Eye Of The Needle

PART FIVE

The cottage was terribly small, Lucy realised quite suddenly. As she went about her morning chores lighting the stove, making porridge, tidying up, dressing Jo, the walls seemed to press in on her. After all, it was only four rooms linked by a little passage with a staircase; you couldn't move without bumping into someone else. If you stood still and listened you could hear what everyone was doing: Henry was running water into the washbasin, David sliding down the stairs, Jo chastising his teddy bear in the living room. Lucy would have liked some time on her own before meeting people; time to let the events of the night settle into her memory, recede from the forefront of her thoughts so that she could act normally without a conscious effort.

She guessed she was not going to be good at deception. It did not come naturally to her. She had no experience at it. She tried to think of another occasion in her life when she had deceived someone close to her, and she could not. It was not that she lived by such lofty principles; the thought of lying did not trouble her so much. It was mostly that she had just never had reason for dishonesty.

David and Jo sat down at the kitchen table and began to eat. David was silent, Jo talked non-stop just for the pleasure of making words. Lucy did not want food.

"Aren't you eating?" David asked casually.

"I've had some." There, her first lie. It wasn't so bad.

The storm made the claustrophobia worse. The rain was so heavy that Lucy could hardly see the barn from the kitchen window. One felt even more shut in when to open a door or window was a major operation. The low, steel-grey sky and the wisps of mist created a permanent twilight. In the garden the rain ran in rivers between the rows of potato plants, and the herb patch was a shallow pond. The sparrow's nest under the disused outhouse roof had been washed away and the birds flitted in and out of the eaves, panicking.

Lucy heard Henry coming down the stairs, and she felt better. For some reason, she was quite sure that he was very good at deception.

"Good morning!" Faber said heartily. David, sitting at the table in his wheelchair, looked up and nodded pleasantly. Lucy busied herself at the stove. There was guilt written all over her face, Faber noted, and he groaned inwardly. But David did not seem to notice his wife's expression.

Faber began to think that David was rather obtuse… at least about his wife…

Lucy said, "Sit down and have some breakfast."

"Thank you very much."

David said, "Can't offer to take you to church, I'm afraid. Hymn-singing on the wireless is the best we can do."

Faber realised it was Sunday. "Are you church-going people?"

"No," David said. "You?"

"No."

"Sunday is much the same as any other day for farmers," David continued. "I'll be driving over to the other end of the island to see my shepherd. You could come, if you feel up to it."

"I'd like to," Faber told him. It would give him a chance to reconnoitre. He would need to know the way to the cottage where the transmitter was.

"Would you like me to drive you?"

David looked at him sharply. "I can manage quite well." There was a strained moment of silence. "In this weather, the road is just a memory. We'll be a lot safer with me at the wheel."

"Of course." Faber began to eat.

"It makes no difference to me," David persisted. "I don't want you to come if you think it would be too much-"

"Really, I'd be glad to."

"Did you sleep all right? It didn't occur to me you might still be tired. I hope Lucy didn't keep you up too late."

Farber willed himself not to look at Lucy, but out of the corner of his eye he could see that she was suddenly flushed. "I slept all day yesterday," he said, trying to fix David's eyes with his own.

It was no use. David was looking at his wife. He knew. She turned her back.

David would be hostile now, and antagonism was part way to suspicion. It was not, as he'd decided before, dangerous, but it might be annoying.

David seemed to recover his composure quickly. He pushed his chair away from the table and wheeled himself to the back door. "I'll get the jeep out of the barn," he said, mostly to himself. He took an oilskin off a hook and put it over his head, then opened the door and rolled out.

In the few moments the door was open, the storm blew into the little kitchen, leaving the floor wet. When it shut, Lucy shivered and began to mop the water from the tiles. Faber reached out and touched her arm. "Don't," she said, nodding her head toward Jo.

"You're being silly," Faber told her.

"I think he knows," she said.

"But, if you reflect for a minute, you don't really care whether he knows or not, do you?"

"I'm supposed to."

Faber shrugged. The jeep's horn sounded impatiently outside. Lucy handed him an oilskin and a pair of Wellington boots. "Don't talk about me," she said.

Faber put on the waterproof clothes and went to the front door. Lucy followed him, closing the kitchen door on Jo.

With his hand on the latch, Faber turned and kissed her, and she did what she wanted, she kissed him back, hard, then turned and went into the kitchen. Faber ran through the rain, across a sea of mud, and jumped into the jeep beside David, who pulled away immediately.

The vehicle had been specially adapted for the legless man to drive. It had a hand throttle, automatic gearshift, and a handle on the rim of the wheel to enable the driver to steer one-handed. The folded-up wheelchair slid into a special compartment behind the driver's seat. There was a shotgun in a rack above the windscreen.

David drove competently. He had been right about the road; it was no more than a strip of heath worn bare by the jeep's tires. The rain pooled in the deep ruts. The car slithered about in the mud. David seemed to enjoy it. There was a cigarette between his lips, and he wore an incongruous air of bravado. Perhaps, Faber thought, this was his substitute for flying.

"What do you do when you're not fishing?" he said around the cigarette.

"Civil servant," Faber told him.

"What sort of work?"

"Finance. I'm just a cog in the machine."

"Treasury?"

"Mainly."

"Interesting work?" he persisted.

"Fairly." Faber summoned up the energy to invent a story. "I know a bit about how much a given piece of engineering ought to cost, and I spend most of my time making sure the taxpayer isn't being overcharged."

"Any particular sort of engineering?"

"Everything from paper clips to aircraft engines."

"Ah, well. We all contribute to the war effort in our own way."

It was, of course, an intentionally snide remark, and David would naturally have no idea why Faber did not resent it. "I'm too old to fight," Faber said mildly.

"Were you in the first lot?"

"Too young."

"A lucky escape."

"Doubtless."

The track ran quite close to the cliff edge, but David did not slow down.

It crossed Faber's mind that he might want to kill them both. He reached for a grab handle.

"Am I going too fast for you?" David asked.

"You seem to know the road."

"You look frightened."

Faber ignored that, and David slowed down a little, apparently satisfied that he had made some kind of point.

The island was fairly flat and bare, Faber observed. The ground rose and fell slightly, but as yet he had seen no hills. The vegetation was mostly grass, with some ferns and bushes but few trees: there was little protection from the weather. David Rose's sheep must be hardy, Faber thought.

"Are you married?" David asked suddenly.

"No."

"Wise man."

"Oh, I don't know."

"I'll wager you do well for yourself in London. Not to mention-"

Faber had never liked the nudging, contemptuous way some men talked about women. He interrupted sharply, "I should think you're extremely fortunate to have your wife."

"Oh?"

"Yes."

"Nothing like variety, though, eh?"

"I haven't had the opportunity to discover the merits of monogamy." Faber decided to say no more, anything he said was fuel to the fire. No question, David was becoming annoying.

"I must say, you don't look like a government accountant. Where's the rolled umbrella and the bowler hat?" Faber attempted a thin smile. "And you seem quite fit for a pen-pusher."

"I ride a bicycle."

"You must be quite tough, to have survived that wreck."

"Thank you."

"You don't look too old to be in the army either."

Faber turned to look at David. "What are you driving at?" he asked calmly.

"We're there," David said.

Faber looked out of the windscreen and saw a cottage very similar to Lucy's, with stone walls, a slate roof and small windows. It stood at the top of a hill, the only hill Faber had seen on the island, and not much of a hill at that. The house had a squat, resilient look about it. Climbing up to it, the jeep skirted a small stand of pine and fir trees. Faber wondered why the cottage had not been built in the shelter of the trees.

Beside the house was a hawthorn tree in bedraggled blossom. David stopped the car. Faber watched him unfold the wheelchair and ease himself out of the driving seat into the chair; he would have resented an offer of help.

They entered the house by a plank door with no lock. They were greeted in the hall by a black-and-white collie: a small broad-headed dog who wagged his tail but did not bark. The layout of the cottage was identical with that of Lucy's, but the atmosphere was different: this place was bare, cheerless and none too clean.

David led the way into the kitchen, where old Tom, the shepherd, sat by an old-fashioned wood-burning kitchen range, warming his hands. He stood up.

"This is Tom McAvity." David said.

"Pleased to meet you," Tom said formally.

Faber shook his hand. Tom was a short man, and broad, with a face like an old tan suitcase. He was wearing a cloth cap and smoking a very large briar pipe with a lid. His grip was firm and the skin of his hand felt like sandpaper. He had a very big nose. Faber had to concentrate hard to understand what he was saying; his Scots accent was very broad.

"I hope I'm not going to be in the way," Faber said. "I only came along for the ride."

David wheeled himself up to the table. "I don't suppose we'll do much this morning, Tom, just take a look around."

"Aye. We'll have some tay before we go, though."

Tom poured strong tea into three mugs and added a shot of whisky to each. The three men sat and sipped it in silence, David smoking a cigarette and Tom drawing gently at his huge pipe, and Faber felt certain that the other two spent a great deal of time together in this way, smoking and warming their hands and saying nothing.

When they had finished their tea Tom put the mugs in the shallow stone sink and they went out to the jeep. Faber sat in the back. David drove slowly this time, and the dog, which was called Bob, loped alongside, keeping pace without apparent effort. It was obvious that David knew the terrain very well as he steered confidently across the open grassland without once getting bogged down in swampy ground. The sheep looked very sorry for themselves. With their fleece sopping wet, they huddled in hollows, or close to bramble bushes, or on the leeward slopes, too dispirited to graze. Even the lambs were subdued, hiding beneath their mothers. Faber was watching the dog when it stopped, listened for a moment, and then raced off at a tangent.

Tom had been watching too. "Bob's found something," he said. The jeep followed the dog for a quarter of a mile. When they stopped Faber could hear the sea; they were close to the island's northern edge. The dog was standing at the brink of a small gully. When the men got out of the car they could hear what the dog had heard, the bleating of a sheep in distress, and they went to the edge of the gully and looked down. The animal lay on its side about twenty feet down, balanced precariously on the steeply sloping bank, one foreleg at an awkward angle. Tom went down to it, treading cautiously, and examined the leg. "Mutton tonight," he called.

David got the gun from the jeep and slid it down to him. Tom put the sheep out of its misery.

"Do you want to rope it up?" David called. "Aye-unless our visitor here wants to come and give me a hand."

"Surely," Faber said. He picked his way down to where Tom stood. They took a leg each and dragged the dead animal back up the slope. Faber's oilskin caught on a thorny bush and he almost fell before he tugged the material free with a loud ripping sound.

They threw the sheep into the jeep and drove on. Faber's shoulder felt very wet, and he realised he had torn away most of the back of the oilskin.

"I'm afraid I've ruined this slicker," he said.

"All in a good cause," Tom told him.

Soon they returned to Tom's cottage. Faber took off the oilskin and his wet donkey jacket, and Tom put the jacket over the stove to dry. Faber sat close to it.

Tom put the kettle on, then went upstairs for a new bottle of whisky. Faber and David warmed their wet hands.

The gunshot made both men jump. Faber ran into the hall and up the stairs. David followed, stopping his wheelchair at the foot of the staircase.

Faber found Tom in a small, bare room, leaning out of the window and shaking his fist at the sky. "Missed," Tom said.

"Missed what?"

"Eagle."

Downstairs, David laughed.

Tom put the shotgun down beside a cardboard box. He took a new bottle of whisky from the box and led the way downstairs.

David was already back in the kitchen, close to the heat. "She was the first animal we've lost this year," he said, his thoughts returning to the dead sheep. "Aye," Tom said.

"We'll fence the gully this summer."

"Aye."

Faber sensed a change in the atmosphere: it was not the same as it had been earlier. They sat, drinking and smoking as before, but David seemed restless. Twice Faber caught the man staring at him.

Eventually David said, "We'll leave you to butcher the ewe, Tom."

"Aye."

David and Faber left. Tom did not get up, but the dog saw them to the door.

Before starting the jeep David took the shotgun from its rack above the windscreen, reloaded it, and put it back. On the way home he underwent another change of mood-a surprising one-and became chatty. "I used to fly Spitfires. Lovely kites. Four guns in each wing-American Brownings. Fired one thousand two hundred and sixty rounds a minute. The Jerries prefer cannon, of course. Their Me-l09s only have two machine guns. A cannon does more damage but our Brownings are faster, and more accurate."

"Really?" Faber said it politely.

"They put cannon in the Hurricanes later, but it was the Spitfire that won the Battle of Britain."

Faber found his boastfulness irritating. "How many enemy aircraft did you shoot down?"

"I lost my legs while I was training."

Faber glanced at his face: expressionless, but it seemed stretched as though the skin would break. "No, I haven't killed a single German, yet," David said.

Faber became very alert. He had no idea what David might have deduced or discovered, but there now seemed little doubt that the man believed something was up, and not just Faber's night with his wife. Faber turned slightly sideways to face David, braced himself with his foot against the transmission tunnel on the floor, rested his right hand lightly on his left forearm. He waited.

"Are you interested in aircraft?" David asked.

"No."

"It's become a national pastime, I gather: aircraft spotting. Like bird-watching. People buy books on aircraft identification. Spend whole afternoons on their backs, looking at the sky through telescopes. I thought you might be an enthusiast."

"Why?"

"Pardon?"

"What made you think I might be an enthusiast?"

"Oh, I don't know." David stopped the jeep to light a cigarette. They were at the island's midpoint, five miles from Tom's cottage with another five miles to go to Lucy's. David dropped the match on the floor. "Perhaps it was the film I found in your jacket pocket-"

As he spoke, he tossed the lighted cigarette at Faber's face and reached for the gun above the windscreen.

Sid Cripps looked out of the window and cursed under his breath. The meadow was full of American tanks-at least eighty of them. He realised there was a war on, and all that, but if only they'd asked him he would have offered them another field, where the grass was not so lush. By now the caterpillar tracks would have chewed up his best grazing.

He pulled on his boots and went out. There were some Yank soldiers in the field, and he wondered whether they had noticed the bull. When he got to the stile he stopped and scratched his head. There was something funny going on.

The tanks had not chewed up his grass. They had left no tracks. But the American soldiers were making tank tracks with a tool something like a harrow.

While Sid was trying to figure it all out, the bull noticed the tanks. It stared at them for a while, then pawed the ground and lumbered into a run.

It was going to charge a tank.

"Daft bugger, you'll break your head," Sid muttered.

The soldiers were watching the bull too. They seemed to think it was very funny.

The bull ran full-tilt into the tank, its horns piercing the armour-plated side of the vehicle. Sid hoped fervently that British tanks were stronger than the American ones.

There was a loud hissing noise as the bull worked its horns free. The tank collapsed like a deflated balloon. The American soldiers fell all over each other, laughing.

It was all quite strange.

Percival Godliman walked quickly across Parliament Square, carrying an umbrella. He wore a dark striped suit under his raincoat, and his black shoes were highly polished-at least they had been until he stepped out into the rain. It was not every day-come to that, it was not every year-that he had a private audience with Mr Churchill.

A career soldier would have been nervous at going with such bad news to see the supreme commander of the nation's armed forces. Godliman was not nervous; a distinguished historian had nothing to fear, he told himself, from soldiers and politicians, not unless his view of history was a good deal more radical than Godliman's was. Not nervous, then, but worried.

Distinctly worried.

He was thinking about the effort, the forethought, the care, the money, and the manpower that had gone into the creation of the totally ersatz First United States Army Group stationed in Eeast Anglia: the four hundred landing ships, made of canvas and scaffolding floated on oil drums, that thronged the harbours and estuaries; the carefully manufactured inflatable dummies of tanks, artillery, trucks, half-tracks, and even ammunition dumps; the complaints planted in the correspondence columns of the local newspapers about the decline in moral standards since the arrival of thousands of American troops in the area; the phony oil dock at Dover, designed by Britain's most distinguished architect and built out of cardboard and old sewage pipes by craftsmen borrowed from film studios; the carefully faked reports transmitted to Hamburg by German agents who had been "turned" by the XX Committee; and the incessant radio chatter, broadcast for the benefit of the German listening posts, consisting of messages compiled by professional writers of fiction, and including such as "1/5th Queen's Royal Regiment report a number of civilian women, presumably unauthorised, in the baggage train. What are we going to do with them-take them to Calais?" No question, a good deal had been achieved. The signs indicated that the Germans had bought it. And now the whole elaborate deception had been put in jeopardy because of one damned spy: a spy Godliman had failed to catch. Which, of course, was the reason for his command performance today.

His short birdlike paces measured the Westminster pavement to the small doorway at No. 2, Great George Street. The armed guard standing beside the wall of sandbags examined his pass and waved him in. He crossed the lobby and went down the stairs to Churchill's underground headquarters.

It was like going below decks on a battleship. Protected from bombs by a four-foot-thick ceiling of reinforced concrete, the command post featured steel bulkhead doors and roof props of ancient timber. As Godliman entered the map room a cluster of youngish people with solemn faces emerged from the conference room beyond. An aide followed them a moment later, and spotted Godliman.

"You're very punctual, sir," the aide said. "He's ready for you."

Godliman stepped into the small, comfortable conference room. There were rugs on the floor and a picture of the king on the wall. An electric fan stirred the tobacco smoke in the air. Churchill sat at the head of an old mirror-smooth table in the centre of which was a statuette of a faun: the emblem of Churchill's own deception outfit, the London Controlling Section. Godliman decided not to salute. Churchill said, "Sit down, Professor."

Godliman suddenly realised that Churchill was not a big man but he sat like a big man: shoulders hunched, elbows on the arms of his chair, chin lowered, legs apart. He was wearing a solicitor's black-and-stripes: short black jacket and striped grey trousers with a spotted blue bow tie and a brilliant white shirt. Despite his stocky frame and his paunch, the hand holding the fountain pen was delicate, thin-fingered. His complexion was baby-pink. The other hand held a cigar, and on the table beside the papers stood a glass containing what looked like whisky. He was making notes in the margin of a typewritten report, and as he scribbled he occasionally muttered. Godliman was not really awed by the great man. As a peacetime statesman Churchill had been, in Godliman's view, something of a disaster. However, the man had the qualities of a great warrior chieftain, and Godliman very much respected him for that. (Churchill modestly denied being the British lion, saying that he merely was privileged to give the roar; Godliman thought that assessment was just about right.) He looked up abruptly now. "I suppose there's no doubt this damned spy has discovered what we're up to?"

"None whatsoever, sir," Godliman said.

"You think he's got away?"

"We chased him to Aberdeen. It's almost certain that he left there two nights ago in a stolen boat, presumably for a rendezvous in the North Sea. However, he can't have been far out of port when the storm blew up. He may have met the U-boat before the storm hit, but it's unlikely. In all probability he drowned. I'm sorry we can't offer more definite information."

"So am I," Churchill said, and suddenly he seemed angry, though not with Godliman. He got out of his chair and went over to the clock on the wall, staring as if mesmerised at the inscription, Victoria R.I., Ministry of Works, 1889. Then as if he had forgotten that Godliman was there, he began to pace up and down alongside the table, muttering to himself. Godliman was able to make out the words, and what he heard astonished him. The great man was mumbling: "This stocky figure, with a slight stoop, striding up and down, suddenly unconscious of any presence beyond his own thoughts…" It was as if Churchill were acting out a Hollywood screenplay that he wrote as he went along.

The performance ended as abruptly as it had begun, and if the man knew he had been behaving eccentrically, he gave no sign of it. He sat down, handed Godliman a sheet of paper and said, "This is the German order of battle as of last week."

Godliman read:

'Russian front: 122 infantry divisions, 25 panzer divisions, 19 miscellaneous divisions; Italy amp; Balkans: 39 infantry divisions, 9 panzer divisions, 4 miscellaneous divisions; Western front: 64 infantry divisions, 12 panzer divisions, 12 miscellaneous divisions; Germany: 3 infantry divisions, 1 panzer division, 4 miscellaneous divisions.'

Churchill said: "Of those twelve panzer divisions in the west, only one is actually on the Normandy coast. The great SS divisions, Das Reich and Adolf Hitler, are at Toulouse and Brussels respectively and show no signs of moving. What does an this tell you, professor?"

"Our deception and cover plans seem to have been successfull," Godliman answered, and realised the trust Churchill had placed in him. Until this moment, Normandy had never been mentioned to him, not by his uncle Colonel Terry or anybody else, though he had deduced as much, knowing as he did about the artificial buildup aimed at Calais. Of course, he still did not know the date of the invasion, D-Day, and was grateful that he did not.

"Totally successful," Churchill said. "They are confused and uncertain, and their best guesses about our intentions are wildly wrong. And yet…" he paused for effect, "And yet, despite all that…" He picked up another piece of paper from the table and read it aloud. "'Our chances of holding the beachhead, particularly after the Germans get their buildup, are only fifty-fifty.'"

He put his cigar down, and his voice became quite soft. "It has taken the total military and industrial might of the whole English-speaking world-the greatest civilisation since the Roman Elmpire-four years to win this fifty-fifty chance. If this spy gets out, we lose even that. Which is to say, we lose everything."

He stared at Godliman for a moment, then picked up his pen with a frail white hand. "Don't bring me probabilities, professor. Bring me Die Nadel."

He looked down and began to write. After a moment Godliman got up and quietly left the room.

Cigarette tobacco burns at 800 degrees centigrade. However, the coal at the end of the cigarette is normally surrounded by a thin layer of ash. To cause a burn, the cigarette has to be pressed against the skin for the better part of a second a glancing touch will hardly be felt. This applies even to the eyes; blinking is the fastest involuntary reaction of the human body. Only amateurs throw cigarettes, and David Rose was an amateur; a thoroughly frustrated and action-starved amateur. Professionals ignore them.

Faber ignored the lighted cigarette that David Rose threw at him. He was right, because the cigarette glanced off his forehead and fell to the metal floor of the jeep. He made a grab for David's gun, which was an error. He should, he instantly realised, have drawn his stiletto and stabbed David: David might have shot him first but David had never before pointed a gun at a human being, let alone killed somebody, so he would almost certainly have hesitated and in that moment Faber could have killed him. Faber decided he could blame his recent lapse into humanity for such intolerable miscalculation. It would be his last.

David had both hands on the midsection of the gun-left hand on the barrel, right hand around the breech-and had pulled the weapon about six inches from its rack when Faber got a one-handed grip on the muzzle. David tugged the gun toward himself, but for a moment Faber's grasp held the gun pointed at the windscreen.

Faber was a strong man, but David was exceptionally strong. His shoulders, arms and wrists had moved his body and his wheelchair for four years, and the muscles had become abnormally developed. Furthermore he had both hands on the gun in front of him, and Faber was holding on with one hand at an awkward angle. David tugged again, more determinedly this time, and the muzzle slipped from Faber's grasp.

At that instant, with the shotgun pointed at his belly and David's finger curling around the trigger, Faber felt very close to death.

He jerked upward, catapulting himself out of his seat. His head hit the canvas roof of the jeep as the gun exploded with a crash that numbed the ears and produced a physical pain behind the eyes. The window by the passenger seat shattered into small pieces and the rain blew in through the empty frame. Faber twisted his body and fell back, not onto his own seat but across David. He got both hands to David's throat and squeezed his thumbs.

David tried to bring the gun around between their bodies to fire the other barrel, but the weapon was too big. Faber looked into his eyes, and saw… what? Exhilaration. Of course the man finally had a chance to fight for his country. Then his expression changed as his body felt the lack of oxygen and he began to fight for breath.

David released his grip on the gun and brought both elbows back as far as he could, then punched Faber's lower ribs with a powerful double jab. Faber screwed up his face in pain, but he held his grip on David's throat, knowing he could withstand David's punches longer than David could hold his breath.

David must have had the same thought. He crossed his forearms between their bodies and pushed Faber away; then, when the gap was a few inches wide, he brought his hands up in an upward-and-outward blow against Faber's arms, breaking the stranglehold. He bunched his right fist and swung downward with a powerful but unscientific punch that landed on Faber's cheekbone and brought water to his eyes.

Faber replied with a series of body jabs; David continued to bruise his face. They were too close together to do real damage to each other in a short time, but David's greater strength began to tell.

Almost in admiration, Faber realised that David had shrewdly picked the time and place for the fight: he had had the advantages of surprise, the gun, and the confined space in which his muscle counted for much and Faber's better balance and greater manoeuvrability counted for little. He had only erred, really, in his bravado-understandable perhaps-about finding the film can, giving Faber a moment of warning.

Faber shifted his weight slightly and his hip came into contact with the gearshift, throwing the transmission into forward. The engine was still running and the car jerked, throwing him off balance. David used the opportunity to release a long straight left that-more by luck than by judgment-caught Faber flush on the chin and threw him clear across the cab of the jeep. His head cracked against the A-post, he slumped with his shoulder on the door handle, the door opened, and he fell out of the car in a backward somersault to land on his face in the mud.

For a moment he was too dazed to move. When he opened his eyes he could see nothing but flashes of blue lightning against a misty red background. He heard the engine of the jeep racing. He shook his head trying to clear the fireworks from his vision, and struggled onto his hands and knees. The sound of the jeep receded and then came closer again. He turned his head toward the noise, and as the colours in front of his eyes dissolved and disappeared he saw the vehicle bearing down on him.

David was going to run him over.

With the front bumper less than a yard from his face he threw himself sideways. He felt a blast of wind. A fender struck his outflung foot as the jeep roared past, its heavy-gauge tyres tearing up the spongy turf and spitting mud. He rolled over twice in the wet grass, then got to one knee. His foot hurt. He watched the jeep turn in a tight circle and come for him again.

He could see David's face through the windscreen. The young man was leaning forward, hunched over the steering wheel, his lips actually drawn back over his teeth in a savage, almost crazy, grin… apparently the frustrated warrior imagining himself in the cockpit of a Spitfire, coming down out of the sun at an enemy plane with all eight Browning machine guns blazing 1,260 rounds per minute.

Faber moved toward the cliff edge. The jeep gathered speed. Faber knew that, for a moment at least, he was incapable of running. He looked over the cliff-a rocky, almost vertical slope-to the angry sea a hundred feet below. The jeep was coming straight down the cliff edge toward him. Faber looked up and down for a ledge, or even a foothold. There was none. The jeep was four or five yards away, travelling at something like forty miles per hour. Its wheels were less than two feet from the cliff edge. Faber dropped flat and swung his legs out into space, supporting his weight on his forearms as he hung on the brink.

The wheels passed him within inches. A few yards further on one tyre actually slipped over the edge. For a moment Faber thought the whole vehicle would slide over and fall into the sea below, but the other three wheels dragged the jeep to safety.

The ground under Faber's arms shifted. The vibration of the jeep's passing had loosened the earth. He felt himself slip a fraction. One hundred feet below, the sea boiled among the rocks. Faber stretched one arm to its farthest extent and dug his fingers deep into the soft ground. He felt a nail tear, and ignored it. He repeated the process with his other arm. With two hands anchored in the earth he pulled himself upward. It was agonisingly slow, but eventually his head drew level with his hands, his hips reached firm ground, and he was able to swivel around and roll away from the edge.

The jeep was turning again. Faber ran toward it.

His foot was painful, but not, he decided, broken. David accelerated for another pass. Faber turned and ran at right angles to the jeep's direction, forcing David to turn the wheel and consequently slow down.

Faber knew he could not keep this up much longer; he was certain to tire before David did. This had to be the last pass.

He ran faster. David steered an interception course, headed for a point in front of Faber. Faber doubled back, and the jeep zigzagged. It was now quite close. Faber broke into a sprint, his course forcing David to drive in a tight circle. The jeep was getting slower and Faber was getting closer.

There were only a few yards between them when David realised what Faber was up to. He steered away but it was too late. Faber rushed to the jeep's side and threw himself upward, landing face down on the top of the canvas roof.

He lay there for a few seconds, catching his breath. His injured foot felt as if it was being held in a fire; his lungs ached.

The jeep was still moving. Faber drew the stiletto from its sheath under his sleeve and cut a long, jagged tear in the canvas roof. The material flapped downward and Faber found himself staring at the back of David's head.

David looked up and back; a look of astonishment crossed his face. Faber drew back his arm for a knife thrust…

David jammed the throttle open and heaved the wheel around. The jeep leaped forward and lifted on two wheels as it screeched around in a tight curve.

Faber struggled to stay on. The jeep, still gathering speed, crashed down onto four wheels, then lifted again. It teetered precariously for a few yards, the wheels slipped on the sodden ground, and the vehicle toppled onto its side with a grinding crash.

Faber was thrown several yards and landed awkwardly, the breath knocked out of him by the impact. It was several seconds before he could move.

The jeep's crazy course had once again taken it perilously close to the cliff.

Faber saw his knife in the grass a few yards away.

He picked it up, then turned to the jeep.

Somehow, David had got himself and his wheelchair out through the ripped roof, and he was now sitting in the chair and pushing himself away along the cliff edge. Faber, running after him, had to acknowledge his courage.

David must have heard the footsteps, because just before Faber caught up with the chair it stopped dead and spun around; and Faber glimpsed a heavy wrench in David's hand.

Faber crashed into the wheelchair, overturning it. His last thought was that both of them and the chair might end up in the sea below and then the wrench hit the back of his head and he blacked out.

When he came to, the wheelchair lay beside him, but David was nowhere to be seen. He stood up and looked around in dazed puzzlement.

"Here."

The voice came from over the cliff. David must have just been able to hit him with the wrench before being flung from the chair and over the edge.

Faber crawled to the cliff and looked over.

David had one hand around the stem of a bush that grew just under the lip of the cliff. The other hand was jammed into a small crevice in the rock.

He hung suspended, just as Faber had a few minutes earlier. His bravado had gone now.

"Pull me up, for God's sake," he called hoarsely.

Faber leaned closer. "How did you know about the film?" he said.

"Help me, please."

"Tell me about the film."

"Oh, God." David made a mighty effort to concentrate. "When you went to Tom's outhouse you left your jacket drying in the kitchen, Tom went upstairs for more whisky and I went through your pockets and I found the negatives."

"And that was evidence enough for you to try to kill me?"

"That, and what you did with my wife in my house… no Englishman would behave like that "

Faber could not help laughing. The man was a boy, after all. "Where are the negatives now?"

"In my pocket…"

"Give them to me, and I'll pull you up."

"You'll have to take them. I can't let go. Hurry…"

Faber lay flat on his stomach and reached down, under David's oilskin, to the breast pocket of his jacket. He sighed in relief as his fingers reached the film can and carefully withdrew it. He looked at the films; they all seemed to be there. He put the can in the pocket of his jacket, buttoned the flap, and reached down to David again. No more mistakes. He took hold of the bush David was clinging to and uprooted it with a savage jerk.

David screamed, "No!" and scrabbled desperately for grip as his other hand slipped inexorably out of the crack in the rock.

"It's not fair," he screamed, and then his hand came away from the crevice.

He seemed to hang in midair for a moment, then dropped, bouncing twice against the cliff on his way down, until he hit the water with a splash.

Faber watched for a while to make sure he did not come up again. "Not fair? Not fair? Don't you know there's a war on?"

He looked down at the sea for some minutes. Once he thought he saw a flash of yellow oilskin on the surface but it was gone before he could focus on it. There was just the sea and the rocks.

Suddenly he felt terribly tired. His injuries penetrated his consciousness one by one: the damaged foot, the bump on his head, the bruises all over his face. David Rose had been something of a fool, also a braggart and a poor husband, and he had died screaming for mercy; but he had been a brave man, and he had died for his country, which had been his contribution. Faber wondered whether his own death would be as good. He turned away from the cliff edge and walked back toward the overturned jeep.

Percival Godliman felt refreshed, determined, even-rare for him-inspired. When he reflected on it, this made him uncomfortable. Pep-talks were for the rank-and-file, and intellectuals believed themselves immune from inspirational speeches. Yet, although he knew that the great man's performance had been carefully scripted, the crescendos and diminuendos of the speech predetermined like a symphony, nevertheless it had worked on him, as effectively as if he had been the captain of the school cricket team hearing last-minute exhortations from the games master. He got back to his office itching to do something.

He dropped his umbrella in the umbrella stand, hung up his wet raincoat, and looked at himself in the mirror on the inside of the cupboard door. Without doubt something had happened to his face since he became one of England's spycatchers. The other day he had come across a photograph of himself taken in 1936, with a group of students at a seminar in Oxford. In those days he actually looked older than he did now: pale skin, wispy hair, the patchy shave and ill-fitting clothes of a retired man. The wispy hair had gone; he was now bald except for a monkish fringe. His clothes were those of a business executive, not a teacher. It seemed to him-he might, he supposed, have been imagining it-that the set of his jaw was firmer, his eyes were brighter, and he took more care shaving. He sat down behind his desk and lit a cigarette. That innovation was not welcome; he had developed a cough, tried to give it up, and discovered that he had become addicted. But almost everybody smoked in wartime Britain, even some of the women. Well, they were doing men's jobs; they were entitled to masculine vices. The smoke caught in Godliman's throat, making him cough. He put the cigarette out in the tin lid he used for an ashtray (crockery was scarce).

The trouble with being inspired to perform the impossible, he reflected, was that the inspiration gave you no clues to the practical means. He recalled his college thesis about the travels of an obscure mediaeval monk called Thomas of the Tree. Godliman had set himself the minor but difficult task of plotting the monk's itinerary over a five-year period. There had been a baffling gap of eight months when he had been either in Paris or Canterbury but Godliman had been unable to determine which, and this had threatened the value of the whole project. The records he was using simply did not contain the information. If the monk's stay had gone unrecorded, then there was no way to find out where he had been and that was that. With the optimism of youth, young Godliman had refused to believe that the information was just not there, and he had worked on the assumption that somewhere there had to be a record of how Thomas had spent those months despite the well-known fact that almost everything that happened in the Middle Ages went unrecorded. If Thomas was not in Paris or Canterbury he must have been in transit between the two, Godliman had argued; and then he had found shipping records in an Amsterdam museum that showed that Thomas had boarded a vessel bound for Dover that got blown off course and was eventually wrecked on the Irish coast. This model piece of historical research was what got Godliman his professorship.

He might try applying that kind of thinking to the problem of what had harpened to Faber.

It was most likely that Faber had drowned. If he had not, then he was probably in Germany by now.

Neither of those possibilities presented any course of action Godliman could follow, so they should be discounted. He must assume that Faber was alive and had reached land somewhere. He left his office and went down one flight of stairs to the map room. His uncle, Colonel Terry, was there, standing in front of the map of Europe with a cigarette between his lips. Godliman realised that this was a familiar sight in the War Office these days: senior men standing entranced at maps, silently making their own computations of whether the war would he won or lost. He guessed it was because all the plans had been made, the vast machine had been set in motion, and for those who made the big decisions there was nothing to do but wait and see if they had been right.

Terry saw bin come in and said, "How did you get on with the great man?"

"He was drinking whisky." Godliman said.

"He drinks all day. But it never seems to make any difference to him." Terry said "What did he say?"

"He wants Die Nadel's head on a platter." Godliman crossed the room to the wall map of Great Britain and put a finger on Aberdeen. "If you were sending a U-hoat in to pick up a fugitive spy, what would you think was the nearest the sub could safely come to the coast?"

Terry stood beside him and looked at the map. "I wouldn't want to come closer than the three-mile limit. But for preference I'd stop ten miles out."

"Right." Godliman drew two pencil lines parallel to the coast, three miles and ten miles out respectively. "Now, if you were an amateur sailor setting out from Aberdeen in a smallish fishing boat, how far would you go before you began to get nervous?"

"You mean, what's a reasonable distance to travel in such a boat?"

"Indeed."

Terry shrugged. "Ask the Navy. I'd say fifteen or twenty miles."

"I agree." Godliman drew an arc of twenty miles radius with its centre on Aberdeen. "Now if Faber is alive, he's either back on the mainland or somewhere within this space." He indicated the area bounded by the parallel lines and the arc.

"There's no land in that area."

"Have we got a bigger map?"

Terry pulled open a drawer and got out a large-scale map of Scotland. He spread it on top of the chest. Godliman copied the pencil marks from the smaller map onto the larger.

There was still no land within the area.

"But look," Godliman said. Just to the east of the ten-mile limit was a long, narrow island.

Terry peered closer. "Storm Island," he read. "How apt."

Godliman snapped his fingers. "Could be…"

"Can you send someone there?"

"When the storm clears. Bloggs is up there. I'll get a plane laid on for him. He can take off the minute the weather improves." He went to the door.

"Good luck," Terry called after him.

Godliman took the stairs two at a time to the next floor and entered his offlce. He picked up the phone. "Get Mr Bloggs in Aberdeen, please."

While he waited he doodled on his blotter, drawing the island. It was shaped like the top half of a walking stick, with the crook at the western end.

It must have been about ten miles long and perhaps a mile wide. He wondered what sort of place it was: a barren lump of rock, or a thriving community of farmers? If Faber was there he might still be able to contact his U-boat; Bloggs would have to get to the island before the submarine.

"I have Mr Bloggs," the switchboard girl said.

"Fred?"

"Hello, Percy."

"I think he's on an island called Storm Island."

"No, he's not," Bloggs said. "We've just arrested him." (He hoped.)

The stiletto was nine inches long, with an engraved handle and a stubby little crosspiece. Its needlelike point was extremely sharp. Bloggs thought it looked like a highly efficient killing instrument. It had recently been polished.

Bloggs and Detective Chief-Inspector Kincaid stood looking at it, neither man wanting to touch it.

"He was trying to catch a bus to Edinburgh," Kincaid said. "A P.C. spotted him at the ticket office and asked for his identification. He dropped his suitcase and ran. A woman bus conductor hit him over the head with her ticket machine. He took ten minutes to come around."

"Let's have a look at him " Bloggs said.

They went down the corridor to the cells. "This one," Kincaid said.

Bloggs looked through the judas. The man sat on a stool in the far corner of the cell with his back against the wall. His legs were crossed, his eves closed, his hands in his pockets. "He's been in cells before," Bloggs remarked.

The man was tall, with a long, handsome face and dark hair. It could have been the man in the photograph, but it was hard to be certain.

"Want to go in?" Kincaid asked.

"In a minute. What was in his suitcase, apart from the stiletto?"

"The tools of a burglar's trade, quite a lot of money in small notes, a pistol and some ammunition, black clothes and crepe-soled shoes, and five hundred Lucky Strike cigarettes."

"No photographs or film negatives?"

Kincaid shook his head.

"Balls," Bloggs said with feeling.

"Papers identify him as Peter Fredericks, of Wembley, Middlesex. Says he's an unemployed toolmaker looking for work."

"Toolmaker?" Bloggs said sceptically. "There hasn't been an unemployed toolmaker in Britain in the last four years. You'd think a spy would know that. Still…"

Kincaid asked, "Shall I start the questioning, or will you?"

"You."

Kincaid opened the door and Bloggs followed him in. The man in the corner opened his eyes incuriously. He did not alter his position.

Kincaid sat at a small, plain table. Bloggs leaned against the wall.

Kincaid said, "What's your real name?"

"Peter Fredericks."

"What are you doing so far from home?"

"Looking for work."

"Why aren't you in the army?"

"Weak heart."

"Where have you been for the last few days?"

"Here, in Aberdeen. Before that Dundee, before that Perth."

"When did you arrive in Aberdeen?"

"The day before yesterday."

Kincaid glanced at Bloggs, who nodded. "Your story is silly," Kincaid said. "Toolmakers don't need to look for work. The country hasn't got enough of them. You'd better start telling the truth."

"I'm telling the truth."

Bloggs took all the loose change out of his pocket and tied it up in his handkerchief. He stood watching, saying nothing, swinging the little bundle in his right hand.

"Where is the film?" Kincaid said, having been briefed to this extent by Bloggs, though not to the extent of knowing what the film was about.

The man's expression did not change. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Kincaid shrugged, and looked at Bloggs. Bloggs said, "On your feet."

"Pardon?'

"On your FEET!"

The man stood up casually.

"Step forward."

He took two steps up to the table.

"Name."

"Peter Predericks."

Bloggs came off the wall and hit the man with the weighted handkerchief.

The blow caught him accurately on the bridge of the nose, and he cried out.

His hands went to his face.

"Stand to attention," Bloggs said. "Name."

The man stood upright, let his hands fall to his sides. "Peter Fredericks."

Bloggs hit him again in exactly the same place. This time he went down on one knee, and his eyes watered.

"Where is the film?"

The man shook his head.

Bloggs pulled him to his feet, kneed him in the groin, punched his stomach.

"What did you do with the negatives."

The man fell to the floor and threw up. Bloggs kicked his face. There was a sharp crack. "What about the U-boat? Where is the rendezvous? What's the signal, damn you?"

Kincaid grabbed Bloggs from behind. "That's enough." he said. "This is my station and I can only turn a blind eye so long, you know."

Bloggs rounded on him. "We're not dealing with a case of petty housebreaking. I'm MI5 and I'll do what I fucking well like in your station. If the prisoner dies, I'll take responsibility." He turned back to the man on the floor, who was staring at him and Kincaid, face covered with blood and an expression of incredulity.

"What are you talking about?" he said weakly "What is this?"

Bloggs hauled him to his feet. "You're Heinrich Rudolph Hans von Müller-Güder, born at Oln on May 26, 1900, also known as Henry Faber, a lieutenant colonel in German Intelligence. Within three months you'll be hanged for espionage unless you turn out to be more useful to us alive than dead. Start making yourself useful, Colonel Müller-Güder."

"No." the man said. "No, no! I'm a thief, not a spy. Please!" He leaned away from Bloggs' upraised fist. "I can prove it-"

Bloggs hit him again, and Kincaid intervened for the second time. "Wait… All right, Fredericks, if that's your name-prove you're a thief."

"I done three houses in Jubilee Crescent last week," the man gasped. "I took about five hundred quid from one and some jewellery from the next one-diamond rings and some pearls-and I never got nothing from the other one because of the dog… you must know I'm telling the truth, they must have reported it, didn't they? Oh, Jesus."

Kincaid looked at Bloggs. "All those burglaries took place."

"He could have read about them in the newspapers."

"The third one wasn't reported."

"Perhaps he did them. He could still be a spy. Spies can steal too." He felt rotten.

"But this was last week. Your man was in London, wasn't he?"

Bloggs was silent for a moment. Then he said, "Well, fuck it," and walked out.

Peter Fredericks looked up at Kincaid through a mask of blood. "Who's he, the bleedin' Gestapo?" he said.

Kincaid stared at him. "Just be glad you're not really the man he's looking for."

"Well?" Godliman said into the phone.

"False alarm." Bloggs' voice was scratchy and distorted over the long-distance line. "A small-time housebreaker who happened to carry a stiletto and look like Faber…"

"Back to square one," Godliman said.

"You said something about an island."

"Yes. Storm Island. It's about ten miles off the coast, due east of Aberdeen. You'll find it on a large-scale map."

"What makes you sure he's there?"

"I'm not sure. We still have to cover every other possibility- other towns, the coast, everything. But if he did steal that boat, the…"

"Marie II."

"Yes. If he did steal it, his rendezvous was probably in the area of this island; and if I'm right about that, then he's either drowned or shipwrecked on the island."

"Okay. That makes sense."

"What's the weather like up there?"

"No change."

"Could you get to the island, do you think, in a big ship?"

"I suppose you can ride any storm if your ship's big enough. But this island won't have much of a dock, will it?"

"You'd better find out, but I expect you're right. Now listen… there's an RAF fighter base near Edinburgh. By the time you get there I'll have an amphibious plane standing by. You take off the minute the storm begins to clear. Have the local Coastguard ready to move at moment's notice too. I'm not sure who'll get there first."

"But if the U-boat is also waiting for the storm to clear, it will get there first," Bloggs said.

"You're right." Godliman lit a cigarette, fumbling for inspiration. "Well, we can get a Navy corvette to circle the island and listen for Faber's radio signal. When the storm clears it can land a boat on the island."

"What about some fighters?"

"Yes. Except, like you, they'll have to wait until the weather breaks."

"It can't go on much longer."

"What do the Scottish meteorologists say?"

"Another day of it, at least. But remember, all the time we're grounded he's bottled up too."

"If he's there."

"Yes."

"All right," Godliman said. "We'll have a corvette, the Coastguard, some fighters, and an amphibian. You'd better get on your way. Call me from Rosyth. Take care."

"Will do."

Godliman hung up. His cigarette, neglected in the ashtray, had burned down to a tiny stub.

Lying on its side, the jeep looked powerful but helpless, like a wounded elephant. The engine had stalled. Faber gave it a hefty push and it toppled majestically onto all four wheels. It had survived the fight relatively undamaged. The canvas roof was destroyed, of course; the rip Faber's knife had made had become a long tear running from one side to the other. The offside front fender, which had ploughed into the earth and stopped the vehicle, was crumpled. The headlight on that side had smashed. The window on the same side had been broken by the shot from the gun. The windscreen was miraculously intact.

Faber climbed into the driver's seat, put the gearshift into neutral and tried the starter. It kicked over and died. He tried again, and the engine fired. He was grateful for that, he could not have faced a long walk. He sat in the car for a while, inventorying his wounds. He gingerly touched his right ankle; it was swelling massively. Perhaps he had cracked a bone.

It was as well that the jeep was designed to be driven by a man with no legs; Faber could not have pressed a brake pedal. The lump on the back of his head felt huge, at least the size of a golf ball; when he touched it his hand came away sticky with blood. He examined his face in the rear-view mirror. It was a mass of small cuts and big bruises, like the face of the loser at the end of a boxing match.

He had abandoned his oilskin back at the cottage, so his jacket and overalls were soggy with rain and smeared with mud. He needed to get warm and dry very soon.

He gripped the steering wheel and a burning pain shot through his hand; he had forgotten the torn fingernail. He looked at it. It was the nastiest of his injuries. He would have to drive with one hand.

He pulled away slowly and found what he guessed was the road. There was no danger of getting lost on this island; all he had to do was follow the cliff edge until he came to Lucy's cottage.

He needed to invent a lie to explain to Lucy what had become of her husband. She wouldn't have heard the shotgun so far away, he knew. He might, of course, tell her the truth; there was nothing she could do about it. However, if she became difficult he might have to kill her, and he had an aversion to that. Driving slowly along the cliff top through the pouring rain and howling wind, he marvelled at this new thing inside him, this scruple. It was the first time he had ever felt reluctance to kill. It was not that he was amoral; to the contrary. He had made up his mind that the killing he did was on the same moral level as death on the battlefield, and his emotions followed his intellect. He always had the physical reaction, the vomiting, after he killed, but that was something incomprehensible that he ignored. So why did he not want to kill Lucy?

The feeling was on a par, he decided, with the affection that drove him to send the Luftwaffe erroneous directions to St. Paul's Cathedral: a compulsion to protect a thing of beauty. She was a remarkable creation, as full of loveliness and subtlety as any work of art. Faber could live with himself as a killer, but not as an iconoclast. It was, he recognised as soon as the thought occurred to him, a peculiar way to be. But then spies were peculiar people.

He thought of some of the spies who had been recruited by the Abwehr at the same time he had been: Otto, the Nordic giant who made delicate paper sculptures in the Japanese fashion and hated women; Friedrich, the sly little mathematical genius who jumped at shadows and went into a five day depression if he lost a game of chess; Helmut, who liked to read books about slavery in America and had soon joined the SS… all different, all peculiar. If they had anything more specific in common, he did not know what it was.

He seemed to be driving more and more slowly, and the rain and mist became more impenetrable. He began to worry about the cliff edge on his left-hand side. He felt very hot, but suffered spasms of shivering. He realised he had been speaking aloud about Otto and Friedrich and Helmut, and he recognised the signs of delirium. He made an effort to think of nothing but the problem of keeping the jeep on a straight course. The noise of the wind took on some kind of rhythm, becoming hypnotic. Once he found himself stationary, staring out over the sea, and had no idea how long ago he had stopped.

It seemed hours later that Lucy's cottage came into view. He steered toward it, thinking, I must remember to put the brake on before I hit the wall.

There was a figure standing in the doorway, looking out at him through the rain. He had to stay in control of himself long enough to tell her the lie. He had to remember, had to remember…

It was late afternoon by the time the jeep came back. Lucy was worried about what had happened to the men, and at the same time angry with them for not coming home for the lunch she had prepared. As the day waned she had spent more and more time at the windows, looking out for them.

When the jeep came down the slight slope to the cottage it was clear something was wrong. It was moving terribly slowly, on a zigzag course, and there was only one person in it. It came closer, and she saw that the front was dented and the headlight smashed.

"Oh, God."

The vehicle shuddered to a halt in front of the cottage, and she saw that the figure inside was Henry. He made no move to get out. Lucy ran out into the rain and opened the driver's door.

He sat there with his head back and his eyes half-closed, His hand was on the brake. His face was bloody and bruised.

"What happened? What happened?"

His hand slipped off the brake, and the jeep moved forward. Lucy leaned across him and slipped the gearshift into neutral.

"Left David at Tom's cottage… had crash on way back…" The words seemed to cost him a great effort.

Now that she knew what had happened, Lucy's panic subsided. "Come inside," she said sharply. The urgency in her voice got through to him. He turned toward her, put his foot on the running board to step down, and promptly fell to the ground. Lucy saw that his ankle was swollen like a balloon. She got her hands under his shoulders and pulled him upright. "Put your weight on the other foot and lean on me." She got his right arm around her neck and half carried him inside.

Jo watched wide-eyed as she helped Henry into the living room and got him onto the sofa. He lay back with his eyes shut. His clothes were soaked and muddy.

Lucy said, "Jo, go upstairs and get your pyjamas on, please."

"But I haven't had my story. Is he dead?"

"He's not dead, he's had a car crash and you can't have a story tonight. Go on."

The child made a complaining sound, and Lucy looked threateningly at him. He went.

Lucy got the big scissors out of her sewing basket and cut Henry's clothes away: first the jacket, then the overalls, then the shirt. She frowned in puzzlement when she saw the knife in its sheath strapped to his left forearm; she guessed it was a special implement for cleaning fish or something. When she tried to take it off, he pushed her hand away. She shrugged and turned her attention to his boots. The left one came off easily, and its sock; but he cried out in pain when she touched the right. "It must come off," she told him. "You'll have to be brave." A funny kind of smile came over his face, then, and he nodded. She cut the laces, took the shoe gently but firmly in both hands and pulled it off. This time he made no sound. She cut the elastic in the sock and pulled that off too.

Jo came in. "He's in his pants!"

"His clothes are all wet." She kissed the boy good night. "Put yourself to bed, darling. I'll tuck you up later."

"Kiss teddy, then."

"Good night, teddy."

Jo went out. Lucy looked back to Henry. His eyes were open, and he was smiling. He said, "Kiss Henry, then."

She leaned over him and kissed his battered face. Then carefully she cut away his underpants.

The heat from the fire would quickly dry his naked skin. She went into the kitchen and filled a bowl with warm water and a little antiseptic to bathe his wounds. She found a roll of absorbent cotton and returned to the living room.

"This is the second time you've turned up on the doorstep half dead," she said as she set about her task.

"The usual signal," Henry said. The words came abruptly.

"What?"

"Waiting-at-Calais-for-a-phantom-army…"

"Henry, what are you talking about?"

"Every-Friday-and-Monday…"

She finally realised he was delirious. "Don't try to talk," she said. She lifted his head slightly to clean away the dried blood from around the bump. Suddenly he sat upright, looked fiercely at her, and said, "What day is it? What day is it?"

"It's Sunday, relax."

"Okay."

He was quiet after that, and he let her remove the knife. She bathed his face, bandaged his finger where he had lost the nail and put a dressing on his ankle. When she had finished she stood looking at him for a while. He seemed to be sleeping. She touched the long scar on his chest, and the star-shaped mark on his hip. The star was a birthmark, she decided. She went through his pockets before throwing the lacerated clothes away. There wasn't much: some money, his papers, a leather wallet and a film can. She put them all in a little pile on the mantelpiece beside his fish knife. He would have to have some of David's clothes.

She left him and went upstairs to see to Jo. The boy was asleep, Iying on his teddy bear with his arms outflung. She kissed his soft cheek and tucked him in. She went outside and put the jeep in the barn. She made herself a drink in the kitchen, then sat watching Henry, wishing he would wake up and make love to her again. It was almost midnight when he woke. He opened his eyes, and his face showed the series of expressions that were now familiar to her: first the fear, then the wary survey of the room, then the relaxation. On impulse, she asked him, "What are you afraid of, Henry?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"You always look frightened when you wake up."

"I don't know." He shrugged, and the movement seemed to hurt. "God, I'm battered."

"Do you want to tell me what happened?"

"Yes, if you'll give me a drink of brandy."

She got the brandy out of the cupboard. "You can have some of David's clothes."

"In a minute… unless you're embarrassed."

She handed him the glass, smiling. "I'm afraid I'm enjoying it."

"What happened to my clothes?"

"I had to cut them off you. I've thrown them away."

"Not my papers, I hope." He smiled, but there was some other emotion just below the surface.

"On the mantelpiece." She pointed. "Is the knife for cleaning fish or something?"

His right hand went to his left forearm, where the sheath had been. "Something like that," he said. He seemed uneasy for a moment, then relaxed with an effort and sipped his drink. "That's good." After a moment she said, "Well?"

"What?"

"How did you manage to lose my husband and crash my jeep?"

"David decided to stay over at Tom's for the night. Some of the sheep got into trouble in a place they call The Gully."

"I know it."

"And six or seven of them were injured. They're all in Tom's kitchen being bandaged up and making a terrible row. Anyway, David suggested I come back to tell you he would be staying. I don't really know how I managed to crash. The car is unfamiliar, there's no real road, I hit something and went into a skid and the jeep ended up on its side. The details…" He shrugged.

"You must have been going quite fast. You were in an awful mess when you got here."

"I suppose I rattled around inside the jeep a bit. Banged my head, twisted my ankle…"

"Lost a fingernail, bashed your face, and almost caught pneumonia. You must be accident-prone."

He swung his legs to the floor, stood up and went to the mantelpiece.

"Your powers of recuperation are incredible," she said.

He was strapping the knife to his arm. "We fishermen are very healthy. What about those clothes?"

She got up and stood close to him. "What do you need clothes for? It's bedtime."

He drew her to him, pressing her against his naked body, and kissed her hard. She stroked his thighs.

After a while he broke away from her. He picked up his things from the mantelpiece, took her hand, then, hobbling, he led her upstairs to bed.

The wide white autobahn snaked through the Bavarian valley up into the mountains. In the leather rear seat of the staff Mercedes, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt was still and weary. Aged sixty-nine, he knew he was too fond of champagne and not fond enough of Hitler. His thin, lugubrious face reflected a career longer and more erratic than that of any of Hitler's other officers: he had been dismissed in disgrace more times than he could remember, but the Fuehrer always asked him to come back. As the car passed through the sixteenth-century village of Berchtesgaden he wondered why he always returned to his command when Hitler forgave him. Money meant nothing to him; he had already achieved the highest possible rank; decorations were valueless in the Third Reich; and he believed that it was not possible to win honour in this war.

It was Rundstedt who had first called Hitler "the Bohemian corporal." The little man knew nothing of the German military tradition, nor-despite his flashes of inspiration-of military strategy. If he had, he would not have started this war, which was unwinnable. Rundstedt was Germany's finest soldier, and he had proved it in Poland, France, and Russia, but he had no hope of victory.

All the same, he would have nothing to do with the small group of generals who-he knew-were plotting to overthrow Hitler. He turned a blind eye to them, but the Fahneneid, the blood oath of the German warrior, was too strong in him to permit him to join the conspiracy. And that, he supposed, was why he continued to serve the Third Reich. Right or wrong, his country was in danger, and he had no option but to protect it. I'm like an old cavalry horse, he thought; if I stayed at home I would feel ashamed. He commanded five armies on the western front now. A million and a half men were under his command. They were not as strong as they might be: some divisions were little better than rest homes for invalids from the Russian front; there was a shortage of armour, and there were many non-German conscripts among the other ranks, but Rundstedt could still keep the Allies out of France if he deployed his forces shrewdly. It was that deployment that he must now discuss with Hitler. The car climbed the Kehlsteinstrasse until the road ended at a vast bronze door in the side of the Kehlstein Mountain. An SS guard touched a button, the door hummed open, and the car entered a long marble tunnel lit by bronze lanterns. At the far end of the tunnel the driver stopped the car, and Rundstedt walked to the elevator and sat in one of its leather seats for the four-hundred-foot ascent to the Adlerhorst, the Eagle's Nest.

In the anteroom Rattenhuber took his pistol and left him to wait. He stared unappreciatively at Hitler's porcelain and went over in his mind the words he would say.

A few moments later the blond bodyguard returned to usher him into the conference room.

The place made him think of an eighteenth-century palace. The walls were covered with oil paintings and tapestries, and there was a bust of Wagner and a huge clock with a bronze eagle on its top. The view from the wide window was truly remarkable: one could see the hills of Salzburg and the peak of the Untersberg, the mountain where the body of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa waited, according to legend, to rise from the grave and save the Fatherland. Inside the room, seated in the peculiarly rustic chairs, were Hitler and just three of his staff: Admiral Theodor Krancke, the naval commander in the west: General Alfred Jodl, chief of staff; and Admiral Karl Jesko von Puttkamer, Hitler's aide-de-camp.

Rundstedt saluted and was motioned to a chair. A footman brought a plate of caviar sandwiches and a glass of champagne. Hitler stood at the large window, looking out, with his hands clasped behind his back. Without turning, he said abruptly "Rundstedt has changed his mind. He now agrees with Rommel that the Allies will invade Normandy. This is what my instinct has all along told me. Krancke, however, still favours Calais. Rundstedt, tell Krancke how you arrived at your conclusion."

Rundstedt swallowed a mouthful and coughed into his hand. "There are two things: one new piece of information and one new line of reasoning," Rundstedt began. "First, the information. The latest summaries of Allied bombing in France show without doubt that their principal aim is to destroy every bridge across the river Seine. Now, if they land at Calais the Seine is irrelevant to the battle; but if they land in Normandy all our reserves have to cross the Seine to reach the zone of conflict.

"Second, the reasoning. I have given some thought to how I would invade France if I were commanding the Allied forces. My conclusion is that the first goal must be to establish a bridgehead through which men and supplies can be funnelled at speed. The initial thrust must therefore come in the region of a large and capacious harbour. The natural choice is Cherbourg. Both the bombing pattern and the strategic requirements point to Normandy," he finished. He picked up his glass and emptied it, and the footman came forward to refill it.

Jodl said, "All our intelligence points to Calais-"

"And we have just executed the head of the Abwehr as a traitor," Hitler interrupted.

"Krancke, are you convinced?"

"I am not," the admiral said. "I too have considered how I would conduct the invasion if I were on the other side but I have brought into the reasoning a number of factors of a nautical nature that our colleague Rundstedt may not have comprehended. I believe they will attack under cover of darkness, by moonlight, at full tide to sail over Rommel's underwater obstacles, and away from cliffs, rocky waters, and strong currents. Normandy? Never."

Hitler shook his head in disagreement. Jodl then said, "There is another small piece of information I find significant. The Guards Armoured Division has been transferred from the north of England to Hove, on the southeast coast, to join the First United States Army Group under General Patton. We learned this from wireless surveillance. There was a baggage mix-up en route, one unit had another's silver cutlery, and the fools have been quarrelling about it over the radio. This is a crack British division, very blue-blooded, commanded by General Sir Allen Henry Shafto Adair. I feel sure they will not be far from the centre of the battle when it comes."

Hitler's hands moved nervously, and his face now twitched in indecision. "Generals!" he barked at them, "Either I get conflicting advice, or no advice at all. I have to tell you everything."

With characteristic boldness, Rundstedt plunged on. "My Fuehrer, you have four superb panzer divisions doing nothing here in Germany. If I am right, they will never get to Normandy in time to repel the invasion. I beg you, order them to France and put them under Rommel's command. If we are wrong, and the invasion begins at Calais, they will at least be close enough to get into the battle at an early stage."

"I don't know. I don't know!" Hitler's eyes widened, and Rundstedt wondered if he had pushed too hard again.

Puttkamer spoke now for the first time. "My Fuehrer, today is Sunday."

"Well?"

"Tomorrow night the U-boat may pick up the spy, Die Nadel."

"Ah, yes, someone I can trust."

"Of course he can report by radio at any time, though that would be dangerous."

Rundstedt said, "There isn't time to postpone decisions. Both air attacks and sabotage activities have increased dramatically. The invasion may come any day."

"I disagree," Krancke said. "The weather conditions will not be right until early June-"

"Which is not very far away-"

"Enough," Hitler shouted. "I have made up my mind. My panzers stay in Germany for now. On Tuesday, by which time we should have heard from Die Nadel, I will reconsider the disposition of these forces. If his information favours Normandy as I believe it will, I will move the panzers."

Rundstedt said quietly, "And if he does not report?"

"If he does not report, I shall reconsider just the same."

Rundstedt nodded assent. "With your permission I will return to my command."

"Granted."

Rundstedt got to his feet, gave the military salute and went out. In the copper-lined elevator, falling four hundred feet to the underground garage, he felt his stomach turn over and wondered whether the sensation was caused by the speed of descent or by the thought that the destiny of his country lay in the hands of a single spy, whereabouts unknown.