How should you react and what would you do if one morning, after dropping your little son off at school and driving away, you are stopped at a red light and a complete stranger gets into your car, settles down next to you and buckles himself in?

You have choices, of course; you could just sit there dumbfounded and not drive off; you could scream and shout at the intruder and maybe, by not being able to repress such an action, immediately bring about a rather messy and painful conclusion to the episode, one which could have been his eventual intension anyway; or you could scamper out and make a dash for it.

Doing none of these alternatives leaves you with only one option; you can only sit there and look at him and try to figure out what dangers lay in wait, weighing up the sort of fellow he is by taking into account his expression, his clothes, his size and so on.

If he’s well dressed, bears a pleasant smile and the first words he says in not too loud a voice happen to be, ‘Are you going past Childwall Abbey Road?’ How should you react? You could say, ‘No’, I guess, and he might get out of the car but, being too astonished to think it through, you simply nod and when the lights change drive smoothly away. Believe me, that’s what you shouldn’t do … but you did.

As you drove along, after thanking you for the lift, he might have commented on the weather which could have settled your nerves a touch, but when nothing was said for the next mile or so the prevailing silence became heavy and your nerves began fluttering again, they did, didn’t they? It’s as though there was a seed of threatening fear deep within you which was being watered and fertilized by this unsettling silence, until it eventually germinated and, like a sapling, it grew and spread throughout your body. So you kept an eye on him, didn’t you? Watchful for any sudden movements.

When he put his hand in his pocket a worrisome thought came to mind as to what he was about to reveal - a weapon, maybe? When he produced a packet of cigarettes and offered you one should you have shaken your head? And what if then he asked if it was okay for him to smoke? You couldn’t let him know that it wasn’t, for you reckoned a refusal could have flicked his switch, ignited a fire within him which so far he’d managed to control?

Looking back on the situation another thought springs to mind; he wouldn’t have gate-crashed your vehicle if it had been a woman driving; as we know a woman is more outgoing. She would probably have taken umbrage and caused a scene; passers-by would have swarmed to her defence, whereas two men in conflict is another matter; folk would have gathered round hoping to get the most advantageous view of the rumpus.

And what about when the smoke of his cigarette got stuck in your throat, should you have surreptitiously slid down your window, thus offering the faintest of clues that you weren’t altogether happy with him smoking? And what would you have done when suddenly he declared, ‘There’s a draught in here,’ in a tone that showed he seldom needed to have given outright orders to his underlings, as a simple statement of intent would have sufficed. Why, on Earth, did you show him what a wimp you were by closing the window?

When, without warning, your passenger changed his mind; decided to go to another destination and stated, ‘Take the next left.’? Should you have really done as he asked? By now you could feel your moist hands slipping on the wheel - as you gripped it did you notice how your knuckles began to turn white? By this time your mind was in turmoil and so, in that robotic state you drove through some unfamiliar areas of the city. By this time the feeling of helplessness enveloped your body. A stream of ‘lefts’ and ‘rights’ were being tossed in your direction. Did it ever cross your mind regarding the ludicrousness of your situation; the hostage was driving the captor to God knows where?

Now you’re in the midst of a quiet, desolate area of the city, in an alien environment where help is but a dream away – no vehicles, no pedestrians – just an abandoned district where only the unseen live. You are surrounded by the massive shells of derelict warehouses; a legacy from some forgotten age. They tower over you, they watch you; staring down at your every movement. Everything is cloaked in shadow as the sunlight strains to find its way between the dark and fearsome structures.

The man says, ‘Stop here.’ Which of course you do. You sit there in the heavy silence as he draws on his cigarette and you watch him as he flicks his stub out of the window. By now you fear the worst; your will-power and self-esteem has started to melt away, like butter on a hot mid-summer’s day. You lose it, you flop forward with your forehead resting on the steering wheel. You begin to shake. Are you trembling in fear of what is to come? Or are you shivering as your cold, damp shirt clings to your skin? It becomes difficult to breathe; the only way of taking in the air is by gulping in a mouthful at a time and, in some way, letting it trickle down. Your chest begins to hurt, for you feel as though that sapling inside you has its shoots tightly entwined around your lungs.

You are by this time so engrossed in hiding the fact that you are sobbing, that you don’t hear the sounds of your unwelcomed guest unbuckling himself, the sounds of the passenger door opening and closing behind him and, through his open window, the sounds of his shoes clicking on the cobbles as he walks away.

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