It was a long trip down to the Old Riding. The A19 just... stretched out where it shouldn’t. I have no memory of exactly where. Or how I heard about the Demon Museum. Or what time I got in the car to come. Or brushing my teeth. Actually, the last one is because I didn’t.

Anyway, I wasn’t stupid whatever he said. I knew a long way down means a long way back up. It would be bloody midnight before I was in at this rate.

I got out my crumpled map and shoved my way through the streets. The locals were already destroyed. Lightweights. But there was other, more disturbing noise too. The chants behind boarded up windows were more desperate than ever. Sizzling of strange fires. Broken glass. Screams.

I kept my head down and found my way first into a lamppost and then back to the car park.

And what do you know? That prat in the suit was still there.

“Hello again, friend!” he called. He got up off the bench, brushed back his mop of lady-hair and flapped something in my tired, pale, pissed-off face. “You’ve racked up quite a bill today, I’m afraid. Fifty three pounds, to be precise. Oh dear, oh dear.”

I’d been attacked. I’d been rushed to hospital. I hadn’t exactly had chance to pay my parking. But if the Glordites thought themselves big game, they had another thing coming. There was a much wider threat to life as we know it, one with the whole of Great Britain in its sinister clutches. One with high-vis robes and the common jobsworth as its acolytes.

Oh, wait. That is life as we know it. No use protesting. “Oh, just piss off. I’ll post it in later.” I made to barge past.

But such corporate scum have even greater training in the arts of avoiding no than the council. “Ah! You’ve got it all wrong.” He held out a hand. This dickhead even manicured his nails. “George. George Stillwater. Clearway Insurance. I think I can help you.”

That brought it back properly. Some gimmick about accidents happening any time. A setup with a sign or summat that probably cost twenty grand in cocaine and twelve course gourmet lunches just so a marketing company could get together a dossier bigger than the Yellow Pages on why ‘help’ sounded better than ‘exploit’.

“Look, I’ve had a long day and-” Against my better judgement of just twatting him one for, well, existing, I tried to be polite. It probably wasn’t his fault. I mean, he probably had children to feed or tarts to shag. But I was cut off by a sudden piercing sound over the pattering rain. The screech of metal on metal.

I looked over the car park and remembered what the gimmicky prop was. The gimmicky prop was a soullessly black bollard which was currently in the process of stroking one casual edge against the boot of the banger. It was glancing over its shoulder menacingly at me, although it appeared to have no eyes or shoulder. A long, dark streak of bald metal was forming in the wake of its caress, inch by excruciatingly soft inch.

Mr. Stillwater’s face had changed from that of a salesman on the pull to a salesman closing in on a kill. Judging by those eyebrows I think I mean that literally. “Okay,” he hissed, putting a hand on my shoulder. His blue silk tie was swaying like a noose below the carefully cultivated stubble on his throat. “Okay. Maybe you’re the sort of man who appreciates a bit of straight talking. So I’ll give you some straight talking.” The bollard had moved to the driver’s side, its black base gliding through the potholes like a duck over water. It grew, peered in at my window. Tapped on the glass. I think it saw my ABBA CD then and recoiled, but it remained where it was. The message was clear.

“I’m afraid your motor vehicle is at high risk of extensive damage within the next forty seconds,” Mr. Stillwater explained helpfully. I think I got the gist by the polite little crack his pet had just produced in Dad’s wing mirror. “Your previous insurer is going to find a nice, big bollard shaped dent in the back, and what do you know? That’s an at-fault claim. Switching to Clearway could save you a lot of trouble. And, with twelve instalments of just twenty pound fifty, looking at that...thing you drive, you’re going to save a lot of money too. We’ll even pay off your fine as a token of friendship.”

The bollard turned round, waiting expectantly. I can’t believe I’ve just said that. There was too much depth to it. I think if it wanted it could just suck the car right into another galaxy.

Maybe I could have done something. But to be honest, I’d had enough for one day.

“I’m fine thanks. Goodnight.”

It might have been a decent deal for the insurance, but I wouldn’t have a clue. Dad’s deathtrap hadn’t been insured for years. No tax either. Perhaps Mr. Stillwater was doing me a favour after all. I couldn’t be arsed with the police after all this.

Fuck it, I’d get another loan. Get Dad a new one.

I turned and walked off to find a bus stop.