By the time Mike ended his call to Tara he’d cleared Media City, the home of SwitchBack TV, and was heading toward the motorway. The merciless sun that hung in the deep blue sky had raised the outside temperature to an uncomfortably sweltering thirty-one degrees centigrade, according to the digital display on his Jeep, and he wondered if it would push any higher before the day was through. Not that he could feel it inside the cab of his Jeep, the aircon was cranked high and Mike was thankful for it. He’d passed a few unfortunate motorists in older vehicles with their windows fruitlessly cranked down, managing to do no more than pipe more hot air into their cars.
The BBC Radio 2 Travel and Weather News was reporting it a good five degrees hotter on the south coast. The travel report looked
