6am (1am local time)

Have you run mad?” I exclaimed. “What is this nonsense? Why are you taking me to a hospital?”

“I was paid to – they didn’t say nothing about why.”

“Dennis Brent – his grammar is beginning to vex me” whispered Ian Devine.

“What was that about my grandma?”

“My colleague was merely commenting that there was some room for improvement” I explained.

“Yeah – I guess her house does kinda smell” said the cabbie.

“Quite” I said, not wishing to question a man who had already kidnapped us and made implicit threats of violence towards me. And, possibly, as a side topic, towards Ian Devine too. “Who paid you to take us to the hospital?”

“Just some dude. I don’t ask no questions and don’t get told no lies” he said philosophically.

“I am beginning to quiver, Dennis Brent” warned Ian Devine. “He does not have to speak like this – there must be another way.”

“We shall make a plan to escape” I decided, keen to distract Ian Devine from his pedantic perturbation. “You cause a distraction and I’ll make a break for it.”

“That’s the same plan you outlined on the railway train when I was being menaced by Balsdeep the Balti Badger” said Ian Devine. I realised I was having originality issues now I only had one friend instead of three to talk to.

“Good point. This man is a dangerous assassin and not an aggrieved badger handing out savouries. We must be more cunning.”

“Mmmm – savouries” purred Ian Devine, drooling like a waterfall in the process.

“Don’t do that in my cab, buster” said the driver.

“My colleague has an eating disorder and must consume calories every fifteen minutes or risk dehydration or even drowning” I explained with the imagination that has made me famous the world over as a convention calibre raconteur and wit.

“Sounds like the sorta thing they treat in a hospital” said the driver. “Kinda lucky that’s where we’re going.” I was literally at a loss for words that my plan had failed.

“But it would be easier, quicker and safer to stop at a pie shop and let him eat” I pressed.

“You might try to escape” noted the cabbie. I could see he had a base instinct beneath his proletarian exterior. Low cunning would be needed.

“I promise we won’t” I told him with my hand over my heart.

“But if you do then I don’t get paid. So not only would I lose my faith in human nature as a result of your betrayal but I also lose my bonus.”

“What if I pay you twice… one and a half times what they are offering?” I suggested.

“Then I still lose my faith in human nature because I’d been seduced by mere money but I’d be twenty five bucks better off. Hmm – tough one.”

“Then we have a deal?”

“I don’t think so. Your offer of more money is generous but it does imply that you were intending to escape and so deprive me of my pay. Your subsequent offer can undo some of that mental scarring but you still subconsciously betrayed how little respect you have for me and I’m troubled by that.”

“I’m sorry” I found myself saying. “What if we pay you the extra money and promise – for real – not to escape?”

“Will you bring me back a pie?” asked the cab driver.

“Surrender a pie? Are you INSANE?” howled Ian Devine. I shoved my complimentary first class teddy bear into his flapping mouth. The synthetic fibres did an excellent job of absorbing both his profanities and his saliva.

“Any pie you like” I lied.

“I’m touched by your gesture but I have a better idea.”

“Does it involve killing us as dumping our bodies in the river?” I said, inadvertently quoting from mother’s 2002 Christmas card.

“Nope – how’s about I go to the pie shop with your bulky friend and you stay here as security.”

“But what is to stop me stealing your car?” I asked, logic overcoming sanity yet again.

“I got your friend” he replied.

“That’s a novel idea” I told him. No one had ever valued Ian Devine at the same price as a car before. The previous best was £8.52 plus postage and packing materials when I sold him on an internet auction site last April Fools Day. A richly comic pleasantry which ended rather unfortunately when I was arrested and charged with being the head of a white slave ring. It was only Ian Devine’s testimony which saved me from a lengthy prison sentence. Still, all comedy needs an element of suffering or it isn’t funny – look at freak shows.

“I tell you what” I suggested after drawing up a pretty comprehensive pie shop rota, “how would it be if I go in first, then you join me, I go out to the car, Ian Devine comes into the shop, you choose your pie, you send Ian Devine back to me with the details, I take his place in the shop and pay for your pie, you go back to the car, Ian Devine comes in and buys his pies, I take the first bag back to the car, you go in for the second bag and both of you return together. That way there is always one person in the cab as the hostage and everyone gets their pies.”

“There are just three problems with that plan” said the driver. I looked down at my chart and, aside from once accidentally spelling ‘pie’ as ‘pi’ (which is very easy <g>) I couldn’t see anything amiss. “Pray explain” I demanded.

“Firstly, I didn’t like the part where you were in the shop without me. Second, it is considered bad form for the same person to be both kidnapper and kidnap victim and thirdly it’s too late. We’ve arrived at the hospital and those guys with the rubber gloves will take care of you from now on.”