In the front seat of his silver Golf, Popper sat hunched over the steering wheel, every muscle in his body tensed, sweat glistening in the crevices of his face. His eyes were fixed on the spectacle that was unfolding before him. He watched the woman grappling with the men. He watched her receive a blow to the face, watched her stagger backwards, then push forward again. His breathing was shallow, he was trembling uncontrollably, and his legs felt hollow, as if they could never support his weight. What was happening to him? Where was his courage? His signet ring was making a ferocious tapping sound as his hands on the steering wheel shook. He groped around inside of himself for the old battle instinct, the fighting instinct, the bravery that was as much part of him as his ability to breathe. But he was clutching at water; it ran through his fingers, was sucked away in great lugs.
He saw the woman fall to the ground. Again she got to her feet, plunged back into the fray. Unable to bear it he averted his eyes, pressed his forehead into the top of the steering wheel, bile rising in his mouth.
Ursula tried again to pull the nearest man away from the Chrysler. Suddenly a hand gripped her shoulder and threw her aside. A youth, his T-shirt thick with blood, snaked his way between the bodies and she saw the flash of a blade as he struck. There was a godawful howl, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere, from the motorway itself, from the landscape. Several more movements. Still she could not see Carly. Worse, she could no longer hear her cries.
She dashed back towards the seething knot of men, tried to break her way through to her baby. Then, by some unseen force, the group changed shape. Now between herself and Carly was a lean, short-haired man with wild eyes. Blood was streaked across his face, and blossoming on his shirt, and his lips were curled back from his teeth. With one hand he was brandishing the knife, creating a circle of space around himself with wicked little jabs; somehow he must have wrestled it back from his attacker. Without thinking, she stepped into the cavity, begging him to move aside; he thrust out his hand and gripped her by the throat.
And then a new figure approached from behind, pushing people aside, throwing blows wildly. Within seconds he had beaten his way through to her. Faced with the knife, he hesitated not for a moment. In another instant she was free and unharmed, leaning in through the window to Carly and the newcomer was wrestling ferociously with the knifeman. They swung round once, twice, in the constricted space between the cars; then there was a single, anguished bark. Ursula turned to protect the children. The knifeman lay on the ground, writhing slightly, losing blood. Several feet away from his hand lay the knife. In the background, the three footballers were running off into the night, one of them stumbling. And there in the centre was the man who had saved her life, clutching the side of his neck.
‘Max!’ cried Ursula. ‘Max!’