Her head ached slightly, the mildest of hangovers, and more probably attributable to her general fatigue than the two generous rum and Cokes she’d had earlier. Paul would be feeling a lot worse this morning, deservedly. She was going to have to drive this morning instead.

The smell of alcohol on her breath seemed to be strong, very strong. There must have been a hell of a lot of rum in that drink for it to still be on her breath like that. She decided she was fit enough to get up and start rousing Paul. That was probably going to take a little time.

She started to sit up, and then saw him.

He was standing beside the bed, silently staring down at her.

‘What the—’

‘Took me ages to find you,’ he said, his voice thick and slurred. He was swaying slightly. ‘Thought you’d gone up a floor, didn’t I? But here you were all along, just down the way from me.’

He was pissed out of his skull. He must have found another cabinet full of booze.

‘What are you doing in here?’

He reached a hand out and grabbed her. ‘For fuck’s sake! Why d’you have to be such a stuffy bitch!’

Jenny pulled his hand off her shoulder, his fingernails raking across her skin. ‘We were havin’ a nice drink, we’re both grown-up. There’s no bloody law against you and me, you know . . .’

‘Paul. Look, I’m grateful for you finding a way out of that service station . . . but it doesn’t mean I want to sleep with you, okay?’ said Jenny, shifting slowly past him towards the end of the bed.

Paul watched her moving, his head slowly turning, one hand reaching out for a wall to steady himself. ‘Well what about what I deserve? I’ve been good . . . looked after you. Could’ve jumped you anytime . . . but I didn’t. Been a perfect bloody gentleman, actch-erley.’

‘Yes, you have,’ Jenny replied slowly, beginning to rise from the bed. ‘And you don’t want to ruin that good behaviour now, do you?’

‘Just want a shag . . . that such a big fucking crime?’ he announced loudly, angrily.

‘It is a crime Paul, if the person you want to shag, doesn’t want to shag you.’

He nodded and laughed. ‘Oh . . . see what you mean.’ He took a couple of steps towards her, successfully blocking the doorway out of the room. ‘So, what’s so wrong with me? I’m what? Five or six years younger than you? I got all my hair,’ he paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts, and reaching out again for a wall to steady him, ‘not a fat bastard like most blokes . . . wear nice clothes. Shit, I’m top salesman at Medi-Tech Supplies UK . . . meaning I’m a rich bastard.’ He looked at her, arching his eyebrows curiously. ‘None of that good enough for you then?’

‘No. Because right now, sex is the last thing on my mind.’

He recoiled, hurt, irritated. ‘Guess you are . . . a stuck-up bitch, then. Thought you were a sport . . . stupid me,’ he said, taking a step forward. ‘You know, it’s been a lo-o-o-ong time . . . for me, a long time. My ex was a fuckin’ tease, ripping me off, spending my money, never let me near her though. Bitch. I thought you were different. Not another fuckin’ tease.’

Jenny pulled herself back on to the bed, there was no room to step past him. ‘Rape’s a crime, Paul,’ she said, knowing full well she wasn’t going to be able to reason with him. ‘Even now, whilst everything’s a mess out there, it’s still a crime.’

Paul giggled. ‘Oh, right . . . well you know what? I think this week in particular . . . maybe the normal rules don’t apply. I think, that’s what everyone else has figured out too. Know what I’m saying?’

Jenny shook her head.

‘That’s why everyone’s behaving so un-British. Eh?’ He giggled again. ‘No rules this week, ladies and gents . . . so you’ll have to amuse yourselves till normal service can be resumed.’

‘Come on. Let’s forget about this. You go lie down and sleep it off. And then we’ll get going down to London, when you’re feeling fit enough to travel.’

He pursed his lips, thinking about that for a moment.

Jenny realised how silly she’d been to allow herself to wind up in this situation; alone with a man who was essentially a stranger, who was drunk, during a chaotic and lawless time like this. She should have guessed that at some point travelling with him, there would end up being a moment like this.

‘Sorry love . . . need a shag . . . you’ll fucking well do.’

He took another step towards her. Jenny kept her distance, retreating back across the bed, putting her feet on the floor on the far side.

‘Think what you’re doing,’ she said. She hated the wavering, shrill sound creeping into her voice; it was a pleading, begging tone. To his ears that was going to sound like submission.

He smiled as he started to unbuckle his belt. ‘Maybe a fucking crime, love, but who’s going to know now, eh?’

He put a foot on the bed and stepped up on to it, wobbling precariously. ‘Here’s Jo-o-o-n-n-y!!’ he announced excitedly peeling his shirt off.

Jenny leant forward and slapped him hard across the face. It was more a punch than a slap. Her hand had been balled up into a fist. He fell backwards, rolling off the bed on to the floor with a heavy thump.

Not waiting around to see if that was a KO, or merely going to buy her a few seconds, she ran around the end of the bed and out of the room into the corridor.

She had decked him. But now she could hear him struggling to his feet. ‘You fucking bitch!’ she heard him shouting inside the room. ‘I’m going to bloody well get you!’

Those words chilled her. It meant the bastard had crossed a line. He was beginning to realise what every other potential rapist . . . bully . . . abuser . . . murderer . . . must be aware of. Here was a window of time in which he could do whatever he wanted, indulge any fantasy, certain in the knowledge that when - if - order was restored again, evidence of his deed would be untraceable; lost amidst the chaotic aftermath.

She could imagine . . . her body stuffed in a cupboard somewhere in this motel, perhaps never to be discovered, or maybe chanced upon months from now when the clear-up operation began in earnest.

Paul? He’d do something like that?

Possibly. She didn’t really know him at all.

She heard him stumbling across her room, into that armchair, cursing.

Jenny decided to go for the car and leave him behind. She really couldn’t trust him now, not even if he got down on his knees this instant and pleaded for her forgiveness, and swore he’d never even look sideways at her again.

Up the corridor for the stairs down -

‘Shit, the keys,’ she whispered.

Paul had them in his room, and she knew exactly where they were; sitting on the little writing-desk, next to the television. She remembered seeing him tossing them on there when they entered the room, by the light of his palm pilot.

She ran down the corridor to the open door of his room, 23. Behind her, he staggered out, calling after her every name he could drunkenly think of.

She stepped into the room, over to the writing-desk. They weren’t there.

‘No . . . no,’ she muttered, a desperate panic beginning to get a hold of her. She could hear him lurching up the corridor towards her, weaving from side to side, pissed out of his tiny little mind. Jenny decided she could probably take him on. He was all over the place, his judgement and reaction time shot to hell. But he had the ace card, as all men do over women - brute strength. If he got a good grip on her, it wouldn’t matter how much faster she could move. It wouldn’t matter one bit - brute strength was everything.

‘Come on, come on!’ she hissed. ‘Where are they?’

She looked all over the desk, trying both of the drawers, before finally spotting them on the floor. He must have knocked them off during the last few hours, during his binge. She scooped the keys up into one hand and was turning to leave just as he appeared in the doorway.

‘A-ha!’ he grinned and wagged a finger at her. ‘I got you!’ he cheerfully announced in a sing-song voice as if they were playing a game of playground tag.

‘Paul,’ she tried a scolding tone, ‘this is unacceptable.’

He laughed. ‘What are you? . . . My mum?’

He started towards her. Jenny realised this might be the last opportunity left to her, to catch him off guard. She ducked down low and charged towards him, crashing into him like a battering-ram, sending them both out through the doorway into the corridor, sprawling on to the floor together.

He was winded, but he still managed to grunt, ‘Bitch, bitch, bitch’, his hands scrabbling to get a firm hold of both of her arms, which she was frantically flailing, landing soft ineffectual blows on his face; slaps, scratches and punches that were achieving nothing.

He swung a leg over hers, instantly trapping them both in a vice-like grip on the floor.

She kept her hands and arms moving, but he managed to grab one wrist, and then very quickly the other. He rolled over, moving his body weight on top of hers, his face - stinking of every different liquor that could be found in the cabinet - was close to hers; close enough that the tip of his nose was touching her cheek.

‘Why the fuck . . . was this . . . such a big problem, eh?’ he whispered.

She struggled. There was no answer she could give that he’d understand.

‘Eh? I just wanted a one-night stand. You’d have . . . had a good time too. Now . . . look at us.’

Jenny realised she had one last chance.

She turned her head towards him, towards that breath, towards that face of his; a face at any other time, under different circumstances, from a distance, she might have even thought was vaguely attractive, but instead was now a vicious, snarling mask - one hundred per cent frustrated testosterone. Fighting to keep the sense of revulsion and anger inside; struggling to produce something that was almost impossible right now . . .

She managed to smile.

‘All right then, let’s do it,’ she whispered.

As if she’d uttered a magic password, the effect was almost instant. The thigh-hold he had on her legs loosened.

‘You sure about that?’ he muttered, his voice suddenly changed, the anger gone and now, in its place the considerate tone of a gentleman seeking consent.

Jenny struggled to keep the solicitous smile on her face and nodded.

He let go of one of her wrists, his hand travelling down to the zip on his trousers.

Her loose hand could punch him right now, scratch him, jab at one of his eyes. But she decided that just wasn’t going to be enough. She needed to really incapacitate him with something much more effective.

She head-butted him. Her forehead smacked hard against the bridge of his nose and she heard it crunch and crackle.

He rolled off her, both hands now on his face, blood instantly beginning to stream down over his lips on to his chin. Jenny was up on her feet and running before the shock of the blow had subsided enough for Paul to let loose the first enraged howl of pain.

Two-thirds of the way down the corridor was the entrance to the stairs. She flew down them, out into the foyer, through the doorway into the morning light and was heading towards Mr Stewart’s car before she allowed herself to believe that she had actually managed to escape him.

The car fob made it easy to single out the key from the rest on the key-ring. The headlights flashed and the car squawked as she unlocked it and quickly hopped inside.

She wasn’t going to scramble to insert the ignition key as danger raced towards her, as she’d seen in countless teen slasher movies. No. She sensibly locked the car first; all four doors responded simultaneously, securing themselves with a reassuring thock!

Through the windscreen she suddenly saw Paul, emerging from the foyer of the hotel, a crimson stream of blood down his nice, expensive shirt, one hand cradling his broken nose, the other waving frantically at her to stop.

She started the engine.

He rushed over to the car. If he’d had a bat or a brick in his hand, she would have thrown the car into reverse and got the hell out of there before he could even try and smash his way in. But he didn’t. All he had were his two soft office-hands - good for tapping out emails on a Blackberry organiser, or shaking on a big deal - but not quite so good for smashing, bare-knuckled, through a windscreen.

He splayed his hand out on the driver-side window. ‘Jesus! I’m sorry Jenny. I’m really, really sorry!’ The thick slur was gone now, the adrenalin rush had instantly sobered him up. His snarling manner, now one of genuine regret.

She looked at him through the glass, and shook her head.

‘Please! I . . . it was the drink,’ he pleaded, ‘I’m . . . I’ve worked it off now! I don’t know what the hell came over me!’

His splayed hand was leaving blood smears on the window.

‘Come on Jen . . . we’ve got to stick together . . . you and me. It’s a . . . it’s a jungle out there!’

She felt a pang of guilt as she threw the car into reverse and pulled out of the parking slot. He stumbled after her. She could hear him calling, pleading, bleating, over the whine of the engine and the sound of her crunching the gears into first. But there was no way she could feel safe again with him - booze or no booze. She spun the steering-wheel round and headed towards a sign pointing towards the slip-road that led on to the M6, southbound.