He pauses to check the road is empty. Then he pulls out and rides away.

I follow. It’s easy to keep in touch. He stays well this side of the speed limit, probably knowing from experience how ready the police are to hassle young bikers, especially late at night. Once it becomes clear he’s heading straight home to Carker, I overtake and pull away.

I have no plan but I know from the merriment bubbling up inside me that a plan exists, and when I pass the derestriction sign at the edge of town and find myself on the old Roman Way, that gently undulating road which runs arrow-straight down an avenue of beeches all the five miles south to Carker, I understand what I have to do.

I leave the lights of town behind me and accelerate away. After a couple of miles, I do a U-turn on the empty road, pull on to the verge, and switch off my lights but not my engine.

Darkness laps over me like black water. I don’t mind. I am its denizen. This is my proper domain.

Now I see him. First a glow, then an effulgence, hurtling towards me. What young man, even one conditioned to carefulness by police persecution, could resist the temptation of such a stretch of road so clearly empty of traffic?

Ah, the rush of the wind in his face, the throb of the engine between his thighs, and in the corners of his vision the blur of trees lined up like an audience of old gods to applaud his passage!

I feel his joy, share in his mirth. Indeed, I’m so full of it I almost miss my cue.

But the old gods are talking to me also, and with no conscious command from my mind, my foot stamps down on the accelerator and my hand flicks on full headlights.

For a fraction of a second we are heading straight for each other. Then his muscles like mine obey commands too quick for his mind, and he swerves, skids, wrestles for control.

For a second I think he has it.