably have had someone following me as well.