BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

173.

A large red brick house in the English countryside.

A little boy, eight years old, grips his mother's hand in terror.

It's dark and cold.

The walls are covered in paintings of grim-faced men. The lights flicker.

There's a smell of damp and sour milk. The boy is racked with gulping sobs, which he desperately

tries to control. His mother leans down and gently kisses his forehead. She prizes her hand from his grip

and walks away into the night.

The system.

Or how to save the world in five easy steps.

Step two. Building heroes.

Music Building heroes. Building heroes. We're on a motorised yacht somewhere in the English Channel. We paid a man called Clive $350 to smuggle us out of the country.

But it looks like Clive betrayed us.

In the cabin, sitting opposite is a woman with shiny brown hair and perfect teeth.

On either side of her, two large blokes.

One of them with a smashed nose, probably broken by me in the outskirts of a market town yesterday afternoon.

He winks at me. Thanks a lot, Clive.

Would you like a cup of tea or coffee?

Though I have to warn you, it's Maxwell House, which I didn't even know still existed.

Maya turns to look back at me. What the hell do we do now?

I wouldn't jump if I were you.

...