Eye Of The Needle

PART FOUR

When Lucy woke up, the storm that had broken out the evening before was still raging. She leaned over the edge of the bed, moving cautiously so that she would not disturb David, and picked up her wristwatch from the floor. It was just after six. The wind was howling around the roof. David could sleep on; little work would be done today.

She wondered whether they had lost any slates off the roof during the night. She would need to check the loft. The job would have to wait until David was out, otherwise he would be angry that she had not asked him to do it.

She slipped out of bed. It was very cold. The warm weather of the last few days had been a phony summer, the build-up to the storm. Now it was as cold as November. She pulled the flannel nightdress off over her head and quickly got into her underwear, trousers, and sweater. David stirred. She looked at him; he turned over, but did not wake.

She crossed the tiny landing and looked into Jo's room. The three-year-old had graduated from a cot to a bed, and he often fell out during the night without waking. This morning he was on his bed, lying asleep on his back with his mouth wide open. Lucy smiled. He looked truly adorable when he was asleep.

She went quietly downstairs, wondering briefly why she had awakened so early. Perhaps Jo had made a noise, or maybe it was the storm.

She knelt in front of the fireplace, pushing back the sleeves of her sweater, and began to make the fire. As she swept out the grate she whistled a tune she had heard on the radio, "Is You Is Or Is You Ain't My Baby?" She raked the cold ashes, using the biggest lumps to form the base for today's fire. Dried bracken provided the tinder, and wood and then coal went on top.

Sometimes she just used wood, but coal was better in this weather. She held a page of newspaper across the fireplace for a few minutes to create an updraft in the chimney. When she removed it the wood was burning and the coal glowing red. She folded the paper and placed it under the coal scuttle for use tomorrow.

The blaze would soon warm the little house, but a hot cup of tea would help meanwhile. Lucy went into the kitchen and put the kettle on the electric cooker. She put two cups on a tray, then found David's cigarettes and an ashtray. She made the tea, filled the cups, and carried the tray through the hall to the stairs.

She had one foot on the lowest stair when she heard the tapping sound. She stopped, frowned, decided it was the wind rattling something and took another step. The sound came again. It was like someone knocking on the front door.

That was ridiculous, of course. There was no one to knock on the front door-only Tom, and he always came to the kitchen door and never knocked. The tapping again.

She came down the stairs and, balancing the tea tray on one hand, opened the front door.

She dropped the tray in shock. The man fell into the hall, knocking her over. Lucy screamed.

She was frightened only for a moment. The stranger lay prone beside her on the hall floor, plainly incapable of attacking anyone. His clothes were soaking wet, and his hands and face were stone-white with cold.

Lucy got to her feet. David slid down the stairs on his bottom, saying, "What is it? What is it?"

"Him," Lucy said, and pointed.

David arrived at the foot of the stairs, clad in pyjamas, and hauled himself into his wheelchair. "I don't see what there is to scream about," he said. He wheeled himself closer and peered at the man on the floor.

"I'm sorry. He startled me." She bent over and, taking the man by his upper arms, dragged him into the living room. David followed. Lucy laid the man in front of the fire.

David stared at the unconscious body. "Where the devil did he come from?"

"He must have been shipwrecked… the storm…"

But he was wearing the clothes of a workman, not a sailor, Lucy noticed. She studied him. He was quite a big man, longer than the six-foot hearth rug and heavy round the neck and shoulders. His face was strong and fine-boned, with a high forehead and a long jaw. He might be handsome, she thought, if he were not such a ghastly colour. He stirred and opened his eyes. At first he looked terribly frightened, like a small boy waking in strange surroundings; but, very quickly, his expression became relaxed, and he looked about him sharply, his gaze resting briefly on Lucy, David, the window, the door, and the fire.

Lucy said, "We must get him out of these clothes. Fetch a pair of pyjamas and a robe, David."

David wheeled himself out, and Lucy knelt beside the stranger. She took off his boots and socks first. There almost seemed to be a hint of amusement in his eyes as he watched her. But when she reached for his jacket he crossed his arms protectively over his chest.

"You'll die of pneumonia if you keep these clothes on," she said in her best bedside manner. "Let me take them off."

The man said, "I really don't think we know each other well enough. After all, we haven't been introduced."

It was the first time he had spoken. His voice was so confident, his words so formal, that the contrast with his terrible appearance made Lucy laugh out loud. "You're shy?" she said.

"I just think a man should preserve an air of mystery." He was grinning broadly, but his smile collapsed suddenly and his eyes closed in pain.

David came back with clean nightclothes over his arm. "You two seem to be getting on remarkably well already," he said.

"You'll have to undress him," Lucy said. "He won't let me."

David's look was unreadable.

The stranger said, "I'll manage on my own, thanks, if it's not too awfully ungracious of me."

"Suit yourself," David said. He dumped the clothes on a chair and wheeled out.

"I'll make some more tea," Lucy said as she followed. She closed the living room door behind her.

In the kitchen, David was already filling the kettle, a lighted cigarette dangling from his lips. Lucy quickly cleared up the broken china in the hall, then joined him.

"Five minutes ago I wasn't at all sure the chap was alive and now he's dressing himself," David said.

Lucy busied herself with a teapot. "Perhaps he was shamming."

"The prospect of being undressed by you certainly brought about a rapid recovery."

"I can't believe anyone could be that shy."

"Your own lack in that area may lead you to underestimate its power in others."

Lucy rattled cups. "Let's not quarrel today, David, we've got something more interesting to do. For a change." She picked up the tray and walked into the living room.

The stranger was buttoning his pyjama jacket. He turned his back to her as she walked in. She put the tray down and poured tea. When she turned back he was wearing David's robe. "You're very kind," he said. His gaze was direct.

He really didn't seem the shy type, Lucy thought. However, he was some years older than she-about forty, she guessed. That might account for it. He was looking less of a castaway every minute.

"Sit close to the fire," she told him. She handed him a cup of tea.

"I'm not sure I can manage the saucer," he said. "My fingers aren't functioning." He took the cup from her stiff-handed, holding it between both palms, and carried it carefully to his lips. David came in and offered him a cigarette. He declined. The stranger emptied the cup. "Where am I?" he asked.

"This place is called Storm Island," David told him.

The man showed a trace of relief. "I thought I might have been blown back to the mainland."

David pointed the man's toes at the fire to warm his bare feet. "You were probably swept into the bay," David said. "Things usually are. That's how the beach was formed."

Jo came in, bleary-eyed, trailing a one-armed panda as big as himself. When he saw the stranger he ran to Lucy and hid his face.

"I've frightened your little girl." The man smiled.

"He's a boy. I must cut his hair." Lucy lifted Jo onto her lap.

"I'm sorry." The stranger's eyes closed again, and he swayed in his seat.

Lucy stood up, dumping Jo on the sofa. "We must put the poor man to bed, David."

"Just a minute," David said. He wheeled himself closer to the man. "Might there be any other survivors?" he asked.

The man's face looked up. "I was alone," he muttered. He was very nearly all in.

"David-" Lucy began.

"One more question: did you notify the coastguard of your route?"

"What does it matter?" Lucy said.

"It matters because, if he did, there may be men out there risking their lives looking for him, and we can let them know he's safe."

The man said slowly, "I… did not…"

"That's enough," Lucy told David. She knelt in front of the man. "Can you make it upstairs?" He nodded and got slowly to his feet.

Lucy looped his arm over her shoulders and began to walk him out. "I'll put him in Jo's bed," she said.

They took the stairs one at a time, pausing on each. When they reached the top, the little colour that the fire had restored to the man's face had drained away again. Lucy led him into the smaller bedroom. He collapsed onto the bed.

Lucy arranged the blankets over him, tucked him in and left the room, closing the door quietly.

Relief washed over Faber in a tidal wave. For the last few minutes, the effort of self-control had been superhuman. He felt limp, defeated, and ill.

After the front door had opened, he had allowed himself to collapse for a while. The danger had come when the beautiful girl had started to undress him, and he had remembered the can of film taped to his chest. Dealing with that had restored his alertness for a while. He had also been afraid they might call for an ambulance, but that had not been mentioned; perhaps the island was too small to have a hospital. At least he was not on the mainland; there it would have been impossible to prevent the reporting of the shipwreck. However, the trend of the husband's questions had indicated that no report would be made immediately.

Faber had no energy to speculate about problems further ahead. He seemed to be safe for the time being, and that was as far as he could go. In the meantime he was warm and dry and alive, and the bed was soft.

He turned over, reconnoitring the room: door, window, chimney. The habit of caution survived everything but death itself. The walls were pink, as if the couple had hoped for a baby girl. There was a train set and a great many picture books on the floor. It was a safe, domestic place; a home. He was a wolf in a sheepfold. A lame wolf.

He closed his eyes. Despite his exhaustion, he had to force himself to relax, muscle by muscle. Gradually his head emptied of thought and he slept.

Lucy tasted the porridge, and added another pinch of salt. They had got to like it the way Tom made it, the Scots way, without sugar. She would never go back to making sweet porridge, even when sugar became plentiful and unrationed again. It was funny how you got used to things when you had to: brown bread and margarine and salt porridge.

She ladled it out and the family sat down to breakfast. Jo had lots of milk to cool his. David ate vast quantities these days, without getting fat: it was the outdoor life. She looked at his hands on the table. They were rough and permanently brown, the hands of a manual worker. She had noticed the stranger's hands: his fingers were long, the skin white under the blood and the bruising. He was unaccustomed to the abrasive work of crewing a boat.

"You won't get much done today," Lucy said. "The storm looks like it's staying."

"Makes no difference. Sheep still have to be cared for, whatever the weather."

"Where will you be?"

"Tom's end. I'll go up there in the jeep."

Jo said, "Can I come?"

"Not today," Lucy told him. "It's too wet and cold."

"But I don't like the man."

Lucy smiled. "Don't be silly. He won't do us any harm. He's almost too ill to move."

"Who is he?"

"We don't know his name. He's been shipwrecked, and we have to look after him until he's well enough to go back to the mainland. He's a very nice man."

"Is he my uncle?"

"Just a stranger, Jo. Eat up."

Jo looked disappointed. He had met an uncle once. In his mind uncles were people who gave out candy, which he liked, and money, which he had no use for.

David Finished his breakfast and put on his macintosh, a tent-shaped garment with sleeves, with a hole for his head, and that covered most of his wheelchair as well as him. He put a sou'wester on his head and tied it under his chin, kissed Jo, said good-bye to Lucy.

A minute or two later she heard the jeep start up and went to the window to watch David drive off into the rain. The rear wheels of the vehicle slithered about in the mud. He would have to take care.

She turned to Jo. He said, "This is a dog." He was making a picture on the tablecloth with porridge and milk.

Lucy slapped his hand. "What a horrid mess!" The boy's face took on a grim, sulky look, and Lucy thought how much he resembled his father. They had the same dark skin and nearly-black hair, and they both had a way of withdrawing when they were cross. But Jo laughed a lot; he had inherited something from Lucy's side of the family, thank God.

Jo mistook her contemplative stare for anger, and said, "I'm sorry."

She washed him at the kitchen sink, then cleared away the breakfast things, thinking about the stranger upstairs. Now that the immediate crisis was past, and it seemed the man was not going to die, she was eaten with curiosity about him. Who was he? Where was he from? What had he been doing in the storm? Did he have a family? Why did he have workman's clothes, a clerk's hands, and a Home Counties accent? It was rather exciting. It occurred to her that, if she had lived anywhere else, she would not have accepted his sudden appearance so readily. He might, she supposed, be a deserter, or a criminal, or even an escaped prisoner of war. But one forgot, living on the island, that other human beings could be threatening instead of companionable. It was so nice to see a new face that to harbour suspicions seemed ungrateful. Maybe-unpleasant thought-she more than most people was ready to welcome an attractive man… She pushed the thought out of her mind.

Silly, silly. He was so tired and ill that he could not possibly threaten anyone. Even on the mainland, who could have refused to take him in, bedraggled and unconscious? When he felt better they could question him, and if his story of how he got here was less than plausible, they could radio the mainland from Tom's cottage.

When she had washed up she crept upstairs to look at him. He slept facing the door, and when she looked in, his eyes opened instantly. Again there was that initial, split-second flash of fear.

"It's all right," Lucy whispered. "Just making sure you're okay." He closed his eyes without speaking.

She went downstairs again. She dressed herself and Jo in oilskins and WellingtQn boots and they went out. The rain was still coming down in torrents, and the wind was terrific. She glanced up at the roof: they had lost some slates. Leaning into the wind, she headed for the cliff top.

She held Jo's hand tightly; he might quite easily be blown away. Two minutes later she was wishing she had stayed indoors. Rain came in under her raincoat collar and over the tops of her boots. Jo must be soaked too but now that they were wet they might as well stay wet for a few minutes more. Lucy wanted to go to the beach.

However, when they reached the top of the ramp she realised it was impossible. The narrow wooden walkway was slippery with rain, and in this wind she might lose her balance and fall off, to plunge sixty feet to the beach below. She had to content herself with looking. It was quite a sight.

Vast waves, each the size of a small house, were rolling in rapidly, close on each other's heels. Crossing the beach the wave would rise even higher, its crest curling in a question mark, then throw itself against the foot of the cliff in a rage. Spray rose over the cliff top in sheets, causing Lucy to step back hurriedly and Jo to squeal with delight. Lucy could hear her son's laughter only because he had climbed into her arms, and his mouth was now close to her ear; the noise of the wind and the sea drowned more distant sounds.

There was something terribly thrilling in watching the elements spit and sway and roar in fury; in standing fractionally too close to the cliff edge, feeling threatened and safe at the same time, shivering with cold and perspiring in fear. It was thrilling, and there were few thrills in her life.

She was about to go back, mindful of Jo's health, when she saw the boat.

It was not a boat any more, of course; that was what was so shocking about it. All that was left were the large timbers of the deck and the keel. They were scattered on the rocks below the cliffs like a dropped handful of matches. It had been a big boat, Lucy realised. One man might have piloted it alone, but not easily. And the damage the sea had wrought on it was awesome. It was hard to detect two bits of wood still joined together.

How, in heaven's name, had their stranger come out of it alive? She shuddered when she thought of what those waves and those rocks might have done to a human body. Jo caught her sudden change of mood and said into her ear, "Go home, now." She turned quickly away from the sea and hurried along the muddy path to the cottage.

Back inside, they took off their wet coats, hats, and boots, and hung them in the kitchen to dry.

Lucy went upstairs and looked in on the stranger again. This time he did not open his eyes. He seemed to be sleeping very peacefully, yet she had a feeling that he had awakened and recognised her tread on the stairs, and closed his eyes again before she opened the door.

She ran a hot bath. She and the boy were soaked to the skin. She undressed Jo and put him in the tub, then on impulse took off her own clothes and got in with him. The heat was blissful. She closed her eyes and relaxed. This was good, too; to be in a house, feeling warm, while the storm beat impotently at the strong stone walls.

Life had turned interesting, all of a sudden. In one night there had been a storm, a shipwreck, and a mystery man; this after three years of… She hoped the stranger would wake up soon so that she could find out about him.

Meanwhile it was time she started cooking lunch for the men. She had some breast of lamb to make a stew. She got out of the bath and towered herself gently. Jo was playing with his bath toy, a much-chewed rubber cat. Lucy looked at herself in the mirror, examining the stretch-marks on her belly left by pregnancy. They were fading, slowly, but they would never completely disappear. An all-over suntan would help, though. She smiled to herself. Fat chance of that! Besides, who was interested in her tummy? Nobody but herself.

Jo said, "Can I stay in a minute more?" It was a phrase he used, "a minute more," and it could mean anything up to a half a day.

"Just while I get dressed," she told him and hung the towel on a rail and moved toward the door. The stranger stood in the doorway, looking at her.

They stared at each other. It was odd, Lucy thought later, that she felt not a bit afraid. It was the way he looked at her; there was no threat in his expression, no lewdness, no smirk. He was not looking at her pubis, or even her breasts, but at her face, into her eyes. She looked back, a bit shocked but not embarrassed, with just a tiny part of her mind wondering why she did not squeal, cover herself with her hands, and slam the door on him.

Something did come into his eyes, at last. Perhaps she was imagining it, but she saw admiration, and a faint twinkle of honest humour, and a trace of sadness, and then the hold was broken and he turned away and went back into his bedroom, closing the door. A moment later Lucy heard the springs creak as his weight settled onto the bed. And for no good reason at all she felt dreadfully guilty.

Percival Godliman had by now pulled out all the stops.

Every policeman in the United Kingdom had a copy of the photograph of Faber, and about half of them were engaged full time in the search. In the cities they were checking hotels and guest houses, railway stations and bus terminals, cafés and shopping cantres; and the bridges, arches and bombed lots where derelicts hung out. In the country they were looking in barns and silos, empty cottages and ruined castles, thickets and clearings and cornfields. They were showing the photograph to ticket clerks, petrol station staff, ferry hands and toll collectors. All the passenger ports and airfields were covered, with the picture pinned behind a board at every passport control desk.

The police, of course, still thought they were looking for a straightforward murderer. The cop on the street knew that the man in the picture had killed two people with a knife in London. Senior officers knew a bit more; that one of the murders had been a sexual assault, another apparently motiveless, and a third-which their men were not to know of-was an unexplained but bloody attack on a soldier on the Euston-to-Liverpool train. Only chief constables, and a few officers at Scotland Yard, knew that the soldier had been on temporary attachment to MI5 and that all the murders were somehow connected with Security.

The newspapers, too, thought it was an ordinary murder hunt. The day after Godliman had released details, most of them had carried the story in their later editions. The first editions, bound for Scotland, Ulster and North Wales, had missed it, so they carried a shortened version a day later. The Stockwell victim had been identified as a labourer, and given a false name and a vague London background. Godliman's press release had connected that murder with the death of Mrs Una Garden in 1940, but had been vague about the nature of the link. The murder weapon was said to be a stiletto.

The two Liverpool newspapers heard very quickly of the body on the train, and both wondered whether the London knife murderer was responsible. Both made enquiries with the Liverpool police. The editors of both papers received phone calls from the chief constable. Neither paper carried the story.

A total of one hundred and fifty-seven tall dark men were arrested on suspicion of being Faber. All but twenty-nine of them were able to prove that they could not possibly have committed the murders. Interviewers from MI5 talked to the twenty-nine. Twenty-seven called in parents, relatives and neighbours, who affirmed that they had been born in Britain and had been living there during the '20s, when Faber had been in Germany.

The last two were brought to London and interviewed again, this time by Godliman. Both were bachelors, living alone, with no surviving relatives, leading a transient existence. The first was a well-dressed, confident man who claimed implausibly that his way of life was to travel the country taking odd jobs as a manual labourer. Godliman explained that unlike the police he had the power to incarcerate anyone for the duration of the war, and no questions asked. Furthermore, he was not in the least interested in ordinary peccadilloes, and any information given him here at the War Office was strictly confidential and would go no further.

The prisoner promptly confessed to being a confidence trickster and gave the address of nineteen elderly ladies whom he had cheated out of their old jewellery during the past three weeks. Godliman turned him over to the police. He felt no obligation to be honest with a professional liar.

The last suspect also cracked under Godliman's treatment. His secret was that he was not a bachelor at all, not by a long way. He had a wife in Brighton. And in Solihull, Birmingham. And in Colchester, Newbury, and Exeter. All five were able to produce marriage certificates later that day. The bigamist went to jail to await trial. Godliman slept in his office while the hunt went on.

Bristol, Temple Meads, railway station: "Good morning, Miss. Would you look at this please?"

"Hey, girls the bobby's going to show us his snaps!"

"Now, don't muck about, just tell me if you've seen him."

"Ooh, ain't he handsome! I wish I had!"

"You wouldn't if you knew what he'd done. Would you all take a look, please?"

"Never seen him."

"Me neither."

"Not me."

"When you catch him, ask him if he wants to meet a nice young Bristol girl."

"You girls-I don't know… just because they give you a pair of trousers and a porter's job, you think you're supposed to act like men…"

The Woolwich Ferry: "Filthy day, Constable."

"Morning, Captain. I expect it's worse on the high seas."

"Can I help you? Or are you just crossing the river?"

"I want you to look at a face, captain."

"Let me put my specs on. Oh, don't worry, I can see to guide the ship. It's close things I need the glasses for. Now then…"

"Ring any bells?"

"Sorry, constable. Means nothing to me."

"Well, let me know if you see him."

"Certainly."

"Bon voyage."

"Not bloody likely."

Number 35 Leak Street, London E1: "Sergeant Riley-what a nice surprise!"

"Never mind the lip, Mabel. Who've you got here?"

"All respectable guests, sergeant; you know me."

"I know you, all right. That's why I'm here. Would any of your nice respectable guests happen to be on the trot?"

"Since when have you been recruiting for the army?"

"I'm not, Mabel, I'm looking for someone, and if he's here, he's probably told you he's on the trot."

"Look, Jack, if I tell you there's nobody here I don't know, will you go away and stop pestering me?"

"Why should I trust you?"

"Because of 1936."

"You were better looking then, Mabel."

"So were you, Jack."

"You win… take a butcher's at this. If chummy comes in here, send word, okay?"

"Promise."

"Don't waste any time about it, either."

"All right!"

"Mabel… he knifed a woman your age. I'm just marking your cards."

Bill's café, on the A30 near Bagshot: "Tea, please, Bill. Two sugars."

"Good morning, Constable Pearson. Filthy day."

"What's on that plate, Bill-pebbles from Portsmouth?"

"Buttered buns, as well you know."

"Oh! I'll have two, then. Thanks… Now then, lads! Anyone who wants his lorry checked from top to bottom can leave right away… That's better. Take a look at this picture, please."

"What are you after him for, constable? Bicycling without lights?"

"Never mind the jokes, Harry, pass the picture around. Anybody given a lift to that bloke?"

"Not me."

"No."

"Sorry, constable."

"Never clapped eyes on him."

"Thank you, lads. If you see him, report it. Cheerio."

"Constable?"

"Yes, Bill?"

"You haven't paid for the buns."

Smethwick's Garage, Carlisle: "Morning, Missus. When you've got a minute…"

"Be right with you, officer. Just let me attend to this gentleman… twelve and sixpence, please, sir. Thank you. Goodbye…"

"How's business?"

"Terrible as usual. What can I do for you?"

"Can we go in the office for a minute?"

"Aye, come on… now, then."

"Take a look at this picture and tell me whether you've served that man with petrol recently."

"Well, it shouldn't be too difficult. It's not as if we get hordes of customers passing through… Ohh! D'you know, I think I have served him!"

"When?"

"Day before yesterday, in the morning."

"How sure are you?"

"Well… he was older than the picture, but I'm pretty sure."

"What was he driving?"

"A grey car. I'm no good on makes, this is my husband's business really, but he's in the Navy now."

"Well, what did it look like?"

"It was the old sort, with a canvas roof that comes up. A two-seater. Sporty. It had a spare petrol tank bolted to the running board, and I filled that too."

"Do you remember what he was wearing?"

"Not really… working clothes, I think."

"A tall man?"

"Yes, taller than you."

"Have you got a telephone?…"

William Duncan was twenty-five years old, five-feet-ten, weighed a trim 150 pounds and was in first-class health. His open-air life and total lack of interest in tobacco, drink, late nights, and loose living kept him that way. Yet he was not in the armed services.

He had seemed to be a normal child, if a little backward, until the age of eight, when his mind had lost the ability to develop any further. There had been no trauma that anyone knew about, no physical damage to account for sudden breakdown. Indeed it was some years before anyone noticed that there was anything wrong, for at the age of ten he was no more than a little backward, and at twelve he was just dim-witted; but by fifteen he was obviously simple, and by eighteen he was known as Daft Willie.

His parents were both members of an obscure fundamentalist religious group whose members were not allowed to marry outside the church (which may or may not have had anything to do with Willie's daftness). They prayed for him, of course, but they also took him to a specialist in Stirling. The doctor, an elderly man, did several tests and then told them, over the tops of his gold-rimmed half-glasses, that the boy had a mental age of eight and his mind would grow no older, ever. They continued to pray for him, but they suspected that the Lord had sent this to try them, so they made sure Willie was Saved and looked forward to the day when they would meet him in the Glory and he would be healed. Meanwhile, he needed a job.

An eight-year-old can herd cows, but herding cows is nevertheless a job, so Daft Willie became a cowherd. And it was while herding cows that he saw the car for the first time. He assumed there were lovers in it.

Willie knew about lovers. That is to say, he knew that lovers existed, and that they did unmentionable things to one another in dark places like copses and cinemas and cars; and that one did not speak of them. So he hurried the cows quickly past the bush beside which was parked the 1924 Morris Cowley Bullnose two-seater (he knew about cars, too, like any eight-year-old) and tried very hard not to look inside it in case he should behold sin.

He took his little herd into the cowshed for milking, went by a roundabout route to his home, ate supper, read a chapter from Leviticus to his father aloud, painstakingly, then went to bed to dream about lovers. The car was still there on the evening of the next day.

For all his innocence Willie knew that lovers did not do whatever it was that they did to one another for twenty-four hours at a stretch, so this time he went right up to the car and looked inside. It was empty. The ground beneath the engine was black and sticky with oil. Willie devised a new explanation: the car had broken down and had been abandoned by its driver. It did not occur to him to wonder why it had been semi-concealed in a bush.

When he arrived at the cowshed he told the farmer what he had seen. "There's a broken-down car on the path up by the main road."

The farmer was a big man with heavy sand-coloured eyebrows, which drew together when he was thinking. "Was there nobody about?"

"No and it was there yesterday."

"Why did you not tell me yesterday, then?"

Willie blushed. "I thought it was maybe… you know… lovers."

The farmer realised that Willie was not being coy, but was genuinely embarrassed. He patted the boy's shoulder. "Well, away home and leave it to me to deal with."

After the milking the farmer went to look for himself. It did occur to him to wonder why the car was semi-concealed. He had heard about the London stiletto murderer, and while he did not jump to the conclusion that the car had been abandoned by the killer, all the same he thought there might be a connexion between the car and some crime or other; so after supper he sent his eldest son into the village on horseback to telephone the police in Stirling.

The police arrived before his son got back from the phone. There were at least a dozen of them, every one apparently a nonstop tea drinker. The farmer and his wife were up half the night looking after them.

Daft Willie was summoned to tell his story again, repeating that he had first seen the car the previous evening, blushing again when he explained that he had assumed it contained lovers. All in all, it was their most exciting night of the war.

That evening, Percival Godliman, facing his fourth consecutive night in the office, went home to bathe, change, and pack a suitcase. He had a service flat in a block in Chelsea. It was small, though big enough for a single man, and it was clean and tidy except for the study, which the cleaning lady was not allowed to enter, and as a consequence was littered with books and papers. The furniture was all prewar, of course, but it was rather well chosen, and the flat had a comfortable air. There were leather club chairs and a gramophone in the iiving room, and the kitchen was full of hardly used labour-saving devices.

While his bath was filling he smoked a cigarette-he had taken to them lately; a pipe was too much fuss-and looked at his most valuable possession, a grimly fantastic medieva1 scene that was probably by Hieronymous Bosch. It was a family heirloom and Godliman had never sold it, even when he needed the money.

In the bath he thought about Barbara Dickens and her son Peter. He had not told anyone about her, not even Bloggs, although he had been about to mention her during their conversation about remarrying, but Colonel Terry had interrupted. She was a widow, her husband had been killed in action at the very beginning of the war. Godliman did not know how old she was, but she looked about forty, which was young for the mother of a twenty-two-year-old boy. She worked on decoding intercepted enemy signals, and she was bright, amusing, and very attractive. She was also rich. Godliman had taken her to dinner three times before the present crisis blew up. He thought she was in love with him.

She had contrived a meeting between Godliman and her son Peter, who was a captain. Godliman liked the boy. But he knew something that neither Barbara nor her son was aware of: Peter was going to France on D-Day.

And whether or not the Germans were there waiting for him depended on whether they caught Die Nadel.

He got out of the bath and took a long, careful shave and asked himself, Am I in love with her? He was not sure what love ought to feel like in middle age. Not, surely, the burning passion of youth. Affection, admiration, tenderness, and a trace of uncertain lust? If they amounted to love, he loved her.

And he needed to share his life, now. For years he had wanted only solitude and his research. Now the camaraderie of Military Intelligence was sucking him in: the parties, the all-night sessions when something big broke, the spirit of dedicated amateurism, the frantic pleasure-seeking of people to whom death is always close and never predictable; all these bad infected him. It would vanish after the war, he knew; but other things would remain: the need to talk to someone close about his disappointment and his triumphs, the need to touch someone else at night, the need to say, "There! Look at that! Isn't it fine?" War was gruelling and oppressive and frustrating and uncomfortable, but one had friends. If peace brought back loneliness, Godliman thought he would not be able to live with it.

Right now the feel of clean underwear and a crisply ironed shirt was the ultimate luxury. He put more fresh clothes in a case, then sat down to enjoy a glass of whisky before returning to the office. The military chauffeur in the commandeered Daimler outside could wait a little longer.

He was filling a pipe when the phone rang. He put down the pipe and lit a cigarette instead.

His phone was connected to the War Office switchboard. The operator told him that a Chief Superintendent Dalkeith was calling from Stirling.

He waited for the click of the connexion. "Godliman speaking."

"We've found your Morris Cowley," Dalkeith said without preamble.

"Where?"

"On the A80 just south of Stirling."

"Empty?"

"Aye, broken down. It's been there at least twenty-four hours. It was driven a few yards off the main road and hidden in a bush. A half-witted farm boy found it."

"Is there a bus stop or railway station within walking distance of the spot?"

"No."

"So it's likely our man had to walk or hitchhike after leaving the car."

"Aye."

"In that case, will you ask around?"

"We're already trying to find out whether anyone local saw him or gave him a lift."

"Good. Let me know… Meanwhile, I'll pass the news to the Yard. Thank you, Dalkeith."

"We'll keep In touch. Good-bye, sir."

Godliman put the phone on the hook and went into his study. He sat down with an atlas open to the road map of northern Britain. London, Liverpool, Carlisle, Stirling… Faber was heading for northeast Scotland.

Godliman wondered whether he should reconsider the theory that Faber was trying to get out. The best way out was west, via neutral Eire. Scotland's east coast, however, was the site of all sorts of military activity. Was it possible that Faber had the nerve to continue his reconnaissance, knowing that M15 was on his tail? It was possible, Godliman decided-he knew Faber had a lot of guts-but nevertheless unlikely. Nothing the man might discover in Scotland could be as important as the information he already had.

Therefore Faber was getting out via the east coast. Godliman ran over the methods of escape which were open to the spy: a light plane, landing on a lonely moor; a one-man voyage across the North Sea in a stolen vessel; a rendezvous with a U-boat, as Bloggs had speculated, off the coast; a passage in a merchant ship via a neutral country to the Baltic, disembarking in Sweden and crossing the border to occupied Norway… there were too many ways.

In any case the Yard must be told of the latest development. They would ask all Scots police forces to try to find someone who had picked up a hitchhiker outside Stirling. Godliman returned to the living room to phone, but the instrument rang before he got there. He picked it up. "Godliman speaking."

"A Mr Richard Porter is calling from Aberdeen."

"Oh!" Godliman had been expecting Bloggs to check in from Carlisle. "Put him on, please. Hello? Godliman speaking."

"Ah, Richard Porter here. I'm on the local Watch Committee up here."

"Yes, what can I do for you?"

"Well, actually, old boy, it's terribly embarrassing." Godliman controlled his impatience. "Go on."

"This chappie you're looking for-knife murders and so on. Well, I'm pretty sure I gave the bally fellow a lift in my own car."

Godliman gripped the receiver more tightly. "When?"

"Night before last. My car broke down on the A80 just outside Stirling. Middle of the bally night. Along comes this chappie, on foot, and mends it, just like that. So naturally-"

"Where did you drop him?"

"Right here in Aberdeen. Said he was going on to Banff. Thing is, I slept most of yesterday, so it wasn't until this afternoon-"

"Don't reproach yourself, Mr Porter. Thank you for calling."

"Well, good-bye."

Godliman jiggled the receiver and the War Office operator came back on the line. Godliman said: "Get Mr Bloggs for me, would you? He's in Carlisle."

"He's holding on for you right now, sir."

"Good!"

"Hello, Percy. What news?"

"We're on his trail again, Fred. He was identified in a garage in Carlisle, and he abandoned the Morris just outside Stirling and hitched a lift to Aberdeen."

"Aberdeen!"

"He must be trying to get out through the east door."

"When did he reach Aberdeen?"

"Probably early yesterday morning."

"In that case he won't have had time to get out, unless he was very quick indeed. They're having the worst storm in living memory up here. It started last night and it's still going on. No ships are going out and it's certainly too rough to land a plane."

"Good. Get up there as fast as you can. I'll start the local police moving in the meantime. Call me when you reach Aberdeen."

"I'm on my way."

When Faber woke up it was almost dark. Through the bedroom window he could see the last streaks of grey being inked out of the sky by the encroaching night. The storm had not eased; rain drummed on the roof and overflowed from a gutter, and the wind howled and gusted tirelessly.

He switched on the little lamp beside the bed. The effort tired him, and he slumped back onto the pillow. It frightened him to be this weak. Those who believe that might is right must always be mighty, and Faber was sufficiently self-aware to know the implications of his own ethics. Fear was never far from the surface of his emotions; perhaps that was why he had survived so long. He was chronically incapable of feeling safe. He understood, in that vague way in which one sometimes understands the most fundamental things about oneself, that his very insecurity was the reason he chose the profession of spy; it was the only way of life which could permit him instantly to kill anyone who posed him the slightest threat. The fear of being weak was part of the syndrome that included his obsessive independence, his insecurity, and his contempt for his military superiors.

He lay on the child's bed in the pink-walled bedroom and inventoried his body. He seemed to be bruised just about everywhere, but apparently nothing was broken. He did not feel feverish; his constitution had withstood bronchial infection despite the night on the boat. There was just the weakness. He suspected it was more than exhaustion. He remembered a moment, as he had reached the top of the ramp, when he had thought he was going to die; and he wondered whether he had inflicted on himself some permanent damage with the last mind-bending uphill dash.

He checked his possessions too. The can of photographic negatives was still taped to his chest, the stiletto was strapped to his left arm, and his papers and money were in the jacket pocket of his borrowed pyjamas.

He pushed the blankets aside and swung himself into a sitting position with his feet on the floor. A moment of dizziness came and went. He stood up. It was important not to permit himself the psychological attitudes of an invalid. He put on the dressing gown and went into the bathroom.

When he returned his own clothes were at the foot of the bed, clean and pressed: underwear, overalls, and shirt. Suddenly he remembered getting up sometime during the morning and seeing the woman naked in the bathroom; it had been an odd scene and he was not sure what it meant. She was very beautiful, he recalled. He was sure of that.

He dressed slowly. He would have liked a shave, but he decided to ask his host's permission before borrowing the blade on the bathroom shelf; some men were as possessive of their razors as they were of their wives. However, he did take the liberty of using the child's bakelite comb he found in the top drawer of the chest.

He looked into the mirror without pride. He had no conceit. He knew that some women found him attractive, and others did not; and he assumed this was so for most men. Of course, he had had more women than most men, but he attributed this to his appetite, not to his looks. His reflection told him he was presentable, which was all he needed to know.

He left the bedroom and went slowly down the stairs. Again he felt a wave of weakness; and again he willed himself to overcome it, gripping the bannister rail and placing one foot deliberately before the other until he reached the ground floor.

He paused outside the living room door and, hearing no noise, went on to the kitchen. He knocked and went in. The young couple were at the table, finishing supper.

The woman stood up when he entered. "You got up!" she said. "Are you sure you should?"

Faber permitted himself to be led to a chair. "Thank you," he said. "You really mustn't encourage me to pretend to be ill."

"I don't think you realise what a terrible experience you've been through," she said. "Do you feel like food?"

"I'm imposing on you-"

"Not at all. Don't be silly. I kept some soup hot for you."

Faber said, "You're so kind, and I don't even know your names."

"David and Lucy Rose." She ladled soup into a bowl and placed it on the table in front of him. "Cut some bread, David, would you?"

"I'm Henry Baker." Faber did not know why he had said that, he had no papers in that name. Henry Faber was the man the police were hunting, so he was right to have used his James Baker identity; but somehow he wanted this woman to call him Henry, the nearest English equivalent of his real name, Heinrich.

He took a sip of the soup, and suddenly he was ravenously hungry. He ate it all quickly, then the bread. When he'd finished Lucy laughed. She looked lovely when she laughed; her mouth opened wide, showing lots of even white teeth, and her eyes crinkled merrily at the corners. "More?" she offered.

"Thank you very much."

"I can see it doing you good. The colour is coming back to your cheeks."

Faber realised he felt physically better. He forced himself to eat his second helping more slowly, out of courtesy, but he still relished it.

David said, "How did you happen to be out in this storm?" It was the first time he had spoken.

"Don't badger him, David…"

"It's all right," Faber said quickly. "I was foolish, that's all. This is the first fishing holiday I've been able to have since before the war, and I just refused to let the weather spoil it. Are you a fisherman?"

David shook his head. "Sheep farmer."

"Do you have many employees?"

"Just one, old Tom."

"I suppose there are other sheep farms on the island."

"No. We live at this end, Tom lives at the other end, and in between there's nothing but sheep."

Faber nodded. Good, very good. A woman, a cripple, a child, and an old man… and he was already feeling much stronger. "How do you contact the mainland?" Faber said.

"There's a boat once a fortnight. It's due this Monday but it won't come if the storm keeps up. There's a radio transmitter in Tom's cottage, but we can only use that in emergencies. If I thought people might be searching for you, or if you needed urgent medical help, I should use it. But as things are I don't feel it's necessary. There's little point; nobody can come to fetch you off the island until the storm clears and when that happens the boat will come anyway."

"Of course." Faber's tone concealed his delight. The problem of how to contact the U-boat on Monday had been nagging at the back of his mind. He had seen an ordinary wireless set in the Roses' living room, and he would, if necessary, have been able to rig up a transmitter from that. But the fact that this Tom had a proper radio made everything so much simpler… "What does Tom need a transmitter for?"

"He's a member of the Royal Observer Corps. Aberdeen was bombed in July of 1940. There was no air raid warning. There were fifty casualties. That was when they recruited Tom. It's a good thing his hearing is better than his eyesight."

"I suppose the bombers come from Norway."

"I suppose so." Lucy stood up. "Let's go into the other room."

The two men followed her. Faber felt no weakness, no dizziness. He held the living room door for David, who wheeled himself close to the fire. Lucy offered Faber brandy. He declined. She poured one for her husband and herself.

Faber sat back and allowed himself to study them.

Lucy was really quite striking: she had an oval face, wide-set eyes of an unusual, cat-like amber colour and an abundance of rich, dark-red hair. Under the mannish fisherman's sweater and baggy trousers there was the suggestion of her very good, fullish figure. Dressed up in silk stockings and, say, a cocktail sort of dress, she might be very glamorous. David was also handsome; almost pretty, except for the shadow of a very dark beard. His hair was nearly black and his skin looked Mediterranean. He would have been tall if he had had legs in proportion to his arms. Faber suspected that those arms might be powerful, muscled from years of pushing the wheels of the chair.

An attractive couple; but there was something badly wrong between them. Faber was no expert on marriage, but his training in interrogation techniques had taught him to read the silent language of the body to know, from small gestures, when someone was frightened, confident, hiding something, or lying. Lucy and David rarely looked at one another, and never touched. They spoke to him more than to each other. They circled one another, like turkeys trying to keep in front of them a few square feet of vacant territory. The tension between them was enormous. They were like Churchill and Stalin, obliged temporarily to fight side by side, fiercely suppressing a deeper enmity. Faber wondered what the trauma was that lay at the back of their distance. This cosy little house must be an emotional pressure cooker, despite its rugs and its bright paintwork, its floral armchairs and blazing fires and framed watercolours.

To live alone, with only an old man and a child for company, with this thing between them… it reminded him of a play he had seen in London, by an American called Tennessee something-

Abruptly, David swallowed his drink and said, "I must turn in. My back's playing up." Faber got to his feet. "I'm sorry I've been keeping you up." David waved him down. "Not at all. You've been asleep all day-you won't want to go back to bed right away. Besides, Lucy would like to chat, I'm sure. It's just that I mistreat my back-backs were designed to share the load with the legs, you know."

Lucy said, "You'd better take two pills tonight then." She took a bottle from the top shelf of the bookcase, shook out two tablets and gave them to her husband.

He swallowed them dry. "I'll say good night." He wheeled himself out.

"Good night, David."

"Good night, Mr Rose."

After a moment Faber heard David dragging himself up the stairs, and wondered just how he did it.

Lucy spoke, as if to cover the sound of David. "Where do you live, Mr Baker?"

"Please call me Henry. I live in London."

"I haven't been to London for years. There's probably not much of it left."

"It's changed, but not as much as you might think. When were you last there?"

"Nineteen-forty." She poured herself another brandy. "Since we came here, I've only been off the island once, and that was to have the baby. One can't travel much these days, can one?"

"What made you come here?"

"Um." She sat down, sipped her drink, and looked into the fire.

"Perhaps I shouldn't-"

"It's all right. We had an accident the day we got married. That's how David lost his legs. He'd been training as a fighter pilot… we both wanted to run away, I think. I believe it was a mistake, but, as they say, it seemed like a good idea at the time."

"It's a reason for a healthy man to feel resentment."

She gave him a sharp look. "You're a perceptive man."

"It's obvious." He spoke very quietly. "So is your unhappiness."

She blinked nervously. "You see too much."

"It's not difficult. Why do you continue, if it's not working?"

"I don't know quite what to tell you."-or herself, for talking so openly to him. "Do you want clichés? The way he was before… the vows of marriage… the child… the war… If there's another answer, I can't find good words for it."

"Maybe guilt," Faber said. "But you're thinking of leaving him, aren't you?"

She stared at him, slowly shaking her head. "How do you know so much?"

"You've lost the art of dissembling in four years on this island. Besides, these things are so much simpler from the outside."

"Have you ever been married?"

"No. That's what I mean."

"Why not?… I think you ought to be."

It was Faber's turn to look away, into the fire. Why not, indeed? His stock answer to himself was his profession. But of course he could not tell her that, and anyway it was too glib. "I don't trust myself to love anyone that much." The words had come out without forethought-he was astonished to note-and he wondered whether they were true. A moment later he wondered how Lucy had got past his guard, when he had thought he was disarming her.

Neither of them spoke for a while. The fire was dying. A few stray raindrops found their way down the chimney and hissed in the cooling coals. The storm showed no sign of letting up. Faber found himself thinking of the last woman he had had. What was her name? Gertrud. It was seven years ago, but he could picture her now in the flickering fire: a round German face, fair hair, green eyes, beautiful breasts, much-too-wide hips, fat legs, bad feet; the conversational style of an express train; a wild, inexhaustible enthusiasm for sex… She had flattered him, admiring his mind (she said) and adoring his body (she had no need to tell him). She wrote lyrics for popular songs, and read them to him in a poor basement flat in Berlin; it was not a lucrative profession. He visualised her now in that untidy bedroom, lying naked, urging him to do more bizarre and erotic things with her; to hurt her, to touch himself, to lie completely still while she made love to him… He shook his head slightly to brush away the memories. He had not thought like that in all the years he had been celibate. Such visions were disturbing. He looked at Lucy.

"You were far away," she said with a smile.

"Memories," he said. "This talk of love…"

"I shouldn't burden you."

"You're not."

"Good memories?"

"Very good. And yours? You were thinking too."

She smiled again. "I was in the future, not the past."

"What do you see there?"

She seemed about to answer, then changed her mind. It happened twice. There were signs of tension about her eyes.

"I see you finding another man," Faber said. As he spoke he was thinking, Why am I doing this? "He is a weaker man than David, and less handsome, but it's at least partly for his weakness that you love him. He's clever, but not rich; compassionate without being sentimental; tender, loving." The brandy glass in her hand shattered under the pressure of her grip. The fragments fell into her lap and onto the carpet, and she ignored them. Faber crossed to her chair and knelt in front of her. Her thumb was bleeding. He took her hand. "You've hurt yourself." She looked at him. She was crying. "I'm sorry," he said.

The cut was superficial. She took a handkerchief from her trousers pocket and staunched the blood. Faber released her hand and began to pick up the pieces of broken glass, wishing he had kissed her when he'd had the chance. He put the shards on the mantel. "I didn't mean to upset you," he said. (Didn't he?)

She took away the handkerchief and looked at her thumb. It was still bleeding. (Yes, you did. And, God knows, you have.) "A bandage," he suggested. "In the kitchen."

He found a roll of bandage, a pair of scissors, and a safety pin. He filled a small bowl with hot water and returned to the living room.

In his absence she had somehow obliterated the evidence of tears on her face. She sat passively, limp, while he bathed her thumb in the hot water, dried it, and put a small strip of bandage over the cut. She looked all the time at his face, not at his hands; but her expression was unreadable.

He finished the job and stood back abruptly. This was silly: he had taken the thing too far. Time to disengage. "I think I'd better go to bed," he said.

She nodded.

"I'm sorry."

"Stop apologising," she told him. "It doesn't suit you."

Her tone was harsh. He guessed that she, too, felt the thing had got out of hand.

"Are you staying up?" he asked. She shook her head.

"Well…" He followed her through the hall and up the stairs, and he watched her climb, her hips moving gently.

At the top of the stairs, on the tiny landing, she turned and said in a low voice, "Good night."

"Good night, Lucy."

She looked at him for a moment. He reached for her hand, but she turned quickly away, entering her bedroom and closing the door without a backward look, leaving him standing there, wondering what was in her mind and-more to the point-what was really in his.

Bloggs drove dangerously fast through the night in a commandeered Sunbeam Talbot with a souped-up engine. The hilly, winding Scottish roads were slick with rain and, in a few low places, two or three inches deep in water. The rain drove across the windscreen in sheets. On the more exposed hilltops the gale-force winds threatened to blow the car off the road and into the soggy turf alongside. For mile after mile, Bloggs sat forward in the seat, peering through the small area of glass that was cleared by the wiper, straining his eyes to make out the shape of the road in front as the headlights battled with the obscuring rain. Just north of Edinburgh he ran over three rabbits, feeling the sickening bump as the tyres squashed their small bodies. He did not slow the car, but for a while afterward he wondered whether rabbits normally came out at night.

The strain gave him a headache, and his sitting position made his back hurt. He also felt hungry.

He opened the window for a cold breeze to keep him awake, but so much water came in that he was immediately forced to close it again. He thought about Die Nadel, or Faber or whatever he was calling himself now: a smiling young man in running shorts, holding a trophy. Well, so far Faber was winning this race.

He was forty-eight hours ahead and he had the advantage that only he knew the route that had to be followed. Bloggs would have enjoyed a contest with that man, if the stakes had not been so high, so bloody high.

He wondered what he would do if he ever came face to face with the man. I'd shoot him out of hand, he thought, before he killed me. Faber was a pro, and you didn't mess with that type. Most spies were amateurs: frustrated revolutionaries of the left or right, people who wanted the imaginary glamour of espionage, greedy men or lovesick women or blackmail victims. The few professionals were very dangerous indeed; they were not merciful men.

Dawn was still an hour or two away when Bloggs drove into Aberdeen. Never in his life had he been so grateful for street lights, dimmed and masked though they were. He had no idea where the police station was, and there was no one on the streets to give him direction so he drove around the town until he saw the familiar blue lamp (also dimmed).

He parked the car and ran through the rain into the building. He was expected. Godliman had been on the phone, and Godliman was now very senior indeed. Bloggs was shown into the office of Alan Kincaid, a detective chief-inspector in his mid-fifties. There were three other officers in the room; Bloggs shook their hands and instantly forgot their names. Kincaid said: "You made bloody good time from Carlisle."

"Nearly killed myself doing it," Bloggs replied, and sat down. "If you can rustle up a sandwich…"

"Of course." Kincaid leaned his head out of the door and shouted something. "It'll be here in two shakes," he told Bloggs.

The office had off-white walls, a plank floor, and plain hard furniture: a desk, a few chairs, and a filing cabinet. It was totally unrelieved: no pictures, no ornaments, no personal touches of any kind. There was a tray of dirty cups on the floor, and the air was thick with smoke. It smelled like a place where men had been working all night.

Kincaid had a small moustache, thin grey hair and spectacles. A big intelligent-looking man in shirtsleeves and braces, he spoke with a local accent, a sign that, like Bloggs, he had come up through the ranks, though from his age it was clear that his rise had been slower than Bloggs'.

Bloggs said: "How much do you know about all this?"

"Not much," Kincaid said. "But your governor, Godliman, did say that the London murders are the least of this man's crimes. We also know which department you're with, so we can put two and two together about this Faber…"

"What have you done so far?" Bloggs asked.

Kincaid put his feet on his desk. "He arrived here two days ago, right? That was when we started looking for him. We had the pictures- I assume every force in the country got them."

"Yes."

"We checked the hotels and lodging houses, the station and the bus depot. We did it quite thoroughly, although at the time we didn't know he had come here. Needless to say, we had no results. We're checking again, of course: but my opinion is that he probably left Aberdeen immediately."

A woman police constable came in with a cup of tea and a very thick cheese sandwich. Bloggs thanked her and greedily set about the sandwich.

Kincaid went on: "We had a man at the railway station before the first train left in the morning. Same for the bus depot. So, if he left the town, either he stole a car or he hitched a ride. We've had no stolen cars reported, so I figure he hitched-"

"He might have gone by sea," Bloggs said through a mouthful of wholemeal bread.

"Of the boats that left the harbour that day, none was big enough to stow away on. Since then, of course, nothing's gone out because of the storm."

"Stolen boats?"

"None reported."

Bloggs shrugged. "If there's no prospect of going out, the owners might not come to the harbour, in which case the theft of a boat might go unnoticed until the storm ends."

One of the officers in the room said, "We missed that one, chief."

"We did," Kincaid said.

"Perhaps the harbour-master could look around all the regular moorings," Bloggs suggested.

"I'm with you," Kincaid said. He was already dialling. After a moment he spoke into the phone.

"Captain Douglas? Kincaid. Aye, I know civilised people sleep at this hour. You haven't heard the worst: I want you to take a walk in the rain. Aye, you heard me right…" Kincaid put his hand over the mouthpiece. "You know what they say about seamen's language? It's true." He spoke into the phone again. "Go round all the regular moorings and make a note of any vessels not in their usual spot. Ignoring those you know to be legitimately out of port, give me the names and addresses and phone numbers, if you have them, of the owners. Aye. Aye, I know… I'll make it a double. All right, a bottle. And a good morning to you too, old friend." He hung up.

Bloggs smiled. "Salty?"

"If I did what he suggested I do with my truncheon, I'd never be able to sit down again." Kincaid became serious. "It'll take him about half an hour, then we'll need a couple of hours to check all the addresses. It's worth doing, although I still think he hitched a ride."

"So do I," Bloggs said.

The door opened and a middle-aged man in civilian clothes walked in. Kincaid and his officers stood up, and Bloggs followed.

Kincaid said, "Good morning, sir. This is Mr Bloggs. Mr Bloggs, Richard Porter."

They shook hands. Porter had a red face and a carefully cultivated moustache. He wore a double-breasted, camelcoloured overcoat. "How do you do. I'm the blighter that gave your chappie a lift to Aberdeen. Most embarrassing." He had no local accent.

Bloggs said, "How do you do." On first acquaintance Porter seemed to be exactly the kind of silly ass who would give a spy a lift half across the country. However, Bloggs realised the air of empty-headed heartiness might also mask a shrewd mind. He tried to be tolerant-he, too, had made embarrassing mistakes in the last few hours.

"I heard about the abandoned Morris. I picked him up at that very spot."

"You've seen the picture?"

"Yes. Of course, I didn't get a good look at the chappie, because it was dark for most of the journey. But I saw enough of him, in the light of the flashlight when we were under the hood, and afterward when we entered Aberdeen. It was dawn by then. If I'd only seen the picture. I'd say it could have been him. Given the spot at which I picked him up, so near to where the Morris was found, I say it was him."

"I agree," Bloggs said. He thought for a moment, wondering what useful information he could get out of this man. "How did Faber impress you?"

Porter said promptly: "He struck me as exhausted, nervous, and determined, in that order. Also, he was no Scotsman."

"How would you describe his accent?"

"Neutral. The accent minor public school, Home Counties. Jarred with his clothes, if you know what I mean. He was wearing overalls. Another thing I didn't remark until afterwards."

Kincaid interrupted to offer tea. Everyone accepted. The policeman went to the door.

"What did you talk about?"

"Oh, nothing much."

"But you were together for hours."

"He slept most of the way. He mended the car-it was only a disconnected lead, but I'm afraid I'm helpless with machines-then he told me his own car had broken down in Edinburgh and he was going to Banff. Said he didn't really want to go through Aberdeen, as he didn't have a Restricted Area Pass. I'm afraid I… I told him not to worry about that. Said I'd vouch for him if we were stopped. Makes one feel such a bloody fool, you know, but I felt I owed him a favour. He had got me out of a bit of a hole, y'know."

"Nobody's blaming you, sir," Kincaid said.

Bloggs was, but he didn't say so. Instead, "There are very few people who have met Faber and can tell us what he's like. Can you think hard and tell me what kind of a man you took him to be?"

"He woke up like a soldier," Porter said. "He was courteous, and seemed intelligent. Firm handshake. I take notice of handshakes."

"Anything else?"

"Something else about when he woke up…" Porter's florid face creased up in a frown. "His right hand went to his left forearm, like this." He demonstrated.

"That's something," Bloggs said. "That'd be where he keeps the knife. A sleeve-sheath."

"Nothing else, I'm afraid."

"And he said he was going to Banff. That means he's not. I wager you told him where you were going before he told you where he was going."

"I believe I did," Porter nodded. "Well, well."

"Either Aberdeen was his destination, or he went south after you dropped him. Since he said he was going north, he probably didn't."

"That kind of second-guessing could get out of hand," Kincaid said.

"Sometimes it does." Kincaid was definitely no fool. "Did you tell him that you're a magistrate?"

"Yes."

"That's why he didn't kill you."

"What? Good Lord."

"He knew you'd be missed."

The door opened again. The man who walked in said, "I've got your information, and I hope it was fuckin' worth it."

Bloggs grinned. This was, undoubtedly, the harbormaster: a short man with cropped white hair, smoking a large pipe and wearing a blazer with brass buttons.

Kincaid said, "Come in, captain. How did you get so wet? You shouldn't go out in the rain."

"Fuck off." the Captain said, bringing delighted expressions to the other faces in the room. Porter said, "Morning, captain."

"Good morning, Your Worship."

Kincaid said, "What have you got?"

The captain took off his cap and shook drops of rain from its crown. "The Marie II has gone missing," he said. "I saw her come in on the afternoon the storm began. I didn't see her go out, but I know she shouldn't have sailed again that day. However, it seems she did."

"Who owns her?"

"Tam Halfpenny. I telephoned him. He left her in her mooring that day and hasn't seen her since."

"What kind of vessel is she?" Bloggs asked.

"A small fishing boat, sixty feet and broad in the beam. Stout little craft. Inboard motor. No particular style-the fishermen round here don't follow the pattern book when they build boats."

"Let me ask you," Bloggs said. "Could that boat have survived the storm?"

The captain paused in the act of putting a match to his pipe. "With a very skillful sailor at the helm maybe. Maybe not."

"How far might he have got before the storm broke?"

"Not far-a few miles. The Marie II was not tied up until evening."

Bloggs stood up, walked around his chair and sat down again. "So where is he now?"

"At the bottom of the sea, in all probability, the bloody fool." The captain's statement was not without relish.

Bloggs could take no satisfaction in the likelihood that Faber was dead. It was too inconclusive. The discontent spread to his body, and he felt restless, itchy. Frustrated. He scratched his chin; he needed a shave. "I'll believe it when I see it," he said.

"You won't."

"Please save your guesswork," Bloggs said. "We want your information, not pessimism." The other men in the room suddenly remembered that, despite his youth, he was the senior officer there. "Let's, if you don't mind, review the possibilities. One: he left Aberdeen by land and someone else stole the Marie II. In that case he has probably reached his destination by now, but he won't have left the country because of the storm. We already have all the other police forces looking for him, and that's all we can do about number one.

"Two: he's still in Aberdeen. Again, we have this possibility covered; we're still looking for him.

"Three: he left Aberdeen by sea. I think we're agreed this is the strongest option. Let's break it down. Three A: he found shelter somewhere, or cracked up somewhere mainland or island. Three B: he died." He did not, of course, mention three C: he transferred to another vessel-probably a U-boat-before the storm broke… he probably didn't have time, but he might've. And if he caught a U-boat, we've had it, so might as well forget that one.

"If he found shelter," Bloggs went on, "or was shipwrecked, we'll find evidence sooner or later-either the Marie II, or pieces of it. We can search the coastline right away and survey the sea as soon as the weather clears sufficiently for us to get a plane up. If he's gone to the bottom of the ocean we may still find bits of the boat floating.

"So we have three courses of action to take. We continue the searches already going on; we mount a new search of the coastline, working north and south from Aberdeen; and we prepare for an air-sea search the minute the weather improves."

Bloggs had begun to pace up and down as he spoke. He stopped now and looked around. "Comments?"

The late hour had got to all of them. Bloggs' sudden access of energy jerked them out of a creeping lethargy. One leaned forward, rubbing his hands, another tied his shoelaces; a third put his jacket on. They wanted to go to work. There were no comments, no questions.

Faber was awake. His body probably needed sleep despite the fact that he had spent the day in bed; but his mind was hyperactive, turning over possibilities, sketching scenarios… thinking about women, and about home.

Now that he was so close to getting out, his memories of home became near painfully sweet. He thought of things like sausages fat enough to eat in slices, and motor cars on the right-hand side of the road, and really tall trees, and most of all his own language: words with guts and precision, hard consonants and pure vowels and the verb at the end of the sentence where it ought to be, finality and meaning in the same climactic terminal.

Thoughts of climaxes brought Gertrud to mind again: her face underneath his, makeup washed away by his kisses, eyes closing tight in pleasure then opening again to look with delight into his, mouth stretched wide in a permanent gasp, saying, "Ja, liebling, ja…"

It was silly. He had led the life of a monk for seven years, but she had no reason to do the same.

She would have bad a dozen men since Faber. She might even be dead, bombed by the RAF or murdered by the maniacs because her nose was half an inch too long or run over by a motor car in the blackout. Anyway, she would hardly remember him. He would probably never see her again. But she was important. She stood for something… for him to think about.

He did not normally permit himself the indulgence of sentiment. There was in his nature, in any case, a very cold streak, and he cultivated it. It protected him. Now, though, he was so close to success, and he felt free-not to relax his vigilance, but at least to fantasise a little.

The storm was his safeguard so long as it continued. He would simply contact the U-boat with Tom's radio on Monday, and its captain would send a dinghy into the bay as soon as the weather cleared. If the storm ended before Monday, there was a slight complication: the supply boat. David and Lucy would naturally expect him to take the boat back to the mainland.

Lucy came into his thoughts in vivid, full-colour images he could not quite control. He saw her striking amber eyes watching him as he made a bandage for her thumb; her outline walking up the stairs in front of him, even clad as she was in shapeless man's clothing; her heavy rounded breasts as she stood naked in the bathroom; and, as the images developed into fantasy, she leaned over the bandage and kissed his mouth, turned back on the stairs and took him in her arms, stepped out of the bathroom and placed his hands on her breasts.

He turned restlessly in the small bed, cursing the imagination that sent him dreams the like of which he hadn't suffered since his schooldays. At that time, before he'd experienced the reality of sex, he had constructed elaborate sexual scenarios featuring the older women with whom he came into daily contact: the starchy Matron; Professor Nagel's dark, thin, intellectual wife; the shopkeeper in the village who wore red lipstick and talked to her husband with contempt. Sometimes he put all three of them into one orgiastic fantasy. When, at age fifteen, he'd seduced, classically, a housemaid's daughter in the twilight of a West Prussian forest, he let go of the imaginary orgies because they were so much better than the disappointing real thing. As young Heinrich he had been greatly puzzled by this; where was the blinding ecstasy, the sensation of soaring through the air like a bird, the mystical fusion of two bodies into one? The fantasies became painful, reminding him of his failure to make them real. Later, of course, the reality improved, and he formed the view that ecstasy came not from a man's pleasure in a woman, but from each one's pleasure in each other. He had voiced that opinion to his elder brother, who seemed to think it banal, a truism rather than a discovery; and before long he saw it that way too.

He became a good lover, eventually. He found sex interesting, as well as physically pleasant. He was never a great seducer… the thrill of conquest was not what he wanted. But he was expert at giving and receiving sexual gratification, without the expert's illusion that technique was all. For some women he was a highly desirable man, and the fact that he didn't know this only served to make him even more attractive.

He tried to remember how many women he had had: Anna, Gretchen, Ingrid, the American girl, those two whores in Stuttgart… he could not recall them all, but there could not have been more than about twenty. And Gertrud, of course.

None of them, he thought, had been quite as beautiful as Lucy. He gave an exasperated sigh; he had let this woman affect him just because he was close to home and had been so careful for so long. He was annoyed with himself. It was undisciplined; he must not relax until the assignment was over, and this was not over, not quite. Not yet.

There was the problem of avoiding going back on the supply boat. Several solutions came to mind: perhaps the most promising was to incapacitate the island's inhabitants, meet the boat himself and send the boatman away with a cock-and-bull story. He could say he was visiting the Roses, had come out on another boat; that he was a relative, or a bird-watcher… anything. It was too small a problem to engage his full attention at the moment. Later, when and if the weather improved, he would select something.

He really had no serious problems. A lonely island, miles off the coast, with four inhabitants. It was an ideal hideout. From now on, leaving Britain was going to be as easy as breaking out of a baby's playpen. When he thought of the situations he had already come through, the people he had killed-the five Home Guard men, the Yorkshire lad on the train, the Abwehr messenger-he considered himself now to be sitting pretty.

An old man, a cripple, a woman, and a child… Killing them would be so simple.

Lucy, too, lay awake. She was listening. There was a good deal to hear. The weather was an orchestra: rain drumming on the roof, wind fluting in the eaves of the cottage, sea performing glissandi with the beach. The old house talked too, creaking in its joints as it suffered the buffeting of the storm. Within the room there were more sounds: David's slow, regular breathing, threatening but never quite achieving a snore as he slept deeply under the influence of a double dose of soporific, and the quicker, shallow breaths of Jo, sprawled comfortably across a camp bed beside the far wall.

The noise is keeping me awake, Lucy thought, then immediately: Who am I trying to fool? Her wakefulness was caused by Henry, who had looked at her naked body, and had touched her hands gently as he bandaged her thumb, and who now lay in bed in the next room, fast asleep. Probably.

He had not told her much about himself, she realised; only that he was unmarried. She did not know where he had been born; his accent gave no clue. He had not even hinted at what he did for a living, though she imagined he must be a professional man, perhaps a dentist or a soldier. He was not dull enough to be a solicitor, too intelligent to be a journalist, and doctors could never keep their profession secret for longer than five minutes. He was not rich enough to be a barrister, too self-effacing to be an actor. She would bet on the Army.

Did he live alone, she wondered? Or with his mother? Or a woman? What did he wear when he wasn't fishing? Did he have a motor car? Yes, he would; something rather unusual. He probably drove very fast.

That thought brought back memories of David's two-seater, and she closed her eyes tightly to shut out the nightmare images. Think of something else, think of something else.

She thought of Henry again, and realised-accepted-the truth: she wanted to make love to him.

It was the kind of wish that, in her scheme of things, afflicted men but not women. A woman might meet a man briefly and find him attractive, want to get to know him better, even begin to fail in love with him, but she did not feel an immediate physical desire, not unless she was… abnormal. She told herself that this was ridiculous; that what she needed was to make love with her husband, not to copulate with the first eligible man who came along. She told herself she was not that kind.

All the same, it was pleasant to speculate. David and Jo were fast asleep; there was nothing to stop her from getting out of bed, crossing the landing, entering his room, sliding nto bed next to him…

Nothing to stop her except character, good breeding and a respectable upbringing.

If she were going to do it with anybody, she would do it with someone like Henry. He would be kind, and gentle, and considerate; he would not despise her for offering herself like a Soho streetwalker.

She turned over in the bed, smiling at her own foolishness; how could she possibly know whether he would despise her? She had only known him for a day, and he had spent most of that day asleep.

Still, it would be nice to have him look at her again, his expression of admiration tinged with some kind of amusement. It would be nice to feel his hands, to touch his body, to squeeze against the warmth of his skin.

She realised that her body was responding to the images in her mind. She felt the urge to touch herself, and resisted it as she had done for four years. At least I haven't dried up, like an old crone, she thought.

She moved her legs, and sighed as a warm sensation spread through her. This was getting unreasonable. It was time to go to sleep. There was just no way she would make love to Henry, or to anyone else, tonight. With that thought she got out of bed and went to the door.

Faber heard a footfall on the landing, and he reacted automaticalty.

His mind cleared instantly of the idle, lascivious thoughts it had been occupied with. He swung his legs to the floor and slid out from under the bedclothes in a single fluid movement; then silently crossed the room to stand beside the window in the darkest corner, the stiletto knife in his right hand.

He heard the door open, heard the intruder step inside, heard the door close again. At that point he started to think rather than react. An assassin would have left the door open for a quick escape, and it occurred to him that there were a hundred reasons why it was impossible that an assassin should have found him here.

He ignored the thought-he had survived this long by catering to the one-in-a-thousand chance. The wind dropped momentarily, and he heard an indrawn breath, a faint gasp from beside his bed, enabling him to locate the intruder's exact position. He moved.

He had her on the bed, face down, with his knife at her throat and his knee in the small of her back before he accepted that the intruder was a woman, and a split-second later acknowledged her identity. He eased his grip, reached out to the bedside table and switched on the light. Her face was pale in the dim glow of the lamp.

Faber sheathed the knife before she could see it. He took his weight off her body. "I am very sorry," he said. "I-"

She turned onto her back and looked up at him in astonishment as he straddled her. It was outrageous, but somehow the man's sudden reaction had excited her more than ever. She began to giggle.

"I thought you were a burglar," Faber said, knowing he must sound ridiculous.

"And where would a burglar come from, may I ask?" The colour rushed back to her cheeks in a blush.

She was wearing a very loose, old-fashioned flannel nightgown that covered her from her throat to her ankles. Her dark-red hair spread across Faber's pillow in disarray. Her eyes seemed very large, and her lips were wet. "You are remarkably beautiful," Faber said quietly. She closed her eyes.

Faber bent over her and kissed her mouth. Her lips parted immediately, and she returned his kiss. With his fingertips he stroked her shoulders, her neck and her ears. She moved underneath him. He wanted to kiss her for a long time, to explore her mouth and savour the intimacy, but he realised that she had no time for tenderness. She reached inside his pyjama bottoms and squeezed. She moaned softly and began to breathe hard.

Still kissing her, Faber reached for the light and killed it. He pulled away from her and took off his pyjama jacket. Quickly, so that she would not wonder what he was doing, he tugged at the can stuck to his chest, ignoring the sting as the sticky tape was jerked away from his skin. He slid the photographs under the bed. He also unbuttoned the sheath on his left forearm and dropped that. He pushed the skirt of her nightgown up to her waist.

"Quickly," she said. "Quickly."

Faber lowered his body to hers.

She did not feel the least bit guilty afterward. Just content, satisfied, replete. She had had what she so badly wanted. She lay still, eyes closed, stroking the bristly hair at the back of his neck, enjoying the rough tickling sensation on her hands.

After a while she said: "I was in such a rush…"

"It's not over yet," he told her.

She frowned in the dark. "Didn't you?…" She had been wondering.

"No, I didn't. You hardly did."

She smiled. "I beg to differ."

He turned on the light and looked at her. "We'll see." He slipped down the bed, between her thighs and kissed her belly. His tongue flicked in and out of her navel. It felt quite nice, she thought. His head went lower. Surely he doesn't want to kiss me there. He did. And he did more than kiss. His lips pulled at the soft folds of her skin. She was paralysed by shock as his tongue began to probe in the crevices and then, as he parted her lips with his fingers, to thrust deep inside her… Finally his relentless tongue found a tiny, sensitive place, so small she had not known it existed, so sensitive that his touch was almost painful at first. She forgot her shock as she was overwhelmed by the most piercing sensation she had ever experienced. Unable to restrain herself, she moved her hips up and down, faster and faster, rubbing her slippery flesh over his mouth, his chin, his nose, his forehead, totally absorbed in her own pleasure. It built and built, feeding on itself, until she felt utterly possessed by joy and opened her mouth to scream, at which point he clapped his hand over her face. But she screamed in her throat as the climax went on and on, ending in something that felt like an explosion and left her so drained that she thought she would never, never, be able to get up.

Her mind seemed to go blank for a while. She knew vaguely that he still lay between her legs, his bristly cheek against the soft inside of her thigh, his lips moving gently, affectionately… Eventually she said, "Now I know what Lawrence means."

He lifted his head. "I don't understand."

She sighed. "I didn't realise it could be like that. It was lovely."

"Was?"

"Oh, God, I've no more energy…"

He changed position, kneeling astride her chest, and she realised what he wanted her to do, and for the second time she was frozen by shock; it was just too big… but suddenly she wanted to do it, she needed to take him into her mouth; she lifted her head, and her lips closed around him, and he gave a soft groan.

He held her head in his hands, moving it to and fro, moaning quietly. She looked at his face. He was staring at her, drinking in the sight of what she was doing. She wondered what she would do when he… came… and she decided she didn't care, because everything else had been so good with him that she knew she would enjoy even that.

But it didn't happen. When she thought he was to the point of losing control he stopped, moved away, lay on top of her, and entered her again. This time it was very slow, and relaxed, like the rhythm of the sea on the beach; until he put his hands under her hips and grasped the mounts of her bottom, and she looked at his face and knew that now, now he was ready to shed his self-control and lose himself in her. And that excited her more than anything, so that when he finally arched his back, his face screwed up into a mask of pain, and groaned deep in his chest, she wrapped her legs around his waist and abandoned herself to the ecstasy of it, and then, after so long, she heard the trumpets and cymbals that Lawrence had promised.

They were quiet for a long time. Lucy felt warm, as if she were glowing; she had never felt so warm in all her life. When their breathing subsided she could hear the storm outside. Henry was heavy on top of her but she did not want him to move… she liked his weight, and the faint tang of perspiration from his white skin. From time to time he moved his head to brush his lips against her cheek.

He was the perfect man to have this with. He knew more about her body than she did. His own body was very beautiful… broad and muscular at the shoulders, narrow at the waist and hips with long, strong, hairy legs. She thought he had some scars, she was not sure. Strong, gentle and handsome. Perfect. She also knew she would never fall in love with him, never want to run off with him, marry him. Deep inside him, she sensed, there was also something quite cold and hard. His reaction, and explanation, when she came into his room was extraordinary… she wouldn't think about it… Some part of him that was committed elsewhere… She would have to hold him at arm's length and use him cautiously, like an addictive drug.

Not that she would have much time to become addicted; he would, after all, be gone in little more than a day.

She stirred, and he immediately rolled off her and onto his back. She lifted herself on one elbow and looked at his naked body. Yes, he did have scars: a long one on his chest, and a small mark like a star-it might have been a burn-on his hip. She rubbed his chest with the palm of her hand.

"It's not very ladylike," she said, "but I want to say thank you."

He reached out to touch her cheek, and smiled. "You're very ladylike."

"You don't know what you've done. You've-" He put a finger over her lips. "I know what I've done." She bit his finger, then put his hand on her breast. He felt for her nipple. She said, "Please do it again."

"I don't think I can," he said. But he did.

She left him a couple of hours after dawn. There was a small noise from the other bedroom, and she seemed suddenly to remember that she had a husband and a son in the house. Faber wanted to tell her that it didn't matter, that neither he nor she had the least reason to care what the husband knew or thought; but he held his tongue and let her go. She kissed him once more, very wetly, then she stood up, smoothed her rumpled nightgown over her body, and went out.

He watched her fondly. She's quite something. he thought. He lay on his back and looked at the ceiling. She was quite naive, and very inexperienced. but all the same she had been very good. I could perhaps fall in love with her, he thought.

He got up and retrieved the film can and the knife in its sheath from under the bed. He wondered whether to keep them on his person. He might want to make love to her in the day… He decided to wear the knife-he would feel undressed without it-and leave the can elsewhere. He put it on top of the chest of drawers and covered it with his papers and his wallet. He knew very well that he was breaking the rule, but this was certain to be his last assignment, and he felt entitled to enjoy a woman. Besides, it would hardly matter if she or her husband saw the pictures-assuming they understood their meaning, which was unlikely, what could they do?

He lay down on the bed, then got up again. Years of training simply would not allow him to take such risks. He put the can with his papers into the pocket of his jacket. Now he could relax better.

He heard the child's voice, then Lucy's tread as she went down the stairs, and then David dragging himself to the bathroom. He would have to get up and have breakfast with the household. It was all right. He did not want to sleep now anyway.

He stood at the rain-streaked window watching the weather rage until he heard the bathroom door open. Then he put on his pyjama top and went in to shave. He used David's razor, without permission.

It did not seem to matter now.

Erwin Rommel knew from the start that he was going to quarrel with Heinz Guderian.

General Guderian was exactly the kind of aristocratic Prussian officer Rommel hated. He had known him for some time. They had both, in their early days, commanded the Goslar Jaeger Battalion, and they had met again during the Polish campaign. When he left Africa he had recommended Guderian to succeed him, knowing the battle was lost; the manoeuvre was a failure because at that time Guderian had been out of favour with Hitler and the recommendation was rejected out of hand.

The General was, Rommel felt, the kind of man who put a silk handkerchief on his knee to protect the crease in his trousers while he sat drinking in the Herrenklub. He was an officer because his father had been an officer and his grandfather had been rich. Rommel, the schoolteacher's son who had risen from lieutenant colonel to field marshal in only four years, despised the military caste of which he had never been a member.

Now he stared across the table at the general, who was sipping brandy appropriated from the French Rothschilds. Guderian and his sidekick, General van Geyr, had come to Rommel's headquarters at La Roche Guyon in northern France to tell him how to deploy his troops. Romme1's reactions to such visits ranged from impatience to fury. In his view the General Staff were there to provide reliable intelligence and regular supplies, and he knew from his experience in Africa that they were incompetent at both tasks.

Guderian had a cropped, light-coloured moustache, and the corners of his eyes were heavily wrinkled so that he always appeared to be grinning at you. He was tall and handsome, which did nothing to endear him to a short, ugly, balding man, as Rommel thought of himself. He seemed relaxed, and any German general who would relax at this stage of the war was surely a fool. The meal they had just finished-local veal and wine from further south-was no excuse.

Rommel looked out of the window and watched the rain dripping from the lime trees into the courtyard while he waited for Guderian to begin the discussion. When he finally spoke it was clear the general had been thinking about the best way to make his point, and had decided to approach it sideways.

"In Turkey," he began, "the British Ninth and Tenth armies, with the Turkish army, are grouping at the border with Greece. In Yugoslavia the partisans are also concentrating. The French in Algeria are preparing to invade the Riviera. The Russians appear to be mounting an amphibious invasion of Sweden. In Italy the Allies are ready to march on Rome. There are smaller signals: a general kidnapped in Crete, an intelligence officer murdered at Lyon, a radar post attacked at Rhodes, an aircraft sabotaged with abrasive grease and destroyed at Athens, a commando raid on Sagvaag, an explosion in the oxygen factory at Boulogne-sur-Seine, a train derailed in the Ardennes, a petrol dump fired at Boussens… I could go on. The picture is clear. In occupied territories there is ever-increasing sabotage and treachery; on our borders, we see preparations for invasion everywhere. None of us doubts that there will be a major allied offensive this summer, and we can be equally sure that all this skirmishing is intended to confuse us about where the attack will come."

The general paused. The lecture, delivered in schoolmaster style, was irritating Rommel, and he took the opportunity to interrupt. "This is why we have a General Staff: to digest such information, evaluate enemy activity, and forecast his future moves."

Guderian smiled indulgently. "We must also be aware of the limitations of such crystal-gazing. You have your ideas about where the attack will come, I'm sure. We all do. Our strategy must take into account the possibility that our guesses are wrong."

Rommel now saw where the general's roundabout argument was leading, and he suppressed the urge to shout his disagreement before the conclusion was stated.

"You have four armoured divisions under your command," Guderian continued. "The 2nd Panzers at Amiens, the 116th at Rouen, the 21st at Caen, and the 2nd SS at Toulouse. General von Geyr has already proposed to you that these should be grouped well back from the coast, all together, ready for fast retaliation at any point. Indeed, this stratagem is a principle of OKW policy.

"Nevertheless, you have not only resisted van Geyr's suggestion, but have in fact moved the 21st right up to the Atlantic coast."

"And the other three must be moved to the coast as soon as possible," Rommel burst out. "When will you people learn? The Allies control the air. Once the invasion is launched there will be no further major movements of armour. Mobile operations are no longer possible. If your precious panzers are in Paris when the Allies land on the coast, they will stay in Paris pinned down by the RAF until the Allies march along the Boulevard St-Michel. I know-they've done it to me. Twice." He paused to draw breath. "To group our armour as a mobile reserve is to make it useless. There will be no counterattack. The invasion must be met on the beaches, when it is most vulnerable, and pushed back into the sea."

The flush receded from his face as he began to expound his own defensive strategy. "I have created underwater obstacles, strengthened the Atlantic Wall, laid minefields, and driven stakes into every meadow that might be used to land aircraft behind our lines. All my troops are engaged in digging defences whenever they're not actually training.

"My armoured divisions must be moved to the coast. The OKW reserve should be redeployed in France. The Ninth and Tenth SS divisions have to be brought back from the Eastern Front. Our whole strategy must be to prevent the Allies from securing a beachhead, because once they achieve that, the battle is lost… perhaps even the war."

Guderian leaned forward, his eyes narrowing in that infuriating half-grin.

"You want us to defend the European coastline from Tromso in Norway and around the Iberian peninsula to Rome. Where shall we get the armies from?"

"That question should have been asked in 1938," Rommel muttered.

There was an embarrassed silence after this remark, which was all the more shocking coming from the notoriously apolitical Rommel.

Von Geyr broke the tension. "Where do you believe the attack will come from, Field Marshal?"

Rommel had been waiting for this. "Until recently I was convinced of the Pas de Calais theory. However, last time I was with the Fuehrer I was impressed by his arguments in favour of Normandy. I am also impressed by his instinct, and even more by its record of accuracy. Therefore I believe our panzers should be deployed primarily along the Normandy coast, with perhaps one division at the mouth of the Somme, this last supported by forces outside my group."

Guderian shook his head. "No, no, no. It's far too risky."

"I'm prepared to take this argument to Hitler," Rommel threatened.

"Then that's what you will have to do," Guderian said, "because I won't go along with your plan unless…"

"Well?" Rommel was surprised that the general's position might be qualified.

Guderian shifted in his seat, reluctant to give a concession to so stubborn an antagonist as Rommel. "You may know that the Fuehrer is waiting for a report from an unusually effective agent in England."

"I remember." Rommel nodded. "Die Nadel."

"Yes. He has been assigned to assess the strength of the First United States Army Group under Patton's command in the eastern part of England.

"If he finds-as I am certain he will-that that army is large, strong, and ready to move, then I shall continue to oppose you. However, if he finds that FUSAG is somehow a bluff-a small army masquerading as an invasion force-then I shall concede that you are right, and you shall have your panzers. Will you accept that compromise?"

Rommel nodded his large head in assent. "It depends on Die Nadel, then."