But already things were moving in a direction the Inspector would have found even more encouraging. Wilt had emerged from the meeting of the crisis committee rather too pleased with his performance. If Mr Scudd really had the influence with the Minister of Education he had claimed to, there might well be a full-scale inspection by the HMIs. Wilt welcomed the prospect. He had frequently thought about the advantages of such a confrontation. For one thing, he'd be able to demand an explicit statement on what the Ministry really thought Liberal Studies were about. Communication Skills and Expressive Attainment they weren't. Since the day some twenty years before when he'd joined the Tech staff, he'd never had a clear knowledge and nobody had been able to tell him. He'd started off with the peculiar dictum enunciated by Mr Morris, the then Head of Department, that what he was supposed to be doing was 'Exposing Day-Release Apprentices to Culture', which had meant getting the poor devils to read Lord of the Flies and Candide, and then discuss what they thought the books were about, and countering their opinions with his own. As far as Wilt could see, the whole thing had been counterproductive and as he had expressed it, if anyone was being exposed to anything, the lecturers were being exposed to the collective barbarism of the apprentices which accounted for the number who had nervous breakdowns or became milkmen with degrees. And his own attempt to change the curriculum to more practical matters, like how to fill in Income Tax forms, claim Unemployment Benefit, and generally move with some confidence through the maze of bureaucratic complications that had turned the Welfare State into a piggy-bank for the middle classes and literate skivers, and an incomprehensible and humiliating nightmare of forms and jargon for the provident poor, had been thwarted by the lunatic theories of so-called educationalists of the sixties like Dr Mayfield, and the equally irrational spending policies of the seventies. Wilt had persisted in his protestations that Liberal Studies didn't need video cameras and audio-visual aids galore, but could do with a clear statement from somebody about the purpose of Liberal Studies.

It had been an unwise request. Dr Mayfield and the County Advisor had both produced memoranda nobody could understand, there had been a dozen committee meetings at which nothing had been decided, except that since all the video cameras were available they might as well be used, and that Communication Skills and Expressive Attainment were more suited to the spirit of the times than Liberal Studies. In the event the education cuts had stymied the audio-visual aids and the fact that useless lecturers in more academic departments couldn't be sacked had meant that Wilt had been lumbered with even more deadbeats. If Her Majesty's Inspectors did descend, they might be able to clear the log jam and make some sense; Wilt would be only too pleased. Besides, he rather prided himself on his ability to hold his own in confrontations.

His optimism was premature. Having spent fifty minutes listening to Electronic Engineers explaining the meaning of cable television to him, he returned to his office to find his secretary, Mrs Bristol, in a flap. 'Oh, Mr Wilt,' she said as he came down the corridor. 'You've got to come quickly. She's there again and it's not the first time.'

'What isn't?' asked Wilt from behind a pile of Shane he had never used.

'That I've seen her there.'

'Seen whom where?'

'Her. In the loo.'

'Her in the loo?' said Wilt, hoping to hell Mrs Bristol wasn't having another of her 'turns'. She'd once gone all funny-peculiar when one of the girls in Cake Three had announced in all innocence, that she had five buns in the oven. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'

Nor, it appeared, did Mrs Bristol. 'She's got this needle thing and...' she petered out.

'Needle thing?'

'Syringe,' said Mrs Bristol, 'and it's in her arm and full of blood and...'

'Oh my God,' said Wilt, and headed past her to the door. 'Which loo?'

'The Ladies' staff one.'

Wilt halted in his tracks. 'Are you telling me one of the members of staff is shooting herself full of heroin in the Ladies' staff lavatory?'

Mrs Bristol had gone all funny now. 'I'd have recognized her if she'd been staff. It was a girl. Oh, do something Mr Wilt. She may do herself an injury.'

'You can say that again,' said Wilt, and bolted down the corridor and the flight of stairs to the toilet on the landing and went in. He was confronted by six cubicles, a row of washbasins, a long mirror and a paper-towel dispenser. There was no sign of any girl. On the other hand, the door of the third cubicle was shut and someone was making unpleasant sounds inside. Wilt hesitated. In less desperate circumstances, he might have supposed Mr Rusker, whose wife was a fibre freak, was having one of his problem days again. But Mr Rusker didn't use the Ladies' lavatory. Perhaps if he knelt down he might get a glimpse. Wilt decided against it. (A) He didn't want glimpses and (B) it had begun to dawn on him that he was, to put it mildly, in a delicate situation and bending down and peeping under doors in ladies' lavatories was open to misinterpretation. Better to wait outside. The girl, if there was a girl and not some peculiar figment of Mrs Bristol's imagination, would have to come out sometime.

With one last glance in the trash can for a hypodermic, Wilt tiptoed towards the door. He didn't reach it. Behind him a cubicle door opened. 'I thought so,' a voice shouted, 'a filthy Peeping Tom!' Wilt knew that voice. It belonged to Miss Hare, a senior lecturer in Physical Education, whom he had once likened rather too audibly in the staff-room to Myra Hindley in drag. A moment later, his arm had been wrenched up to the back of his neck and his face was in contact with the tiled wall.

'You little pervert,' Miss Hare continued, jumping to the nastiest, and, from Wilt's point of view, the least desirable conclusion. The last person he'd want to peep at was Miss Hare. Only a pervert would. It didn't seem the time to say so.

'I was just looking' he began, but Miss Hare quite evidently had not forgotten the crack about Myra Hindley.

'You can keep your explanation for the police,' she screamed, and reinforced the remark by banging his face against the tiles. She was still enjoying the process, and Wilt wasn't, when the door opened and Mrs Stoley from Geography came in.

'Caught the voyeur in the act,' said Miss Hare. 'Call the police.' Against the wall, Wilt tried to offer his point of view and failed. Having Miss Hare's ample knee in the small of his back didn't help and his false tooth had come out.

'But that's Mr Wilt,' said Mrs Stoley uncertainly.

'Of course it's Wilt. It's just the sort of thing you'd expect from him.'

'Well...' began Mrs Stoley, who evidently hadn't.

'Oh for goodness' sake get a move on. I don't want the little runt to escape.'

'Am I trying to?' Wilt mumbled and had his nose rammed against the wall for his pains.

'If you say so,' said Mrs Stoley and left the room only to return five minutes later with the Principal and the V-P. By then, Miss Hare had transferred Wilt to the floor and was kneeling on him.

'What on earth's going on?' demanded the Principal. Miss Hare got up.

'Caught in the act of peeping at my private parts,' she said. 'He was trying to escape when I grabbed him.'

'Wasn't,' said Wilt groping for his false tooth and inadvisedly putting it back in his mouth. It tasted of some extremely strong disinfectant which hadn't been formulated as a mouthwash, and was doing things to his tongue. As he scrambled to his feet, and made a dash for the washbasins, Miss Hare applied a half-nelson.

'For God's sake let go,' yelled Wilt, by now convinced he was about to die of carbolic poisoning. 'This is all a terrible mistake.'

'Yours,' said Miss Hare and cut off his air supply.

The Principal looked dubiously at them. While he might have enjoyed Wilt's discomfiture in other circumstances, the sight of him being strangled by an athletically built woman like Miss Hare whose skirt had come down was more than he could stomach.

'I think it would be best if you let him go,' he said as Wilt's face darkened and his tongue stuck out. 'He seems to be bleeding rather badly.'

'Serves him right,' said Miss Hare, reluctantly letting Wilt breathe again. He stumbled to a basin and turned the tap on.

'Wilt,' said the Principal, 'what is the meaning of this?' But Wilt had his false tooth out again and was trying desperately to wash his mouth out under the tap.

'Hadn't we better wait for the police before he makes a statement?' asked Miss Hare.

'The police?' squawked the Principal and the V-P simultaneously. 'You're not seriously suggesting the police should be called in to deal with this...er...affair.'

'I am,' Wilt mumbled from the basin. Even Miss Hare looked startled.

'You are?' she said. 'You have the nerve to come in here and peer at...'

'Balls,' said Wilt, whose tongue seemed to be resuming its normal size, though it still tasted like a recently sterilized toilet bend.

'How dare you,' shouted Miss Hare, and was on the point of getting to grips with him again when the V-P intervened.

'I think we should hear Wilt's version before we do anything hasty, don't you?'

Miss Hare obviously didn't, but she stopped in her tracks. 'I've already told you precisely what he was doing,' she said.

'Yes, well let me tell you what...'

'He was bending over and looking under the door,' continued Miss Hare remorselessly.

'Wasn't,' said Wilt.

'Don't you dare lie. I always knew you were a pervert. Remember that revolting incident with the doll?' she said, appealing to the Principal. The Principal didn't need reminding but it was Wilt who answered.

'Mrs Bristol,' he mumbled, dabbing his nose with a paper towel, 'Mrs Bristol's the one who started this.'

'Mrs Bristol?'

'Wilt's secretary,' explained the V-P.

'Are you suggesting you were looking for your secretary in here?' asked the Principal. 'Is that what you're saying?'

'No, I'm not. I'm saying Mrs Bristol will tell you why I was here and I want you to hear it from her before that damned bulldozer on anabolic steroids starts knocking hell out of me again.'

'I'm not standing here being insulted by a...'

'Then you'd better pull your skirt up,' said the V-P, whose sympathies were entirely with Wilt.

The little group made their way up the stairs, past a class of English A-level students who'd just ended an hour with Mr Gallen on The Pastoral Element in Wordsworth's Prelude, and were consequently unprepared for the urban element of Wilt's bleeding nose. Nor was Mrs Bristol. 'Oh dear, Mr Wilt, what have you done to yourself?' she asked. 'She didn't attack you?'

'Tell them,' said Wilt. 'You tell them.'

'Tell them what?'

'What you told me,' snapped Wilt, but Mrs Bristol was too concerned about his condition and the Principal and the V-P's presence had unnerved her. 'You mean about'

'I mean...Never mind what I mean,' said Wilt lividly, 'just tell them what I was doing in the Ladies' lavatory, that's all.'

Mrs Bristol's face registered even more confusion. 'But I don't know,' she said, 'I wasn't there.'

'I know you weren't there, dammit. What they want to know is why I was.'

'Well...' Mrs Bristol began, and lost her nerve again, 'Haven't you told them?'

'Caesar's ghost,' said Wilt, 'can't you just spit it out. Here I am accused of being a Peeping Tom by Miss Burke and Hare over there...'

'You call me that again and your own mother wouldn't recognize you,' said Miss Hare.

'Since she's been dead for ten years, I don't suppose she would now,' said Wilt, retreating behind his desk. By the time the PE teacher had been restrained, the Principal was trying to make some sense out of an increasingly confused situation. 'Can someone please shed some light on this sordid business?' he asked.

'If anyone can, she can,' said Wilt, indicating his secretary. 'After all, she set me up.'

'Set you up, Mr Wilt? I never did anything of the sort. All I said was there was a girl in the staff toilet with a hypodermic and I didn't know who she was and intimidated by the look of horror on the Principal's face, she ground to a halt. 'Have I said something wrong?'

'You saw a girl with a hypodermic in the staff toilet? And told Mr Wilt about it?'

Mrs Bristol nodded dumbly.

'When you say "girl" I presume you don't mean a member of the staff?'

'I'm sure it wasn't. I didn't see her face but I'd have known surely. And she had this awful syringe filled with blood and...' She looked at Wilt for assistance.

'You said she was taking drugs.'

'There was no one in that toilet while I was there,' said Miss Hare, 'I'd have heard them.'

'I suppose it could have been someone with diabetes,' said the V-P, 'some adult student who wouldn't want to use the student's toilet for obvious reasons.'

'Oh quite,' said Wilt, 'I mean we all know diabetics go round with hypodermics full of blood. She was obviously flushing back to get the maximum dose.'

'Flushing back?' said the Principal weakly.

'That's what the junkies do,' said the V-P. 'They inject themselves and then'

'I don't want to know,' said the Principal.

'Well, if she was taking heroin'

'Heroin! That's all we need,' said the Principal, and sat down miserably.

'If you ask me,' said Miss Hare, 'the whole thing's a fabrication. I was in there ten minutes...'

'Doing what?' asked Wilt. 'Apart from attacking me.'

'Something feminine, if you must know.'

'Like taking steroids. Well, let me tell you that when I went down there and I wasn't there more than...'

It was Mrs Bristol's turn to intervene. 'Down, did you say down?'

'Of course I said down. What did you expect me to say? Up?'

'But the toilet's on the fourth floor, not the second. That's where she was.'

'Now you tell us. And where the hell do you think I went?'

'But I always go upstairs,' said Mrs Bristol. 'It keeps me in trim. You know that. I mean one's got to get some exercise and...'

'Oh, belt up,' said Wilt, and dabbed his nose with a bloodstained handkerchief.

'Right, let's get this straight,' said the Principal, deciding it was time to exercise some authority. 'Mrs Bristol tells Wilt here there is a girl upstairs injecting herself with something or other and instead of going upstairs, Wilt goes down to the toilet on the second floor and...'

'Gets beaten to a pulp by Ms Blackbelt Burke here,' said Wilt who was beginning to regain the initiative. 'And I don't suppose it's occurred to anyone to go up and see if that junkie's still there.'

But the Vice-Principal had already left.

'If that little turd calls me Burke again...' said Miss Hare menacingly. 'Anyway, I still think we should call the police. I mean, why did Wilt go downstairs instead of up? I find that peculiar.'

'Because I don't use the Ladies' or, in your case, the Bisexual Toilets, that's why.'

'Oh for God's sake,' said the Principal, 'there's obviously been some mistake and if we all keep calm...'

The Vice-Principal returned. 'No sign of her,' he said.

The Principal got to his feet. 'Well, that's that. Evidently there's been some mistake. Mrs Bristol may have imagined...' But any aspersions on Mrs Bristol's imagination he was about to make were stopped by the V-P's next words.

'But I did find this in the trash can,' he said, and produced a blood-stained lump of paper towel, which looked like Wilt's handkerchief.

The Principal regarded it with disgust. 'That hardly proves anything. Women do bleed occasionally.'

'Call it a jamrag and be done with it,' said Wilt viciously. He was getting fed up with bleeding himself. Miss Hare turned on him.

'That's typical, you foulmouthed sexist,' she snapped.

'I was merely interpreting what the Principal was...'

'And more conclusively, this,' interrupted the V-P, this time producing a hypodermic needle.

It was Mrs Bristol's turn to bridle. 'There, what did I tell you. I wasn't imagining anything. There was a girl up there injecting herself and I did see her. Now what are you going to do?'

'Now we mustn't jump to conclusions just because...' the Principal began.

'Call the police. I demand that you call the police,' said Miss Hare, determined to take this opportunity for airing her opinions about Wilt and Peeping Toms as widely as possible.

'Miss Burke,' said the Principal, flustered into sharing Wilt's feelings about the PE lecturer, 'this is a matter that needs cool heads.'

'Miss Hare's my name and if you haven't the decency...And where do you think you're going?'

Wilt had taken the opportunity to sidle to the door. 'To the men's toilet to assess the damage you did, then the Blood Transfusion Unit for a refill and after that, if I can make it, to my doctor and the most litigious lawyer I can find to sue you for assault and battery.' And before Miss Hare could reach him, Wilt was off down the corridor and had closeted himself in the Men's toilet.

Behind him Miss Hare vented her fury on the Principal. 'Right, that does it,' she shouted. 'If you don't call the police, I will. I want the facts of this case spelt out loud and clear so that if that little sex-maniac goes anywhere near a lawyer, the public are going to learn the sort of people who teach here. I want this whole disgusting matter dealt with openly.'

It was the last thing the Principal wanted. 'I really don't think that's wise,' he said. 'After all, Wilt could have made a natural mistake.'

Miss Hare wasn't to be mollified. 'The mistake Wilt made wasn't natural. And besides, Mrs Bristol did see a girl taking heroin.'

'We don't know that. There could be some quite ordinary explanation.'

'The police will find out soon enough once they've got that syringe,' said Miss Hare adamantly. 'Now then, are you going to phone them or am I?'

'If you put it like that, I suppose we'll have to,' said the Principal, eyeing her with loathing. He picked up the phone.

Things were hotting up for other people in Ipford as well. The Principal for one. He had just arrived home and was opening the drinks cabinet in the hope of dulling his memory of a disastrous day, when the phone rang. It was the Vice-Principal. 'I'm afraid I've got some rather disturbing news,' he said with a lugubrious satisfaction the Principal recognized. He connected it with funerals. 'It's about that girl we were looking for...' The Principal reached for the gin bottle and missed the rest of the sentence. He got back in time to hear something about the boiler-room. 'Say that again,' he said, holding the bottle between his knees and trying to open it with one hand.

'I said the caretaker found her in the boiler-room.'

'In the boiler-room? What on earth was she doing there?'

'Dying,' said the Vice-Principal, affecting an even more sombre tone.

'Dying?' The Principal had the bottle open now and poured himself a large gin. This was even more awful than he expected.

'I'm afraid so.'

'Where is she now?' asked the Principal, trying to stave off the worst.

'Still in the boiler-room.'

'Still in the...But good God man, if she's in that condition, why the devil haven't you got her to hospital?'

'She isn't in that condition,' said the Vice-Principal and paused. He too had had a hard day. 'What I said was that she was dying. The fact of the matter is that she's dead.'

'Oh, my God,' said the Principal and swigged neat gin. It was better than nothing. 'You mean she died of an overdose?'

'Presumably. I suppose the police will find out.'

The Principal finished the rest of the gin. 'When did this happen?'

'About an hour ago.'

'An hour ago? I was still in my office an hour ago. Why the hell wasn't I told?'

'The caretaker thought she was drunk first of all and fetched Mrs Ruckner. She was taking an ethnic needlework class with Home Economics in the Morris block and'

'Never mind about that now,' snapped the Principal. A girl's dead on the premises and you have to go on about Mrs Ruckner and ethnic needlework.'

'I'm not going on about Mrs Ruckner,' said the Vice-Principal, driven to some defiance, 'I'm merely trying to explain.'

'Oh, all right, I've heard you. So what have you done with her?'

'Who? Mrs Ruckner?'

'No, the damned girl, for God's sake. There's no need to be flippant.'

'If you're going to adopt that tone of voice, you'd better come here and see for yourself,' said the Vice-Principal and put the phone down.

'You bloody shit,' said the Principal, unintentionally addressing his wife who had just entered the room.

At Ipford Police Station the atmosphere was fairly acrimonious too. 'Don't give me that,' said Flint who had returned from a fruitless visit to the Mental Hospital to interview a patient who had confessed (quite falsely) to being the Phantom Flasher. 'Give it to Hodge. He's drugs and I've had my fill of the bloody Tech.'

All right, call it off,' said Inspector Flint, helping himself to a plastic cup of coffee from the dispenser and stumping into his office.

'Call it off?' said Sergeant Yates, following him in.

'That's what I said. I knew it was an OD from the start. Obvious. Gave those old windbags a nasty turn all the same, and they could do with a bit of reality. Live in a bloody dream world where everything's nice and hygienic because it's been put into words. That way they don't happen, do they?'

'I hadn't thought of it like that,' said Yates.

The Inspector took a magazine out of the cardboard box and studied a photograph of a threesome grotesquely intertwined. 'Bloody disgusting,' he said.

Sergeant Yates peered over his shoulder. You wouldn't think anyone would have the nerve to be shot doing that, would you?'

Anyone who does that ought to be shot, if you ask me,' said Flint, 'Though mind you they're not really doing it. Can't be. You'd get ruptured or something. Found this little lot in that boiler-room and it didn't do that murky Principal a bit of good. Turned a very queer colour, he did.'

'Not his, are they?' asked Yates.

Flint shut the magazine and dumped it back in the box. 'You never know, my son, you never know. Not with so-called educated people you don't. It's all hidden behind words with them. They look all right from the outside, but it's what goes on in here that's really weird.' Flint tapped his forehead significantly. And that's something else again.'

'I suppose it must be,' said Yates. 'Specially when it's hygienic into the bargain.'

Flint looked at him suspiciously. He never knew if Sergeant Yates was as stupid as he made out. 'You trying to be funny or something?'

'Of course not. Only first you said they lived in a hygienic dream world of words; and then you say they're kinky in the head. I was just putting the two together.'

'Well, don't,' said Flint. 'Don't even try. Just get me Hodge. The Drug Squad can take this mess over, and good luck to them.' The Sergeant went out, leaving Flint studying his pale fingers and thinking weird thoughts of his own about Hodge, the Tech and the possibilities that might result from bringing the Head of the Drug Squad and that infernal institution together. And Wilt. It was an interesting prospect, particularly when he remembered Hodge's request for phone-tapping facilities and his generally conspiratorial air. Kept his cards close to his chest, did Inspector Hodge, and a fat lot of good it had done him so far. Well, two could play at that game, and if ever there was a quicksand of misinformation and inconsequentiality, it had to be the Tech and Wilt. Flint reversed the order. Wilt and the Tech. And Wilt had been vaguely connected with the dead girl, if only by going to the wrong toilet. The word alerted Flint to his own immediate needs. Those bloody pills had struck again.

He hurried down the passage for a pee and as he stood there, standing and staring at the tiled wall and a notice which said, 'Don't drop your cigarette ends in the urinal. It makes them soggy and difficult to light', his disgust changed to inspiration. There was a lesson to be learned from that notice if he could only see it. It had to do with the connection between a reasonable request and an utterly revolting supposition. The word 'inconsequential' came to mind again. Sticking Inspector Bloody Hodge onto Wilt would be like tying two cats together by their tails and seeing which one came out on top. And if Wilt didn't, Flint had sorely misjudged the little shit. And behind Wilt there was Eva and those foul quads and if that frightful combination didn't foul Hodge's career up as effectively as it had wrecked Flint's, the Inspector deserved promotion. With the delightful thought that he'd be getting his own back on Wilt too, he returned to his office and was presently doodling figures of infinite confusion which was exactly what he hoped to initiate.

He was still happily immersed in this daydream of revenge when Yates returned. 'Hodge is out,' he reported. 'Left a message he'd be back shortly.'

'Typical,' said Flint. 'The sod's probably lurking in some coffee bar trying to make up his mind which dolly bird he's going to nail.'

Yates sighed. Ever since Flint had been on those ruddy penis-blockers or whatever they were called, he'd had girls on his mind. 'Why shouldn't he be doing that?' he asked.

'Because that's the way the sod works. A right shoddy copper. Pulls some babe in arms in for smoking pot and then tries to turn her into a supergrass. Been watching too much TV.'

He was interrupted by the preliminary report from the Lab. 'Massive heroin dose,' the technician told him, 'that's for starters. She'd used something else we haven't identified yet. Could be a new product. It's certainly not the usual. Might be "Embalming Fluid" though.'

'Embalming Fluid? What the hell would she be doing with that?' said Flint with a genuine and justified revulsion.

'It's a name for another of these hallucinogens like LSD only worse. Anyway, we'll let you know.'

'Don't,' said Flint. 'Deal direct with Hodge. It's his pigeon now.'

He put the phone down and shook his head sorrowfully. 'Says she fixed herself with heroin and some filth called Embalming Fluid,' he told Yates. 'You wouldn't credit it, would you? Embalming Fluid! I don't know what the world's coming to.'

Fifty miles away, Lord Lynchknowle's dinner had been interrupted by the arrival of a police car and the news of his daughter's death. The fact that it had come between the mackerel p�t� and the game pie, and on the wine side, an excellent Montrachet and a Chateau Lafite 1962, several bottles of which he'd opened to impress the Home Secretary and two old friends from the Foreign Office, particularly annoyed him. Not that he intended to let the news spoil his meal by announcing it before he'd finished, but he could foresee an ugly episode with his wife afterwards for no better reason than that he had come back to the table with the rather unfortunate remark that it was nothing important. Of course, he could always excuse himself on the grounds that hospitality came first, and old Freddie was the Home Secretary after all, and he wasn't going to let that Lafite '62 go to waste, but somehow he knew Hilary was going to kick up the devil of a fuss about it afterwards. He sat on over the Stilton in a pensive mood wishing to God he'd never married her. Looking back over the years, he could see that his mother had been right when she'd warned him that there was bad blood in 'that family', the Puckertons.

By the time Wilt left The Glassblowers' Arms, his desperation had been alleviated by beer and his inability to get anywhere near the phone. He'd moved onto beer after three whiskies, and the change had made it difficult for him to be in two places at the same time, a prerequisite, it seemed, for finding the phone unoccupied. For the first half hour, a girl had been engaged in an intense conversation on reversed charges, and when Wilt had returned from the toilet, her place had been taken by an aggressive youth who had told him to bugger off. After that, there seemed to be some conspiracy to keep him away from the phone. A succession of people had used it and Wilt had ended up sitting at the bar and drinking, and generally arriving at the conclusion that things weren't so bad after all, even if he did have to walk home instead of driving.

'The bastard's in prison,' he told himself as he left the pub. 'And what's more, he's not coming out for twenty years, so what have I got to worry about? Can't hurt me, can he?'

All the same, as he made his way along the narrow streets towards the river, he kept glancing over his shoulder and wondering if he was being followed. But apart from a man with a small dog and a couple who passed him on bicycles, he was alone and could find no evidence of menace. Doubtless that would come later. Wilt tried to figure out a scenario. Presumably, McCullum had given him the piece of paper as a token message, an indication that he was to be some sort of link-man. Well, there was an easy way out of that one; he wouldn't go near the bloody prison again. Might make things awkward as far as Eva was concerned though. He'd just have to make himself scarce on Monday nights and pretend he was still teaching the loathsome McCullum. Shouldn't be too difficult and anyway, Eva was so engrossed in the quads and their so-called development, she hardly noticed what he was doing. The main thing was that he still had the airbase job and that brought the real money in.

But in the meantime, he had more immediate problems to deal with. Like what to tell Eva when he got home. He looked at his watch and saw that it was midnight. After midnight and without the car. Eva would certainly demand an explanation. What a bloody world it was, where he spent his days dealing with idiotic bureaucrats who interfered at the Tech, and was threatened by maniacs in prison, and after all that, came home to be bullied into lying by a wife who didn't believe he'd done a stroke of work all day. And in a bloody world, only the bloody-minded made any mark. The bloody-minded and the cunning. People with drive and determination. Wilt stopped under a street light and looked at the heathers and azaleas in Mr Sands' garden for the second time that day, but this time with a resurgence of those dangerous drives and determinations which beer and the world's irrationality induced in him. He would assert himself. He would do something to distinguish himself from the mass of dull, stupid people who accepted what life handed out to him and then passed on probably into oblivion (Wilt was never sure about that) without leaving more than the fallacious memories of their children and the fading snapshots in the family album. Wilt would be...well, anyway, Wilt would be Wilt, whatever that was. He'd have to give the matter some thought in the morning.

In the meantime, he'd deal with Eva. He wasn't going to stand any nonsense about where have you been? or what have you been up to this time? He'd tell her to mind her own...No, that wouldn't do. It was the sort of challenge the damned woman was waiting for and would only provoke her into keeping him awake half the night discussing what was wrong with their marriage. Wilt knew what was wrong with their marriage; it had been going on for twenty years and Eva had had quads instead of having one at a time. Which was typical of her. Talk about never doing things by halves. But that was beside the point. Or was it? Perhaps she'd had quads to compensate in some ghastly deterministic and genetical way for marrying only half a man. Wilt's mind shot off on a tangent once again as he considered the fact, if it was one, that after wars the birthrate of males shot up as if nature with a capital N was automatically compensating for their shortage. If Nature was that intelligent, it ought to have known better than to make him attractive to Eva, and vice versa. He was driven from this line of thought by another attribute of Nature. This time its call. Well, he wasn't peeing in a rose bush again. Once was enough.

He hurried up the street and was presently letting himself surreptitiously into 45 Oakhurst Avenue with the resolve that if Eva was awake he would say the car had broken down and he'd taken it to a garage. It was better to be cunning than bloody-minded after all. In the event, there was no need to be anything more than quiet. Eva, who had spent the evening mending the quads' clothes and who had discovered that they had cut imitation flies in their knickers as a blow for sexual equality, was fast asleep. Wilt climbed carefully into bed beside her and lay in the darkness thinking about drive and determination.

Drive and determination were very much in the air at the police station. Lord Lynchknowle's phone call to the Chief Constable, and the news that the Home Secretary had promised Scotland Yard's assistance, had put the skids under the Superintendent and had jerked him from his chair in front of the telly and back to the station for an urgent conference.

'There's no use in saying you didn't come home late last night because you did,' said Eva. It was breakfast, and, as usual, Wilt was being cross-examined by his nearest and dearest. On her other days, Eva left it to the quads to make the meal a misery for him by asking questions about computers or biochemistry about which he knew absolutely nothing. But this morning the absence of the car had given her the opportunity to get her own questions in.

'I didn't say I didn't come in late,' said Wilt through a mouthful of muesli. Eva was still into organic foods and her home-made muesli, designed to guarantee an adequate supply of roughage, did just that and more.

'That's a double negative,' said Emmeline.

Wilt looked at her balefully. 'I know it is,' he said, and spat out the husk of a sunflower seed.

'Then you weren't telling the truth,' Emmeline continued. 'Two negatives make a positive and you didn't say you had come in late.'

'And I didn't say I hadn't,' said Wilt, struggling with his daughter's logic and trying to use his tongue to get the bran off the top of his dentures. The damned stuff seemed to get everywhere.

'There's no need to mumble,' said Eva. 'What I want to know is where the car is.'

'I've already told you. I left it in a car park. I'll get a mechanic to go round and see what's wrong with the thing.'

'You could have done that last night. How do you expect me to take the girls to school?'

'I suppose they could always walk,' said Wilt, extracting a raisin from his mouth with his fingers and examining it offensively. 'It's an organic form of transportation, you know. Unlike this junior prune which would appear to have led a sedentary life and a sedimentary death. I wonder why it is that health foods so frequently contain objects calculated to kill. Now take this'

'I am not interested in your comments,' said Eva. 'You're just trying to wriggle out of it and if you expect me to...'

'Walk?' interrupted Wilt. 'God forbid. The adipose tissue with which you'

'Don't you adipose me, Henry Wilt,' Eva began, only to be interrupted by Penelope.

'What's adipose?'

'Mummy is,' said Wilt. 'As to the meaning, it means fat, fatty deposits and appertaining to fat.'

'I am not fat,' said Eva firmly, 'and if you think I'm spending my precious time walking three miles there and three miles back twice a day you're wrong.'

'As usual,' said Wilt. 'Of course. I was forgetting that the gender arrangements of this household leave me in a minority of one.'

'What are gender arrangements?' demanded Samantha.

'Sex,' said Wilt bitterly and got up from the table.

Behind him Eva snorted. She was never prepared to discuss sex in front of the quads. 'It's all very well for you,' she said, reverting to the question of the car which provided a genuine grievance. All you have to do is'

'Catch a bus,' said Wilt, and hurried out of the house before Eva could think of a suitable reply. In fact there was no need. He caught a lift with Chesterton from the Electronics Department and listened to his gripes about financial cuts and why they didn't make them in Communication Skills and get rid of some of those Liberal Studies deadbeats.

'Oh well, you know how it is,' said Wilt as he got out of the car at the Tech. 'We have to make good the inexactitudes of science.'

'I didn't know there were any,' said Chesterton.

'The human element,' said Wilt enigmatically, and went through the library to the lift and his office. The human element was waiting for him.

'You're late, Henry,' said the Vice-Principal.

Wilt looked at him closely. He usually got on rather well with the V-P. 'You're looking pretty late yourself,' he said. 'In fact, if I hadn't heard you speak, I'd say you were a standing corpse. Been whooping it up with the wife?'

The Vice-Principal shuddered. He still hadn't got over the horror of seeing his first dead body in the flesh, rather than on the box, and trying to drown the memory in brandy hadn't helped. 'Where the hell did you get to last night?'

'Oh, here and there, don't you know,' said Wilt. He had no intention of telling the V-P he did extra-mural teaching.

'No, I don't,' said the V-P. 'I tried calling your house and all I got was some infernal answering service.'

'That'd be one of the computers,' said Wilt. 'The quads have this programme. It runs on tape, I think. Quite useful really. Did it tell you to fuck off?'

'Several times,' said the Vice-Principal.

'The wonders of science. I've just been listening to Chesterton praising'

And I've just been listening to the Police Inspector,' cut in the V-P, 'on the subject of Miss Lynchknowle. He wants to see you.'

Wilt swallowed. Miss Lynchknowle hadn't anything to do with the prison. It didn't make sense. In any case, they couldn't have got on to him so quickly. Or could they? 'Miss Lynchknowle? What about her?'

'You mean you haven't heard?'

'Heard what?' said Wilt.

'She's the girl who was in the toilet,' said the V-P. 'She was found dead in the boiler-room last night.'

'Oh God,' said Wilt. 'How awful.'

'Quite. Anyway, we had the police swarming all over the place last night and this morning there's a new man here. He wants a word with you.'

They walked down the corridor to the Principal's office. Inspector Hodge was waiting there with another policeman. 'Just a matter of routine, Mr Wilt,' he said when the Vice-Principal had shut the door. 'We've already interviewed Mrs Bristol and several other members of the staff. Now I understand you taught the late Miss Lynchknowle?'

Wilt nodded. His previous experience with the police didn't dispose him to say more than he had to. The sods always chose the most damning interpretation.

'You taught her English?' continued the Inspector.

'I teach Senior Secretaries Three English, yes,' said Wilt.

'On Thursday afternoons at 2.15 p.m.?'

Wilt nodded again.

'And did you notice anything odd about her?'

'Odd?'

'Anything to suggest that she might be an addict, sir.'

Wilt tried to think. Senior Secretaries were all odd as far as he was concerned. Certainly in the context of the Tech. For one thing, they came from 'better families' than most of his other students and seemed to have stepped out of the fifties with their perms and their talk about Mummies and Daddies who were all wealthy farmers or something in the Army. 'I suppose she was a bit different from the other girls in the class,' he said finally. 'There was this duck, for instance.'

'Duck?' said Hodge.

'Yes, she used to bring a duck she called Humphrey with her to class. Bloody nuisance having a duck, in a lesson but I suppose it was a comfort to her having a furry thing like that.'

'Furry?' said Hodge. 'Ducks aren't furry. They have feathers.'

'Not this one,' said Wilt. 'Like a teddy bear. You know, stuffed. You don't think I'd have a live duck shitting all over the place in my class, do you?'

Inspector Hodge said nothing. He was beginning to dislike Wilt.

'Apart from that particular addiction, I can't think of anything else remarkable about her. I mean, she didn't twitch or seem unduly pale or even go in for those sudden changes of mood you tend to find with junkies.'

'I see,' said Hodge, holding back the comment that Mr Wilt seemed exceedingly well-informed on the matter of symptoms. 'And would you say there was much drug-taking at the College?'

'Not to my knowledge,' said Wilt. 'Though, come to think of it, I suppose there must be some with the numbers we've got. I wouldn't know. Not my scene.'

'Quite, sir,' said the Inspector, simulating respect.

'And now, if you don't mind,' said Wilt, 'I have work to do.' The Inspector didn't mind.

'Not much there,' said the Sergeant when he'd left.

'Never is with the really clever sods,' said Hodge.

'I still don't understand why you didn't ask him about going to the wrong toilet and what the secretary said.'

Hodge smiled. 'If you really want to know, it's because I don't intend to raise his suspicions one little iota. That's why. I've been checking on Mr Wilt and he's a canny fellow, he is. Scuppered old Flint, didn't he? And why? I'll tell you. Because Flint was fool enough to do what Wilt wanted. He pulled him in and put him through the wringer and Mr Wilt got away with bloody murder. I'm not getting caught the same way.'

'But he never did commit any murder. It was only a fucking inflatable doll he'd buried,' said the Sergeant.

'Oh, come off it. You don't think the bugger did that without he had a reason? That's a load of bull. No, he was pulling some other job and he wanted a cover, him and his missus, so they fly a kite and Flint falls for it. That old fart wouldn't know a decoy if it was shoved under his bloody snout. He was so busy grilling Wilt about that doll he couldn't see the wood for the trees.'

Sergeant Runk fought his way through the mixed metaphors and came out none the wiser. 'All the same,' he said finally, 'I can't see a lecturer here being into drugs, not pushing anyway. Where's the lifestyle? No big house and car. No country-club set. He doesn't fit the bill.'

'And no big salary here either,' said Hodge. 'So maybe he's saving up for his old age. Anyway, we'll check him out and he won't ever know.'

'I should have thought there were more likely prospects round about,' said the Sergeant. 'What about that Greek restaurant bloke Macropolis or something you've been bugging? We know he's been into heroin. And there's that fly boy down the Siltown Road with the garage we had for GBH. He was on the needle himself.'

'Yea, well he's inside, isn't he? And Mr Macropolis is out of the country right now. Anyway, I'm not saying it is Wilt. She could have been down in London getting it for all we know. In which case, it's off our patch. All I'm saying is, I'm keeping an open mind and Mr Wilt interests me, that's all.'

And Wilt was to interest him still further when they returned to the police station an hour later. 'Super wants to see you,' said the Duty Sergeant. 'He's got the Prison Governor with him.'

'Prison Governor?' said Hodge. 'What's he want?'

'You,' said the Sergeant, 'hopefully.'

Inspector Hodge ignored the crack and went down the passage to the Superintendent's office. When he came out half an hour later, his mind was alive with circumstantial evidence, all of which pointed most peculiarly to Wit. Wilt had been teaching one of the most notorious gangsters in Britain, now thankfully dead of an overdose of one of his own drugs. (The prison authorities had decided to use the presence of so much heroin in McCullum's mattress as the cause of death, rather than the phenobarb one, much to Chief Warder Blaggs' relief.) Wilt had been closeted with McCullum at the very time Miss Lynchknowle's body had been discovered. And, most significantly of all, Wilt, within an hour of leaving the prison and presumably on learning that the police were busy at the Tech, had rung the prison anonymously with a phoney message about a mass breakout and McCullum had promptly taken an overdose.

If that little lot didn't add up to something approaching a certainty that Wilt was involved, Hodge didn't know one. Anyway, add it to what he already knew of Wilt's past and it was certain. On the other hand, there was still the awkward little matter of proof. It was one of the disadvantages of the English legal system, and one Hodge would happily have dispensed with in his crusade against the underworld, that you had first to persuade the Director of Public Prosecutions that there was a case to be answered, and then go on to present evidence that would convince a senile judge and a jury of do-gooders, half of whom had already been nobbled, that an obvious villain was guilty. And Wilt wasn't an obvious villain. The bastard was as subtle as hell and to send the sod down would require evidence that was as hard as ferroconcrete.

'Listen,' Hodge said to Sergeant Runk and the small team of plain-clothes policemen who constituted his private crime squad, 'I don't want any balls-ups so this has got to be strictly covert and I mean covert. No one, not even the Super, is to know it's going on, so we'll code-name it Flint. That way, no one will suspect. Anyone can say Flint round this station and it doesn't register. That's one. Two is, I want Mr Wilt tailed twenty-four hours continuous. And another tail on his missus. No messing. I want to know what those people do every moment of the day and night from now on in.'

'Isn't that going to be a bit difficult?' asked Sergeant Runk. 'Day and night. There's no way we can put a tail in the house and...'

'Bug it is what we'll do,' said Hodge. 'Later. First off we're going to patternize their lives on a time-schedule basis. Right?'

'Right,' echoed the team. In their time, they had patternized the lives of a fish-and-chip merchant and his family who Hodge had suspected were into hard-core porn; a retired choirmasterthis time for boys; and a Mr and Mrs Pateli for nothing better than their name. In each case the patternizing had failed to confirm the Inspector's suspicions, which were in fact wholly groundless, but had established as incontrovertible facts that the fish-and-chip merchant opened his shop at 6 p.m. except Sundays, that the choirmaster was having a happy and vigorous love affair with a wrestler's wife, and in any case had an aversion amounting almost to an allergy for small boys, and that the Patelis went to the Public Library every Tuesday, that Mr Pateli did full-time unpaid work with the Mentally Handicapped, while Mrs Pateli did Meals on Wheels. Hodge had justified the time and expense by arguing that these were training sessions in preparation for the real thing.

'And this is it,' continued Hodge. 'If we can nail this one down before Scotland Yard takes over we'll be quids in. We're also going into a surveillance mode at the Tech. I'm going over to see the Principal about it now. In the meantime, Pete and Reg can move into the canteen and the Student's Common Room and make out they're mature students chucked out for dope at Essex or some other University.'

Within an hour, Operation Flint was underway. Pete and Reg, suitably dressed in leather garments that would have alarmed the most hardened Hell's Angels, had already emptied the Students' Common Room at the Tech by their language and their ready assumption that everyone there was on heroin. In the Principal's office, Inspector Hodge was having more or less the same effect on the Principal and the V-P, who found the notion that the Tech was the centre for drug distribution in Fenland particularly horrifying. They didn't much like the idea of being lumbered with fifteen educationally subnormal coppers as mature students.

'At this time of year?' said the Principal. 'Dammit, it's April. We don't enrol mature students this term. We don't enrol any, come to that. They come in September. And anyway, where the hell would we put them?'

'I suppose we could always call them "Student Teachers",' said the V-P. 'That way they could sit in on any classes they wanted to without having to say very much.'

'Still going to look bloody peculiar,' said the Principal. 'And frankly, I don't like it at all.'

But it was the Inspector's assertion that the Lord Lieutenant, the Chief Constable and, worst of all, the Home Secretary didn't like what had been going on at the Tech that turned the scales.

'God, what a ghastly man,' said the Principal, when Hodge had left. 'I thought Flint was foul enough, but this one's even bloodier. What is it about policemen that is so unpleasant? When I was a boy, they were quite different.'

'I suppose the criminals were, too,' said the V-P. 'I mean, it can't be much fun with sawn-off shotguns and hooligans hurling Molotov cocktails at you. Enough to turn any man bloody.'

'Odd,' said the Principal, and left it at that.

Meanwhile Hodge had put the Wilts under surveillance. 'What's been happening?' he asked Sergeant Runk.

And it continued. For two days, teams of detectives kept watch on the Wilts and reported back to Inspector Hodge who found the signals unambiguous. Eva's visit to Dr Kores was particularly damning.

'Herb farm? She went to a herb farm in Silton?' said the Inspector incredulously. After forty-eight almost sleepless hours and as many cups of black coffee, he could have done with some alternative medicine himself. 'And she came out with a large plastic bottle?'

'Apparently,' said the detective. Trying to keep up with Eva had taken its toll. So had the quads. 'For all I know, she went in with one. All we saw was her taking the bottle out of her bag when she was waiting for the bus.'

Hodge ignored the logic. As far as he was concerned, suspects who visited herb farms, and had bottles in their bags afterwards, were definitely guilty.

But it was Mavis Mottram's arrival at 45 Oakhurst Avenue later that afternoon that interested him most. 'Subject collects children from school at 3.30,' he read from the written report, 'gets home and a woman drives up in a mini.'

'Correct.'

'What's she look like?'

'Forty, if she's a day. Dark hair. Five foot four. Blue anorak and khaki trousers with leg-warmers. Goes in at 3.55, leaving at 4.20.'

'So she could have collected the bottle?'

'Could have, I suppose, but she hadn't got a bag and there was no sign of it.'

'Then what?'

'Nothing till the next door neighbour comes home at 5.30. Look, it's all there in my report.'

'I know it is,' said Hodge, 'I'm just trying to get the picture. How did you know his name was Gamer?'

'Blimey, I'd have to be stone deaf not to, the way she gave it to him, not to mention his wife carrying on something chronic.'

'So what happened?'

'This bloke Gamer goes in the door of 43,' said the detective, 'and five minutes later he's out again like a scalded cat with his wife trying to stop him. Dashes round to the Wilts' and tries to go in the side gate round the back of the house. Grabs the latch on the gate and the next moment he's flat on his back in the flower bed, twitching like he's got St Vitus' dance and his missus is yelling like they've killed him.'

'So what you're saying is the back gate was electrified?' said Hodge.

'I'm not saying it. He did. As soon as he could speak, that is, and had stopped twitching. Mrs Wilt comes out and wants to know what he's doing in her wallflowers. By that time he's got to his feet, just, and is yelling that her fucking hellcatshis words, not minehave tried to murder him by stealing some statuette he's got in his back garden, and they've put it in theirs, and wired up the back gate to the fucking mains. And Mrs Wilt tells him not to be so silly and kindly not to use filthy language in front of her daughters. After that, things got a bit confusing with him wanting his statue and her saying she hadn't got it, and wouldn't have it if he gave it to her because it's dirty.'

'Dirty?' muttered Hodge. 'What's dirty about it?'

'It's one of those ones of a small boy peeing. Got it on his pond. She practically called him a pervert. And all the time his wife is pleading with him to come on home and never mind the ruddy statue, they can always get another one when they've sold the house. That got to him. "Sell the house?" he yells, "Who to? Even a raving lunatic wouldn't buy a house next to the bloody Wilts." Probably right at that.'

'And what happened in the end?' asked Hodge, making a mental note that he'd have an ally in Mr Gamer.

'She insists he come through the house and see if his statue's there, because she's not going to have her girls called thieves.'

'And he went?' said Hodge incredulously.

'Hesitantly,' said the detective. 'Came out shaken and swearing he'd definitely seen it there and if she didn't believe those kids had tried to kill him, why were all the lights in the house on the blink. That had her, and he pointed out there was a piece of wire still tied to the bootscraper outside the back gate.'

'Interesting,' said Hodge. 'And was there?'

'Must have been, because she got all flustered then, especially when he said it was evidence to show the police.'

'Naturally, with that bottle of dope still in the house,' said Hodge. 'No wonder they'd fixed the back door.' A new theory had been formulated in his mind. 'I tell you we're on to something, this time.'

Even the Superintendent, who shared Flint's view that Inspector Hodge was a greater menace to the public than half the petty crooks he arrested and would gladly have put the sod on traffic duty, had to admit that for once the Inspector seemed to be on the right track. 'This fellow Wilt's got to be guilty of something,' he muttered as he studied the report of Wilt's extraordinary movements during his lunch break.

In fact, Wilt had been on the look-out for McCullum's associates and had almost immediately spotted the two detectives in an unmarked car when he'd walked out of the Tech to pick up the Escort at the back of The Glassblowers' Arms, and had promptly taken evasive action with an expertise he'd learnt from watching old thrillers on TV. As a result, he'd doubled back down side roads, had disappeared up alleyways, had bought a number of wholly unnecessary items in crowded shops and had even bolted in the front doors of Boots and out the back before heading for the pub.

'Returned to the Tech car park at 2.15,' said the Superintendent. 'Where'd he been?'

'I'm afraid we lost him,' said Hodge. 'The man's an expert. All we know is he came back driving fast and practically ran for the building.'

Nor had Wilt's behaviour on leaving the Tech that evening been calculated to inspire confidence in his innocence. Anyone who walked out of the front gate wearing dark glasses, a coat with the collar turned up and a wig (Wilt had borrowed one from the Drama Department) and spent half an hour sitting on a bench by the bowling green on Midway Park, scrutinizing the passing traffic before sneaking back to the Tech car park, had definitely put himself into the category of a prime suspect.

'Think he was waiting for someone?' the Superintendent asked.

'More likely trying to warn them off,' said Hodge. 'They've probably got a system of signalling. His accomplices drive past and see him sitting there and get the message.'

'I suppose so,' said the Superintendent, who couldn't think of anything else that made sense. 'So we can expect an early arrest. I'll tell the Chief Constable.'

'I wouldn't say that, sir,' said Hodge, 'just that we've got a definite lead. If I'm right, this is obviously a highly-organized syndicate. I don't want to rush into an early arrest when this man could lead us to the main source.'

'There is that,' said the Superintendent gloomily. He had been hoping that Hodge's handling of the case would prove so inept that he could call in the Regional Crime Squad. Instead the confounded man seemed to be making a success of it. And after that he'd doubtless apply for promotion and get it. Hopefully somewhere else. If not, the Superintendent would apply for a transfer himself. And there was still a chance Hodge would foul things up.

At the Tech, Hodge had. His insistance on putting plain-clothes detectives in, masquerading as apprentices or even more unsatisfactorily as Trainee Teachers, was playing havoc with staff morale.

But if Flint's mood had changed for the better, Inspector Hodge's hadn't. His interpretation of Wilt's behaviour had been coloured by the accident at the end of Nott Road. 'The bastard's got to know we're onto him, ramming a police car like that,' he told Sergeant Runk, 'so what's he do?'

'Buggered if I know,' said the Sergeant, who preferred early nights and couldn't think at all clearly at one in the morning.

'He goes for an early arrest, knowing we've got no hard evidence and will have to let him go.'

'What's he want us to do that for?'

'Because if we pull him in again he can start squealing about harassment and civil bloody liberties,' said Hodge.

'Seems an odd way of going about things,' said Runk.

'And what about sending your wife out to a herb farm to pick up a load of drugs on the very day after a girl dies of the filth? Isn't that a bit odd too?' Hodge demanded.

'Definitely,' said Runk. 'In fact, I can't think of anything odder. Any normal criminal would lie bloody low.'

Inspector Hodge smiled unpleasantly. 'Exactly. But we're not dealing with any ordinary criminal. That's the point I'm trying to make. We've got one of the cleverest monkeys I've ever had to catch on our hands.'

Sergeant Runk couldn't see it. 'Not if he sends his missus out to get a bottle of the stuff when we're watching her, he's not clever. Downright stupid.'

Hodge shook his head sadly. It was always difficult to get the Sergeant to understand the complexities of the criminal mind. 'Suppose there was nothing remotely like drugs in that bottle she was seen carrying?' he asked.

Sergeant Runk dragged his thoughts back from beds and tried to concentrate. 'Seem a bit of a wasted journey,' was all he could find to say.

'It's also intended to lead us up the garden path,' said Hodge. 'And that's his tactics. You've only to look at Wilt's record to see that. Take that doll caper for instance. He had old Flint by the short and curlies there, and why? Because the stupid fool pulled him in for questioning when all the evidence he had to go on was a blown-up doll of Mrs Wilt down a piling-hole with twenty tons of concrete on top of her. And where was the real Mrs Wilt all that week? Out on a boat with a couple of hippie Yanks who were into drugs up to their eyeballs and Flint lets them flee the country without grilling them about what they'd really been doing down the coast. Sticks out a mile they were smuggling and Wilt had set himself up for a decoy and kept Flint busy digging up a plastic doll. That's how cunning Wilt is.'

'I suppose when you put it like that it makes sense,' said Runk. And you reckon he's using the same tactics now.'

'Leopards,' said Hodge.

'Leopards?'

'Don't change their bleeding spots.'

'Oh, them,' said the Sergeant, who could have done without ellipses at that time of night.

'Only this time he's not dealing with some old-fashioned dead-beat copper like Flint,' said Hodge, now thoroughly convinced by the persuasiveness of his argument. 'He's dealing with me.'

'Makes a change. And talking about changes, I'd like to go...'

'To 45 Oakhurst Avenue,' said Hodge decisively, 'that's where you're going. I want Mr Smart-Arse Wilt's car wired for sound and we're calling off the physical observation. This time it's going to be electronic all the way.'

'Not if I have anything to do with it,' said Runk defiantly, 'I've enough sense to know better than start tinkering with a sod like Wilt's car. Besides, I've got a wife and three kids to'

'What the hell's your family got to do with it?' said Hodge. 'All I'm saying is, we'll go round there while they're asleep'

'Asleep? A bloke who electrifies his back gate, you think he takes chances with his bloody car? You can do what you like, but I'm buggered if I'm going to meet my Maker charred to a fucking cinder by a maniac who's linked his car to the national grid. Not for you or anyone else.'

But Hodge was not to be stopped. 'We can check it's safe,' he insisted.

'How?' asked Runk, who was wide awake now. 'Let a police dog pee against the thing and see if he gets 32,000 volts up his prick? You've got to be joking.'

'I'm not,' said Hodge. 'I'm telling. Go and get the equipment.'

Half an hour later, a desperately nervous Sergeant wearing gum boots and electrically safe rubber gloves eased the door of Wilt's car open. He'd already been round it four times to check there were no wires running from the house and had earthed it with a copper rod. Even so, he was taking no chances and was a trifle surprised that the thing didn't explode.

'All right, now where do you want the tape recorder?' he asked when the Inspector finally joined him.

'Somewhere where we can get at the tape easily,' Hodge whispered.

Runk groped under the dash and tried to find a space.

'Too bloody obvious,' said Hodge. 'Stick it under his seat.'

'Anything you say,' said Runk and stuffed the recorder into the springs. The sooner he was out of the damned car, the better. 'And what about the transmitter?'

'One in the boot and the other...'

'Other?' said Runk. 'You're going to get him picked up by the TV licence-detector vans at this rate. One of these sets has a radius of five miles.'

'I'm not taking chances,' said Hodge. 'If he finds one, he won't look for the other.'

'Not unless he has his car serviced.'

'Put it where no one looks.'

In the end, and then only after a lot of disagreement, the Sergeant attached one radio magnetically in a corner of the boot and was lying under the car searching for a hiding-place for the second when the lights came on in the Wilts' bedroom. 'I told you the swine wouldn't take any chances,' he whispered frantically as the Inspector fought his way in beside him. 'Now we're for it.'

Hodge said nothing. With his face pressed against an oily patch of tarmac and something that smelt disgustingly of cats, he was incapable of speech.

So was Wilt. The effect of Dr Kores' sexual stimulant added to his homebrewWilt had surreptitiously finished six bottles in an effort to find one that didn't taste peculiarhad been to leave him mentally befuddled and with the distinct impression that something like a battalion of army ants had taken possession of his penis and were busily digging in. Either that, or one of the quads had dementedly shoved the electric toothbrush up it while he was asleep. It didn't seem likely. But then again the sensation he was experiencing didn't seem in the least likely either. As he switched on the bedside lamp and hurled the sheet back to see what on earth was wrong, he glimpsed an expanse of red panties beside him. Eva in red panties? Or was she on fire too?

All the following day, while Wilt lay in bed with a hot-water bottle he'd converted into an ice-pack by putting it into the freezer compartment of the fridge and Inspector Hodge monitored Eva's movements about Ipford, Flint followed his own line of investigation. He checked with Forensic and learnt that the high-grade heroin found in McCullum's cell corresponded in every way to that discovered in Miss Lynchknowle's flat and almost certainly came from the same source. He spent an hour with Mrs Jardin, the prison visitor, wondering at the remarkable capacity for self-deception that had already allowed her to put the blame on everyone else for McCullum's death. Society was to blame for creating the villain, the education authorities for his wholly inadequate schooling, commerce and industry for failing to provide him with a responsible job, the judge for sentencing him...

'He was a victim of circumstances,' said Mrs Jardin.

'You might say that about everybody,' said Flint, looking at a corner cupboard containing pieces of silver that suggested Mrs Jardin's circumstances allowed her the wherewithal to be the victim of her own sentimentality. 'For instance, the three men who threatened to carve you up with'

'Don't,' said Mrs Jardin, shuddering at the memory.

'Well, they were victims too, weren't they? So's a rabid dog, but that's no great comfort when you're bitten by one, and I put drug pushers in that category.' Mrs Jardin had to agree. 'So you wouldn't recognize them again,' asked Flint, 'not if they were wearing stockings over their heads like you said?'

'They were. And gloves.'

'And they took you down the London Road and showed you where the drop was going to be made.'

'Behind the telephone box opposite the turn-off to Brindlay. I was to stop and go into the phone box and pretend to make a call, and then, if no one was about, I had to come out and pick up the package and go straight home. They said they'd be watching me.'

'And I don't suppose it ever occurred to you to go straight to the police and report the matter?' asked Flint.

'Naturally it did. That was my first thought, but they said they had more than one officer on their payroll.'

Flint sighed. It was an old tactic, and for all he knew the sods had been telling the truth. There were bent coppers, a lot more than when he'd joined the force, but then there hadn't been the big gangs and the money to bribe, and if bribery failed, to pay for a contract killing. The good old days when someone was always hanged if a policeman was murdered, even if it was the wrong man. Now, thanks to the do-gooders like Mrs Jardin, and Christie lying in the witness box and getting that mentally subnormal Evans topped for murders Christie himself had committed, the deterrent was no longer there. The world Flint had known had gone by the board, so he couldn't really blame her for giving in to threats. All the same, he was going to remain what he had always been, an honest and hardworking policeman.

'Even so we could have given you protection,' he said, 'and they wouldn't have been bothered with you once you'd stopped visiting McCullum.'

'I know that now,' said Mrs Jardin, 'but at the time I was too frightened to think clearly.'

Or at all, thought Flint, but he didn't say it. Instead, he concentrated on the method of delivery. No one dropped a consignment of heroin behind a telephone kiosk without ensuring it was going to be picked up. Then again, they didn't hang around after the drop. So there had to be some way of communicating. 'What would have happened if you'd been ill?' he asked. 'Just supposing you couldn't have collected the package, what then?'

Mrs Jardin looked at him with a mixture of contempt and bewilderment she evidently felt when faced with someone who concentrated so insistently on practical matters and neglected moral issues. Besides, he was a policeman and ill-educated. Policemen didn't find absolution as victims. 'I don't know,' she said.

But Flint was getting angry. 'Come off the high horse,' he said, 'you can squeal you were forced into being a runner, but we can still charge you with pushing drugs and into a prison at that. Who did you have to phone?'

Mrs Jardin crumbled. 'I don't know his name. I had to call a number and...'

'What number?'

'Just a number. I can't'

'Get it,' said Flint. Mrs Jardin went out of the room and Flint sat looking at the titles in the bookshelves. They meant very little to him and told him only that she'd read or at least bought a great many books on sociology, economics, the Third World and penal reform. It didn't impress Flint. If the woman had really wanted to do something about the conditions of prisoners, she'd have got a job as a wardress and lived on low wages, instead of dabbling in prison visits and talking about the poor calibre of the staff who had to do society's dirty work. Stick up her taxes to build better prisons and she'd soon start squealing. Talk about hypocrisy.

Mrs Jardin came back with a piece of paper. 'That's the number,' she said, handing it to him. Flint looked at it. A London phone box.

'When did you have to call?'

'They said between 9.30 and 9.40 at night the day before I had to collect the packet.'

Flint changed direction. 'How many times did you collect?'

'Only three.'

He got to his feet. It was no use. They'd know Mac was dead, even if it hadn't been announced in the papers, so there was no point in supposing they'd make another drop, but at least they were operating out of London. Hodge was on the wrong track. On the other hand, Flint himself couldn't be said to be on the right one. The trail stopped at Mrs Jardin and a public telephone in London. If McCullum had still been alive...

Flint left the house and drove over to the prison. 'I'd like to take a look at Mac's list of visitors,' he told Chief Warder Blaggs, and spent half an hour writing names in his notebook, together with addresses.

'Someone in that little lot had to be running messages,' he said when he finished. 'Not that I expect to get anywhere, but it's worth trying.'

Afterwards, back at the Station, he had checked them on the Central Records Computer and cross-referenced for drug dealing, but the one link he was looking for, some petty criminal living in Ipford or nearby, was missing. And he wasn't going to waste his time trying to tackle London. In fact, if he were truthful, he had to admit he was wasting his time even in Ipford except...except that something told him he wasn't. It nagged at his mind. Sitting in his office, he followed that instinct. The girl had been seen by her flat-mate down by the marina. Several times. But the marina was just another place like the telephone kiosk on the London Road. It had to be something more definite, something he could check out.

Flint picked up the phone and called the Drug Addiction Study Unit at the Ipford Hospital.

By lunchtime, Wilt was up and about. To be exact, he'd been up and about several times during the morning, in part to get another hot-water bottle from the freezer, but more often in a determined effort not to masturbate himself to death. It was all very well Eva supposing she'd benefit from the effects of whatever diabolical irritant she'd added to his homebrew, but to Wilt's way of thinking, a wife who'd damned near poisoned her husband didn't deserve what few sexual benefits he had to offer. Give her an inkling of satisfaction from this experiment and next time he'd land up in hospital with internal bleeding and a permanent erection. As it was, he had a hard time with his penis.

By the following evening, it would have been difficult to say what Inspector Hodge was. Since Wilt hadn't emerged from the house, the Inspector had spent the best part of two days tracing Eva's progress to and from the school and round Ipford in the bugged Escort.

'It's good practice,' he told Sergeant Runk, as they followed her in a van Hodge had converted to a listening-post.

'For what?' asked the Sergeant, pinning a mark on the town map to indicate that Eva had now parked behind Sainsbury's. She'd already been to Tesco's and Fine Fare. 'So we learn where to get the best discount on washing powder?'

'For when he decides to move.'

'When,' said Runk. 'So far he hasn't been out of the house all day.'

'He's sent her out to check she hasn't got a tail on her,' said Hodge. 'In the meantime, he's lying low.'

'Which you said was just the thing he wasn't doing,' said Runk. 'I said he was and you said...'

'I know what I said. But that was when he knew he was being followed. It's different now.'

'I'll say,' said Runk. 'So the sod sends us on a tour of shopping centres and we haven't got a clue what's going on.'

They had that night. Runk, who had insisted on having the afternoon off for some shut-eye if he was to work at night, retrieved the tape from under the seat and replaced it with a new one. It was one o'clock in the morning. Half an hour later, Hodge, whose childhood had been spent in a house where sex was never mentioned, was listening to the quads discussing Wilt's condition with a frankness that appalled him. If anything was needed to convince him that Mr and Mrs Wilt were dyed-in-the-wool criminals, it was Emmeline's repeated demand to know why Daddy had been up in the night putting cake icing on his penis. Eva's explanation didn't help either. 'He wasn't feeling very well, dear. He'd had too much beer and he couldn't sleep, so he went down to the kitchen to see if he could ice cake and'

'I wouldn't like the sort of cake he was icing,' interrupted Samantha. 'And anyway, it was face-cream.'

'I know, dear, but he was practising and he spilt it.'

'Up his cock?' demanded Penelope, which gave Eva the opportunity to tell her never to use that word.

'It's not nice,' she said, 'it's not nice to say things like that and you're not going to tell anyone at school.'

'It wasn't very nice of Daddy to use the icing syringe to pump face-cream up his penis,' said Emmeline.

By the time the discussion was over, and Eva had dropped the quads off at the school, Hodge was ashen. Sergeant Runk wasn't feeling very well either.

'I don't believe it, I don't believe a bloody word of it,' muttered the Inspector.

'I wish to God I didn't,' said Runk. 'I've heard some revolting things in my time but that lot takes the cake.'

'Don't mention that word,' Hodge said. 'I still don't believe it. No man in his right mind would do a thing like that. They're having us on.'

'Oh, I don't know. I knew a bloke once who used to butter his wick with strawberry jam and have his missus'

'Shut up,' shouted Hodge, 'if there's one thing I can't stand it's filth and I've had my fill of that for one night.'

'So's Wilt, by the sound of it,' said Runk, 'walking about with his prick in a jug of ice cubes like that. Can't have been just face-cream or icing-sugar he had in that syringe.'

'Dear God,' said Hodge. 'You're not suggesting he was fixing himself with a cake-icing syringe, are you? He'd be bloody dead by now, and anyhow the fucking thing would leak.'

'Not if he mixed the junk with cold cream. That'd explain it, wouldn't it?'

'It might do,' Hodge admitted. 'I suppose if people can sniff the filthy muck, there's no knowing what they can do with it. Not that it helps us much what he does.'

'Of course it does,' said the Sergeant, who had suddenly seen a way of ending the tedium of sitting through the night in the van. 'It means he's got the stuff in the house.'

'Or up his pipe,' said Hodge.

'Wherever. Anyway, there's bound to be enough around to haul him in and give him a good going over.'

But the Inspector has his sights set on more ambitious targets. 'A fat lot of good that's going to do us,' he said, 'even if he did crack, and if you'd read what he did to old Flint you'd know better'

'But this'd be different,' Runk interrupted. 'First off, he'd be cold turkey. Don't have to question him. Leave him in a cell for three days without a fix and he'd be bleating like a fucking baa-lamb.'

'Yes, and I know who for,' said the Inspector. 'His ruddy mouthpiece.'

'Yes, but we'd have his missus too, remember. And anyway this time we'd have hard evidence and it would just be a matter of charging him. He wouldn't get bail on a heroin charge.'

'True,' said Hodge grudgingly, 'if we had hard evidence. "If."'

'Well, there's bound to be with him getting the stuff all over his pyjamas like those kids said. Forensic would have an easy time. Take that cake-icing syringe for a starter. And then there are towels and drying-up cloths. Blimey, the place must be alive with the stuff. Even the fleas on the cat must be addicts the way he's been splashing it round.'

'That's what worries me,' said Hodge. 'Whoever heard of a pusher splashing it round? No way. They're too bloody careful. Especially when the heat's on like it is now. You know what I think?' Sergeant Runk shook his head. In his opinion the Inspector was incapable of thought. 'I think the bastard's trying the old come-on. Wants us to arrest him. He's trying to trap us into it. That explains the whole thing.'

'Doesn't explain anything to me,' said Runk despairingly.

'Listen,' said Hodge, 'what we've heard on that tape just now is too bizarre to be credible, right? Right. You've never heard of a junkie fixing his cock and I haven't either. But apparently, this Wilt does. Not only that, but he makes a fucking mess, does it in the middle of the night and with a cake-icing syringe and makes sure his kids find him in the kitchen doing it. For why? Because he wants the little bitches to shoot their mouths off about it in public and for us to hear about it. That's why. Well, I'm not falling for it. I'm going to take my time and wait for Mr Clever Wilt to lead me to his source. I'm not interested in single pushers, this time I'm going to pull in the whole ruddy network.'

And having satisfied himself with this interpretation of Wilt's extraordinary behaviour, the Inspector sat on, savouring his eventual triumph. In his mind's eye, he could see Wilt in the dock with a dozen big-time criminals, none of whom the likes of Flint had ever suspected. They'd be moneyed men with large houses who played golf and belonged to the best clubs, and after sentencing him, the Judge would compliment Inspector Hodge on his brilliant handling of the case. No one would ever call him inefficient again. He'd be famous and his photograph would be in all the papers.

Wilt's thoughts followed rather similar lines, though with a different emphasis. The effects of Eva's enthusiasm for aphrodisiacs were still making themselves felt and, more disastrously, had given him what appeared to be a permanent erection. 'Of course I'm confined to the bloody house,' he said when Eva complained that she didn't want him wandering about in his dressing-gown on her weekly coffee morning. 'You don't expect me to go back to the Tech with the thing sticking out like a ramrod.'

'Who?' said Major Glaushof.

'Some guy who teaches English or something evenings. Name of Wilt,' said the Duty Lieutenant. 'H. Wilt.'

'I'll be right over,' said Glaushof. He put the phone down and went through to his wife.

'Don't wait up, honey,' he said, 'I've got a problem.'

'Me too,' said Mrs Glaushof, and settled back to watch Dallas on BBC. It was kind of reassuring to know Texas was still there and it wasn't damp and raining all the time and goddam cold like Baconheath, and people still thought big and did big things. So she shouldn't have married an Airbase Security Officer with a thing going for German Shepherds. And to think he'd seemed so romantic when she'd met him back from Iran. Some security there. She should have known.

Outside, Glaushof climbed into his jeep with the three dogs and drove off between the houses towards the gates to Civilian Quarters. A group of men were standing well back from Wilt's Escort in the parking lot. Glaushof deliberately skidded the jeep to a stop and got out.

'What is it?' he asked. 'A bomb?'

'Jesus, I don't know,' said the Lieutenant, who was listening to a receiver. 'Could be anything.'

'Like he's left his CB on,' a Corporal explained, 'only there's two of them and they're bleeping.'

'Know any Brit who has two CBs running continuously the same time?' asked the Lieutenant.

'No way, and the frequency's wrong. Way too high.'

'So it could be a bomb,' said Glaushof. 'Why the fuck did you let it in?'

In the darkness and under threat of being blown to bits by whatever diabolical device the car concealed, Glaushof edged away. The little group followed him.

'Guy comes every Friday, gives his lecture, has coffee and goes on home no problem,' said the Lieutenant.

'So you let him drive right through with that lot buzzing and you don't stop him,' said Glaushof. 'We could have a Beirut bomb blast on our hands.'

'We didn't pick up the bleep till later.'

'Too later,' said Glaushof, 'I'm not taking any chances. I want the sand trucks brought up but fast. We're going to seal that car. Move.'

'It ain't no bomb,' said the Corporal, 'not sending like that. With a bomb the signals would be coming in.'

'Whatever,' said Glaushof, 'it's a breach of security and it's going to be sealed.'

'If you say so, Major,' said the Corporal and disappeared across the parking lot. For a moment, Glaushof hesitated and considered what other action he should take. At least he'd acted promptly to protect the base and his own career. As Base Security Officer, he'd always been against these foreign lecturers coming in with their subversive talks. He'd already discovered a geographer who'd sneaked a whole lot of shit about the dangers to bird-life from noise pollution and kerosene into his lectures on the development of the English landscape. Glaushof had had him busted as a member of Greenpeace. A car with radios transmitting continuously suggested something much more serious. And something much more serious could be just what he needed.

Glaushof ran through a mental checklist of enemies of the Free World: terrorists, Russian spies, subversives, women from Greenham Common...whatever. It didn't matter. The key thing was that Base Intelligence had fouled things up and it was up to him to rub their faces in the shit. Glaushof smiled to himself at the prospect. If there was one man he detested, it was the Intelligence Officer. Nobody heard of Glaushof, but Colonel Urwin with his line to the Pentagon and his wife in with the Base Commander's so they were invited to play Bridge Saturday nights, oh sure, he was a big noise. And a Yale man. Screw him. Glaushof intended to. 'This guy...what did you say his name is?' he asked the Lieutenant.

'Wilt,' said the Lieutenant.

'Where are you holding him?'

'Not holding him anyplace,' said the Lieutenant. 'Called you first thing we picked up the signals.'

'So where is he?'

'I guess he's over lecturing someplace,' said the Lieutenant. 'His details are in the guardhouse. Schedule and all.'

They hurried across the parking lot to the gates to the civilian quarters and Glaushof studied the entry in Wilt's file. It was brief and uninformative. 'Lecture Hall 9,' said the Lieutenant. 'You want me to have him picked up?'

'No,' said Glaushof, 'not yet. Just see no one gets out, is all.'

'No way he can except over the new fence,' said the Lieutenant, 'and I don't see him getting far. I've switched the current on.'

'Fine,' said Glaushof. 'So he comes out you stop him.'

'Yes, sir,' said the Lieutenant, and went out to check the guards, while Glaushof picked up the phone and called the Security Patrol. 'I want Lecture Hall 9 surrounded,' he said, 'but nobody to move till I come.'

He sat on staring distractedly at the centrepage of Playgirl featuring a male nude which had been pinned to the wall. If this bastard Wilt could be persuaded to talk, Glaushof's career would be made. So how to get him in the right frame of mind? First of all, he had to know what was in that car. He was still puzzling over tactics when the Lieutenant coughed discreetly behind him. Glaushof reacted violently. He didn't like the implications of that cough. 'Did you pin this up?' he shouted at the Lieutenant.

'Negative,' said the Lieutenant, who disliked the question almost as much as Glaushof had hated the cough. 'No, sir, I did not. That's Captain Clodiak.'

'That's Captain Clodiak?' said Glaushof, turning back to examine the picture again. 'I knew she...he...You've got to be kidding, Lieutenant. That's not the Captain Clodiak I know.'

'She put it there, sir. She likes that sort of thing.'

'Yes, well I guess she's a pretty feisty woman,' said Glaushof to avoid the accusation that he was discriminatory. In career prospect terms, it was almost as dangerous as being called a faggot. Not almost; it was worse.

'I happen to be Church of God,' said the Lieutenant, 'and that is irreligious according to my denomination.'

But Glaushof wasn't to be drawn into a discussion. 'Could be,' he said. 'Some other time, huh?' He went out and back to the parking lot where the Corporal, now accompanied by a Major and several men from the Demolition and Excavation section, had surrounded Wilt's car with four gigantic dumpers filled with sand, sweeping aside a dozen other vehicles in the process. As he approached, Glaushof was blinded by two searchlights which had suddenly been switched on. 'Douse those mothers,' he shouted, stumbling about in the glare. 'You want them to know in Moscow what we're doing?' In the darkness that followed this pronouncement, Glaushof banged into the wheelhub of one of the dumptrucks.

'Okay, so I go in without lights,' said the Corporal. 'No problem. You think it's a bomb, I don't. Bombs don't transmit CB.' And before Glaushof could remind him to call him 'Sir' in future, the Corporal had walked across to the car.

'Mr Wilt,' said Mrs Ofrey, 'would you like to elucidate on the question of the role of women in British society with particular regard to the part played in professional life by the Right Honorable Prime Minister Mrs Thatcher and...'

'I got the whole place wrapped up, sir, and he's still inside,' said Lieutenant Harah when Glaushof finally reached Lecture Hall 9. Glaushof didn't need telling. He had had enough trouble himself getting through the cordon the Lieutenant had thrown up around the hall and in other circumstances would have expressed himself irritably on the Lieutenant's thoroughness. But the situation was too serious for recrimination, and besides he respected his second-in-command's expertise. As head of the APPS, the Anti Perimeter Penetration Squad, Lieutenant Harah had been through training at Fort Knox, in Panama and had seen action at Greenham Common disguised as a British bobby where he had qualified for a Purple Heart after being bitten in the leg by a mother of four, an experience which had left him with a useful bias against women. Glaushof appreciated his misogyny. At least one man in Baconheath could be relied on not to lay Mona Glaushof and Harah wasn't going to play footsy with any CND women if and when they tried breaking into Baconheath.

On the other hand, he seemed to have gone too far this time. Quite apart from the six hit-squad men in gas masks by the glass fronted door to the lecture hall and a number of others crouching under the windows round the side a small group of women were standing with their heads up against the wall of the next building.

'What are those?' Glaushof asked. He had a nasty suspicion he recognized Mrs Ofrey's Scottish knitwear.

'Suspected women,' said Lieutenant Harah.

'What do you mean "suspected women"?' demanded Glaushof. 'Either they're women or they aren't.'

'They came out dressed as women, sir,' said the Lieutenant, 'doesn't mean to say they are. Could be the terrorist dressed as one. You want me to check them out?'

'No,' said Glaushof, wishing to hell he had given the order to storm the building before he had put in an appearance himself. It wasn't going to look too good spread-eagling the wife of the Chief Administrative Officer against a wall with a gun at her head, and to have her checked out sexually by Lieutenant Harah would really foul things up. On the other hand even Mrs Ofrey could hardly complain about being rescued from a possible hostage situation.

'You sure there's no way he could have got out?'

Absolute,' said the Lieutenant. 'I got marksmen on the next block in case he makes the roof and the utilities tunnels are sealed. All we got to do is toss a canister of Agent Incapacitating in there and there's going to be no trouble.'

Glaushof glanced nervously at the row of women and doubted it. There was going to be trouble and maybe it would be better if that trouble could be seen to be serious. 'I'll get those women under cover and then you go in,' he said. 'And no shooting unless he fires first. I want this guy taken for interrogation. You got that?'

'Absolute, sir,' said the Lieutenant. 'He gets a whiff of AI he wouldn't find a trigger to pull if he wanted to.'

'Okay. Give me five minutes and then go,' said Glaushof and crossed to Mrs Ofrey.

'If you ladies will just step this way,' he said, and dismissing the men who were holding them hurried the little group round the corner and into the lobby of another lecture hall. Mrs Ofrey was clearly annoyed.

'What do you mean' she began but Glaushof raised a hand. 'If you'll just let me explain,' he said, 'I realize you have been inconvenienced but we have an infiltration situation on our hands and we couldn't afford the possibility of you being held hostage.' He paused and was glad to see that even Mrs Ofrey had taken the message. 'How absolutely dreadful,' she murmured.

It was Captain Clodiak's reaction that surprised him. 'Infiltration situation? We just had the usual class no problem,' she said, 'I didn't see anybody new. Are you saying there's somebody in there we don't know about?'

Glaushof hesitated. He had hoped to keep the question of Wilt's identity as a secret agent to himself and not have news of it spreading round the base like wildfire. He certainly didn't want it getting out until he had completed his interrogation and had all the information he needed to prove that the Intelligence Section, and in particular that bland bastard Colonel Urwin, hadn't screened a foreign employee properly. That way the Colonel would take a fall and they could hardly avoid promoting Glaushof. Let Intelligence get wind of what was going on and the plan might backfire. Glaushof fell back on the 'Eyes off' routine.

'I don't think it advisable at this moment in time to elucidate the matter further. This is a top-security matter. Any leak could severely prejudice the defensive capabilities of Strategic Air Command in Europe. I must insist on a total information blackout.'

For a moment the pronouncement had the effect he had wanted. Even Mrs Ofrey looked satisfactorily stunned. Then Captain Clodiak broke the silence. 'I don't get it,' she said. 'There's us and this Wilt guy in there, nobody else. Right?' Glaushof said nothing. 'So you bring up the stormtroopers and have us pinned against the wall as soon as we walk out and now you tell us it's an infiltration situation. I don't believe you, Major, I just don't believe you. The only infiltration I know of is what that bastard sexist lieutenant did up my ass and I intend to formalize a complaint again Lieutenant Harah and you can pull as many phoney agents out of your pinhead imagination as you like, you still aren't going to stop me.'

Glaushof gulped. He could see he'd been right to describe the Captain as a feisty woman and entirely wrong to have allowed Lieutenant Harah to act on his own. He'd also been fairly wrong in his estimation of the Lieutenant's antipathy for women though even Glaushof had to admit that Captain Clodiak was a remarkably attractive woman. In an attempt to save the situation he tried a sympathetic smile. It came out lopsided. I'm sure Lieutenant Harah had no intention of' he began.

'So what's with the hand?' snapped the Captain. 'You think I don't know intentions when I feel them? Is that what you think?'

'Perhaps he was doing a weapon check,' said Glaushof, who knew now he would have to do something really astonishing to regain control of the situation. He was saved by the sound of breaking glass. Lieutenant Harah had waited exactly five minutes before taking action.

It had taken Wilt rather more than five minutes to unravel the bandage and slide it down his trouser leg and reassemble the box in a position where it would afford him some measure of protection from the spasmodic antics of his penis. In the end he had succeeded and had just tied the entire contraption together rather uncomfortably when there was a knock on the door.

Fifteen miles away Wilt's Escort beeped its erratic way towards Ipford. Since no one had thought to provide the Corporal with adequate directions and he had distrusted Glaushof's assurances that he would be well protected by the Major and the men in the truck behind him, he had taken his own precautions before and after leaving the base. He had provided himself with a heavy automatic and had computed a route which would cause maximum confusion to anyone trying to cross-reference his position on their receivers. He had achieved his object. In short, he had travelled twenty quite extraordinarily complicated miles in no time at all. Half an hour after leaving Baconheath he was still only five miles from the base. After that he had shot off towards Ipford and had spent twenty minutes pretending to change a tyre in a tunnel under the motorway before emerging on a minor road which ran for several miles very conveniently next to a line of high-tension electricity pylons. Two more tunnels and fifteen miles on a road that wound along below the bank of a dyked river, and Inspector Hodge and the men in the other listening van were desperately transmitting messages to one another in an attempt to make out where the hell he had got to. More awkwardly still, they couldn't be entirely sure where they were either.

The Major shared their dilemma. He hadn't expected the Corporal to take evasive action or to drivewhen he wasn't lurking in tunnelsat excessive speed along winding roads that had presumably been designed for single-file horse traffic and had been dangerous even then. But the Major didn't care. If the Corporal wanted to take off like a scalded cat that was his problem. 'He wants an armed escort he better stay with us,' he told his driver as they skidded round a muddy ninety-degree bend and nearly landed in a deep water-filled drain. 'I'm not ending my life in a ditch so slow down for Chrissake.'

'So how do we keep up with him?' asked the driver, who had been thoroughly enjoying himself.

'We don't. If he's going any place outside hell it's Ipford. I've got the address here. Take the motorway first chance you get and we'll wait for him where he's supposed to be going.'

'Yes sir,' said the driver reluctantly and switched back to the main road at the next turn-off.

Sergeant Runk would have done the same had he been given the chance but the Corporal's tactics had confirmed all Inspector Hodge's wildest dreams. 'He's trying to lose us,' he shouted shortly after the Corporal left the airbase and began to dice with death. 'That must mean he's carrying dope.'

Eva sat in the kitchen and looked at the clock again. It was five o'clock in the morning and she had been up since two indulging herself in the luxury of a great many emotions. Her first reaction when going to bed had been one of annoyance. 'He's been to the pub again and got drunk,' she had thought. 'Well, he won't get any sympathy from me if he has a hangover.' Then she had lain awake getting angrier by the minute until one o'clock when worry had taken over. It wasn't like Henry to stay out that late. Perhaps something had happened to him. She went over various possibilities, ranging from car crashes to his getting arrested for being drunk and disorderly, and finally worked herself up to the point where she knew that something terrible had been done to him at the prison. After all he was teaching that dreadful murderer McCullum and when he'd come home on Monday night he'd been looking very peculiar. Of course he'd been drinking but all the same she remembered saying...No, that hadn't been Monday night because she'd been asleep when he got back. It must have been Tuesday morning. Yes, that was it. She'd said he looked peculiar and come to think of it what she really thought was that he had looked scared. And he'd said he'd left the car in a car park and when he'd come home in the evening he'd kept looking out the front window in the strangest way. He'd had an accident with the car too and while at the time she had just put that down to his usual absent-mindedness now that she came to think about it...At that point Eva had turned the light on and got out of bed. Something terrible had been going on and she hadn't even known it.

Which brought her round to anger again. Henry should have told her but he never did tell her really important things. He thought she was too stupid and perhaps she wasn't very clever when it came to arguing about books and saying the right things at parties but at least she was practical and nobody could say that the quads weren't getting a good education.

So the night passed. Eva sat in the kitchen and made cups of tea and worried and was angry and then blamed herself and wondered who to telephone and then decided it was best not to call anyone because they'd only be cross at being woken in the middle of the night and anyway there might be a perfectly natural explanation like the car had broken down or he'd gone to the Braintrees for a drink and had had to stay there because of the police and the breathalyser which would have been the sensible thing to do and so perhaps she ought to go back to bed and get some sleep...And always beside this bustle of conflicting thoughts and feelings there was the sense of guilt and the knowledge that she had been stupid to have listened to Mavis or to have gone anywhere near Dr Kores. Anyway, what did Mavis know about sex? She'd never really said what went on between her and Patrick in bedit wasn't one of those things Eva would have dreamt of asking and even if she had Mavis wouldn't have told herand all she'd ever heard was that Patrick was having affairs with other women. There might be good reasons for that too. Perhaps Mavis was frigid or wanted to be too dominant or masculine or wasn't very clean or something. Whatever the reason it was quite wrong of her to give Patrick those horrid steroid things or hormones and turn him into a sleepy fat personwell, you could hardly call him a man any longer could you?who sat in front of the telly every night and couldn't get on with his work properly. Besides, Henry wasn't a bad husband. It was just that he was absent-minded and was always thinking about something or other that had no connection at all with what he was supposed to be doing. Like the time he'd been peeling the potatoes for Sunday lunch and he'd suddenly said the Vicar made Polonius sound like a bloody genius and there's no reason to say that because they hadn't been to church for two Sundays running and she'd wanted to know who Polonius was and he wasn't anyone at all, just some character in a play.

No, you couldn't expect Henry to be practical and she didn't. And of course they'd had their tiffs and disagreements, particularly about the quads. Why couldn't he see they were special? Well, he did, but not in the right way, and calling them 'clones' wasn't helpful. Eva could think of other things he'd said that weren't nice either. And then there was that dreadful business the other night with the cake icer. Goodness only knew what effect that had had on the girls' ideas about men. And that really was the trouble with Henry, he didn't know what romantic meant. Eva got up from the kitchen table and was presently calming her nerves by cleaning out the pantry. She was interrupted at six-thirty by Emmeline in her pyjamas.

'What are you doing?' she asked so unnecessarily that Eva rose to the bait.

'It's perfectly obvious,' she snapped. 'There's no need to ask stupid questions.'

'It wasn't obvious to Einstein,' said Emmeline, using the well-tried technique of luring Eva into a topic about which she knew nothing but which she had to approve.

'What wasn't?'

'That the shortest distance between two points is a straight line.'

'Well it is, isn't it?' said Eva, moving a tin of Epicure marmalade from the shelf with pilchards and tuna fish on it to the jam section where it looked out of place.

'Of course it isn't. Everyone knows that. It's a curve. Where's Daddy?'

'I don't see how...What do you mean "Where's Daddy?"' said Eva, completely thrown by this leap from the inconceivable to the immediate.

'I was asking where he is,' said Emmeline. 'He's not in, is he?'

'No, he isn't,' said Eva, torn now between an inclination to give vent to her irritation and the need to keep calm. 'He's out.'

'Where's he gone?' asked Emmeline.

'He hasn't gone anywhere,' said Eva and moved the marmalade back to the pilchard shelf. Tins didn't look right among the jam-jars. 'He spent the night at the Braintrees.'

'I suppose he got drunk again,' said Emmeline. 'Do you think he's an alcoholic?'

Eva clutched a coffee jar dangerously. 'Don't you dare talk about your father like that!' she snapped. 'Of course he has a drink when he comes home at night. Nearly everyone does. It's quite normal and I won't have you saying things about your father.'

'You say things about him,' said Emmeline, 'I heard you call him'

'Never mind what I say,' said Eva. 'That's quite different.'

'It isn't different,' Emmeline persisted, 'not when you say he's an alcoholic and anyway I was only asking a question and you're always telling us to'

'Go up to your room at once,' said Eva. 'You're not speaking to me in that fashion. I won't have it.'

Emmeline retreated and Eva slumped down at the kitchen table again. It was really too trying of Henry not to have instilled some sense of respect in the quads. It was always left to her to be the disciplinarian. He should have more authority. She went back into the larder and saw to it that the packets and jars and tins did exactly what she wanted. By the time she had finished she felt a little better. Finally she chased the quads into dressing quickly.

'We'll have to catch the bus this morning,' she announced when they came in to breakfast. 'Daddy has the car and'

'He hasn't,' said Penelope, 'Mrs Willoughby has.'

Eva, who had been pouring tea, spilt it. 'What did you say?'

Penelope looked smug. 'Mrs Willoughby has the car.'

'Mrs Willoughby? Yes, I know I've spilt some tea, Samantha. What do you mean, Penny? She can't have.'

'She has,' said Penelope looking smugger still. 'The milkman told me.'

'The milkman? He must have been mistaken,' said Eva.

'He isn't. He's scared stiff of the Hound of Oakhurst Avenue and he only delivers at the gate and that's where our car is. I went and saw it.'

'And was your father there?'

'No, it was empty.'

Eva put the teapot down unsteadily and tried to think what this meant. If Henry wasn't in the car...

'Perhaps Daddy's been eaten by the Hound,' suggested Josephine.

'The Hound doesn't eat people. It just tears their throats out and leaves their bodies on the waste ground at the bottom of the garden,' said Emmeline.

'It doesn't. It only barks. It's quite nice if you give it lamb chops and things,' said Samantha, unintentionally dragging Eva's attention away from the frightful possibility that Henry might in his drunken state have mistaken the house and ended up mauled to death by a Great Dane. And then again with Dr Kores' potion still coursing through his veins...

Penelope put the idea into words. 'He's more likely to have been eaten by Mrs Willoughby,' she said. 'Mr Gamer says she's sex-mad. I heard him tell Mrs Gamer that when she said she wanted it.'

'Wanted what?' demanded Eva, too stunned by this latest revelation to be concerned about the chops missing from the deep-freeze. She could deal with that matter later.

'The usual thing,' said Penelope with a look of distaste. 'She's always going on about it and Mr Gamer said she was getting just like Mrs Willoughby after Mr Willoughby died on the job and he wasn't going the same way.'

'That's not true,' said Eva in spite of herself.

'It is too,' said Penelope. 'Sammy heard him, didn't you?'

Samantha nodded.

'He was in the garage playing with himself like Paul in 3B does and we could hear ever so easily,' she said. 'And he's got lots of Playboys in there and books and she came in and said'

'I don't want to hear,' said Eva, finally dragging her attention away from this fascinating topic. 'It's time to get your things on. I'll go and fetch the car...' She stopped. It was clearly one thing to say she was going to fetch the car from a neighbour's front garden, but just as clearly there were snags. If Henry was in Mrs Willoughby's house she'd never be able to live the scandal down. All the same something had to be done and it was a scandal enough already for the neighbours to see the Escort there. With the same determination with which Eva always dealt with embarrassing situations she put on her coat and marched out of the front door. Presently she was sitting in the Escort trying to start it. As usual when she was in a hurry the starter motor churned over and nothing happened. To be exact, something did but not what she had hoped. The front door opened and the Great Dane loped out followed by Mrs Willoughby in a dressing-gown. It was, in Eva's opinion, just the sort of dressing-gown a sex-mad widow would wear. Eva wound down the window to explain that she was just collecting the car and promptly wound it up again. Whatever Samantha's finer feelings might persuade her about the dog, Eva mistrusted it.

I'm just going to take the girls to school,' she said by way of rather inadequate explanation.

Outside the Great Dane barked and Mrs Willoughby mouthed something that Eva couldn't hear. She wound the window down two inches. 'I said I'm just going to...' she began.

Ten minutes later, after an exceedingly acrimonious exchange in which Mrs Willoughby had challenged Eva's right to park in other people's drives and Eva had only been prevented by the presence of the Hound from demanding the right to search the house for her Henry and had been forced to confine herself to a moral critique of the dressing-gown, she drove the quads furiously to school. Only when they had left was Eva thrown back on her own worries. If Henry hadn't left the car at that awful woman'sand she really couldn't see him braving the Great Dane unless he'd been blind drunk and then he wouldn't have held much interest for Mrs Willoughbysomeone else must have. Eva drove to the Braintrees and came away even more worried. Betty was sure Peter had said he hadn't seen Henry nearly all week. It was the same at the Tech. Wilt's office was empty and Mrs Bristol was adamant that he hadn't been in since Wednesday. Which left only the prison.

With a terrible sense of foreboding Eva used the phone in Wilt's office. By the time she put it down again panic had set in. Henry not at the prison since Monday? But he taught that murderer every Friday...He didn't. He never had. And he wasn't going to teach him on Mondays either now because Mac wasn't a burden on the state, as you might say. But he had given McCullum lessons on Friday. Oh no, he hadn't. Prisoners in that category couldn't have cosy little chats every night of the week, now could they? Yes, he was quite sure. Mr Wilt never came to the prison on Fridays.

Sitting alone in the office, Eva's reactions swung from panic to anger and back again. Henry had been deceiving her. He'd lied. Mavis was right, he had had another woman all the time. But he couldn't have. She'd have known. He couldn't keep a thing like that to himself. He wasn't practical or cunning enough. There'd have been something to tell her like hairs on his coat or lipstick or powder or something. And why? But before she could consider that question Mrs Bristol had poked her head round the door to ask if she'd like a cup of coffee. Eva braced herself to face reality. No one was going to have the satisfaction of seeing her break down.

'No thank you,' she said, 'it's very kind of you but I must be off And without allowing Mrs Bristol the opportunity to ask anything more Eva marched out and walked down the stairs with an air of deliberate fortitude. It had almost cracked by the time she had reached the car but she hung on until she had driven back to Oakhurst Avenue. Even then, with all the evidence of treachery around her in the shape of Henry's raincoat and the shoes he'd put out to polish and hadn't and his briefcase in the hall, she refused to give way to self-pity. Something was wrong. Something that proved Henry hadn't walked out on her. If only she could think.

It had something to do with the car. Henry would never have left it in Mrs Willoughby's drive. No, that wasn't it. It was...She dropped the car keys on the kitchen table and recognized their importance. They'd been in the car when she'd gone to fetch it and among them on the ring was the key to 45 Oakhurst Avenue. Henry had left her without any warning and without leaving a message but he had left the key to the house? Eva didn't believe it. Not for one moment. In that case her instinct had been right and something dreadful had happened to him. Eva put the kettle on and tried to think what to do.

'Listen, Ted,' said Flint. 'You play it the way you want. If you scratch my back I'll scratch yours. No problems. All I'm saying is'

'An infiltrating agent?' boomed the Airforce General commanding Baconheath. 'Why wasn't I informed immediately?'

'Yes sir, that's a good question, sir,' said Glaushof.

'It is not, Major, it's a lousy question. It isn't even a question I should have to ask. I shouldn't have to ask any questions. In fact I'm not here to ask questions. I run a tight ship and I expect my men to answer their own questions.'

And that's the way I took it, sir,' said Glaushof.

'Took what?'

'Took the situation, sir, faced with an infiltrating agent. I said to myself'

'I am not interested in what you said to yourself, Major. I am only interested in results,' shouted the General. 'And I want to know what results you've achieved. By my count the results you've achieved amount to the gassing of ten Airforce personnel or their dependants.'

'Eleven, sir,' said Glaushof.

'Eleven? That's even worse.'

'Twelve with the agent Wilt, sir.'

'Then how come you just told me eleven?' demanded the General, toying with the model of a B52.

'Lieutenant Harah, sir, was gassed in the course of the action, sir, and I am proud to report that without his courage in the face of determined resistance by the enemy we could have encountered heavy casualties and possibly a hostage situation. Sir.'

General Belmonte put the B52 down and reached for a bottle of Scotch before remembering he was supposed to be in command of the situation. 'Nobody told me about a resistance situation,' he said rather more amicably.

'No, sir. It didn't seem advisable to issue a press release in the light of current opinion, sir,' said Glaushof. Having managed to avoid the General's questions he was prepared to apply more direct pressure. If there was one thing the Commander hated it was any mention of publicity. Glaushof mentioned it. As I see it, sir, the publicity'

'Jesus, Glaushof,' shouted the General, 'how many times have I got to remind you there is to be no publicity? That is Directive Number One and comes from the highest authority. No publicity, dammit. You think we can defend the Free World against the enemy if we have publicity? I want that clearly understood. No publicity for Chrissake.'

'Understood, General,' said Glaushof. 'Which is why I've ordered a security blackout, a total no-traffic command to all information services. I mean if it got out we'd had an infiltration problem...'

He paused to allow the General to get his strength back for a further assault on publicity. It came in waves. When the bombardment had finished Glaushof produced his real target. 'If you'll permit me to say so, sir, I think we're going to be faced with an informational problem on the Intelligence side.'

'You do, do you? Well, let me tell you something, Major, and this is an order, a top priority directive order, that there is to a security blackout, a total no-traffic command to all information services. That is my order, you understand.'

'Yes, sir,' said Glaushof, 'I'll institute it immediately to the Intelligence Command. I mean if we had a leak to the press there'

'Major Glaushof, that is an order I have given you. I want it instituted pre-immediate to all services.'

'Including Intelligence, sir?'

'Of course including Intelligence,' bawled the General. 'Our Intelligence services are the best in the world and I'm not jeopardizing standards of excellence by exposing them to media harassment. Is that clear?'

'Yessir,' said Glaushof and promptly left the office to order an armed guard to be placed on Intelligence HQ and to instruct all personnel to initiate a total no-traffic command. Since no one knew at all precisely what a no-traffic command was the various interpretations put on it ranged from a ban on all vehicles entering or leaving civilian quarters to a full alert on the airfield, the latter having been intermittently in force throughout the night thanks to wafts of Agent Incapacitating Two sounding off the toxic-weapon-detection sensors. By mid-morning the diverse rumours circulating were so manifestly at odds with one another that Glaushof felt safe enough to bawl his wife out over Lieutenant Harah's sexual insubordination before catching up on his sleep. He wanted to be in good shape to interrogate Wilt.

But when, two hours later, he arrived at the guarded room in the hospital Wilt was evidently in no mood to answer questions. 'Why don't you just go away and let me get some sleep?' he said blearily and turned on his side.

'A warrant? A search warrant for 45 Oakhurst Avenue? You want to apply for a search warrant?' said the Superintendent.

'Yes, sir,' said Inspector Hodge, wondering why it was that what seemed like a perfectly reasonable request to him should need querying quite so repetitively. 'All the evidence indicates the Wilts to be carriers.'

'I'm not sure the magistrate is going to agree,' said the Superintendent. 'Circumstantial evidence is all it amounts to.'

'Nothing circumstantial about Wilt going out to that airbase and giving us the run-around, and I wouldn't say her going to that herb farm was circumstantial either. It's all there in my report.'

'Yes,' said the Superintendent, managing to imbue the word with doubt. 'What's not there is one shred of hard evidence.'

'That's why we need the search, sir,' said Hodge. 'There've got to be traces of the stuff in the house. Stands to reason.'

'If he's what you say he is,' said the Superintendent.

'Look,' said Hodge, 'he knew he was being tailed when he went out to Baconheath. He had to know. Drives around in circles for half an hour when he comes out and gives us the slip'

'And that's another thing,' interrupted the Superintendent, 'your bugging the blighter's car without authorization. I consider that highly reprehensible. I want that understood clearly right now. Anyway, he may have been drunk.'

'Drunk?' said Hodge, finding it difficult to make the transition between unauthorized bugging being reprehensible, which in his opinion it wasn't, and Wilt being drunk.

'When he came out of Baconheath. Didn't know whether he was coming or going and went round in circles. Those Yanks drink rye. Sickly muck but it goes down so easily you don't notice.'

Inspector Hodge considered the suggestion and rejected it. 'I don't see how a drunk could drive that fast, not on those roads without killing himself. And choosing a route that'd take him out of radio contact.'

The Superintendent studied the report again. It didn't make comfortable reading. On the other hand there was something in what Hodge had said. 'If he wasn't pissed why leave the car outside someone else's house?' he asked but Hodge had already concocted an answer to that one.

'Shows how clever the little bastard is,' he said. 'Not giving anything away, that bloke. He knows we're onto him and he needs an explanation for all that run-around he's given us so he plays pissed.'

'If he's that bloody clever you're not going to find anything in his house and that's for sure,' said the Superintendent and shook his head. 'No, he'd never have the stuff on his own doorstep. He'd have it stored somewhere miles away.'

'He's still got to move it,' said Hodge, 'and that means the car. Look, sir, Wilt's the one who goes to the airbase, he collects the stuff there and on the way home he hands it over to a third party who distributes it. That explains why he took such pains to lose us. There was a whole twenty minutes when we weren't picking up any signals. That could have been when he was offloading.'

'Could have been,' said the Superintendent, impressed in spite of himself. 'Still, that only goes to prove my point. You go for a search warrant for his house you're going to end up with egg all over your face. More important, so am I. So that's out. You'll have to think of some other way.'

Hodge returned to his office and took it out on Sergeant Runk. 'The way they carry on it's a bloody wonder we ever nick any bugger. And you had to go and sign for those fucking transmitters'

'You don't think they give them out without being signed for,' said Runk.

'You didn't have to land me in the shit by putting "Authorized by Superintendent Wilkinson for covert surveillance." He loved that.'

'Well, wasn't it? I mean I thought you'd got permission...'

'Oh no, you didn't. We pulled that stroke in the middle of the night and he'd been home since five. And now we've got to retrieve the bloody things. That's something you can do tonight.'

And having, as he hoped, ensured that the Sergeant would spend the day regretting his indiscretion, the Inspector got up and stared out of the window for inspiration. If he couldn't get a search warrant...He was still pondering the question when his attention was distracted by a car parked down below. It looked hideously familiar.

The Wilts' Escort. What the hell was it doing outside the police station?

Eva sat in Flint's office and held back the tears. 'I didn't know who else to come to,' she said. 'I've been to the Tech and phoned the prison and Mrs Braintree hasn't seen him and he usually goes there if he's...well, if he wants a change. But he hasn't been there or the hospital or anywhere else I can think of and I know you don't like him or anything but you are a policeman and you have been...helpful in the past. And you do know Henry.' She stopped and looked appealingly at the Inspector.

'I think we've got one hell of a problem, sir,' said the Corporal. 'Major Glaushof ordered me to ditch the car back at the Wilt guy's house and I did. All I can say is those transmitters weren't civilian. I had a good look at them and they were hi-tech British.'

Colonel Urwin, Senior Intelligence Officer USAF Baconheath, pondered the problem by looking coolly at a sporting print on the wall. It wasn't a very good one but its depiction of a fox in the far distance, being chased by a motley crowd of thin, fat, pale, or red-faced Englishmen on horseback, always served to remind him that it was as well not to underestimate the British. Better still, it paid to seem to be one of them. To that end he played golf with an ancient set of clubs and spent his idler moments tracing his family tree in the archives of various universities and the graveyards of Lincolnshire churches. In short, he kept an almost subterranean profile and was proud of the fact that he had on several occasions been taken for a master from one of the better public schools. It was a role that suited him exactly and fitted in with his professional creed that discretion was the better part of valour.

'British?' he said thoughtfully. 'That could mean anything or nothing. And you say Major Glaushof has put down a security clamp?'

'General Belmonte's orders, sir.'

The Colonel said nothing. In his opinion the Base Commander's IQ was only slightly higher than that of the egregious Glaushof. Anyone who could call four no trumps without a diamond in his hand had to be a cretin. 'So the situation is that Glaushof has this man Wilt in custody and is presumably torturing him and no one is supposed to know he's here. The operative word being "supposed". Obviously whoever sent him knows he never returned to Ipford.'

'Yes, sir,' said the Corporal. 'And the Major's been trying to get a message on line to Washington.'

'See it's coded garbage,' said the Colonel, 'and get a copy to me.'

'Yes, sir,' said the Corporal and disappeared.

Colonel Urwin looked across at his deputy. 'Seems we could have a hornet's nest,' he said. 'What do you make of it?'

Captain Fortune shrugged. 'Could be any number of options,' he said. 'I don't like the sound of that hardware.'

'Kamikaze,' said the Colonel. 'No one would come in transmitting.'

'Libyans or Khomeini might.'

Colonel Urwin shook his head. 'No way. When they hit they don't signal their punches. They'd come in loaded with explosives first time. So who's scoring?'

'The Brits?'

'That's my line of thinking,' said the Colonel, and wandered across to take a closer look at the sporting print. 'The only question is who are they hunting, Mr Henry Wilt or us?'

'I've checked our records and there's nothing on Wilt. CND in the sixties, otherwise non-political.'

'University?'

'Yes,' said the Captain.

'Which one?'

The Captain consulted the computer file. 'Cambridge. Majored in English.'

'Otherwise, nothing?'

'Nothing we know of. British Intelligence would know.'

'And we're not asking,' said the Colonel, coming to a decision. 'If Glaushof wants to play Lone Ranger with the General's consent he's welcome to the fan-shit. We stay clear and come up with the real answer when it's needed.'

'I still don't like that hardware in the car,' said the Captain.

'And I don't like Glaushof,' said the Colonel. 'I have an idea the Ofreys don't either. Let him dig his own grave.' He paused. 'Is there anyone with any intelligence who knows what really happened, apart from that Corporal?'

'Captain Clodiak filed a complaint against Harah for sexual harassment. And she's on the list of students attending Wilt's lectures.'

'Right, we'll start digging back into this fiasco there,' said the Colonel.

'Let's get back to this Radek,' said Glaushof, 'I want to know who he is.'

'Orders are no one in,' said the guard on the gate, 'I'm sorry but that's how it is.'

'Look,' said Mavis, 'all we've come to do is speak to the officer in charge of Education. His name is Bluejohn and'

'Still applies, no one in.'

Mavis took a deep breath and tried to keep calm. 'In that case I'd like to speak to him here,' she said. 'If we can't come in, perhaps he'd be good enough to come out.'

'I can check,' said the guard and went into the gatehouse.

'It's no use,' said Eva, looking at the barrier and the high barbed-wire fence. Behind the barrier a series of drums filled with concrete had been laid out on the roadway to form a zigzag through which vehicles could only wind their way very slowly. 'They're not going to tell us anything.'

'And I want to know why,' said Mavis.

'It might help if you weren't wearing that Mothers Against The Bomb badge,' said Eva.

Mavis took it off reluctantly. 'It's utterly disgusting,' she said. 'This is supposed to be a free country and'

She was interrupted by the appearance of a lieutenant. He stood in the doorway of the gatehouse and looked at them for a moment before walking over. 'I'm sorry ladies,' he said, 'but we're running a security exercise. It's only temporary so if you come back tomorrow maybe...'

'Tomorrow is no good,' said Mavis. 'We want to see Mr Bluejohn today. Now if you'll be good enough to telephone him or give him a message, we'd be most obliged.'

'Sure, I can do that,' said the Lieutenant. 'What do you want me to say?'

'Just that Mrs Wilt is here and would like to make some enquiries about her husband, Mr Henry Wilt. He's been teaching a class here on British Culture.'

'Oh him, Mr Wilt? I've heard of him from Captain Clodiak,' said the Lieutenant, expansively. 'She's been attending his course and she says he's real good. No problem, I'll check with the EO.'

'What did I tell you?' said Mavis as he went back into the guardhouse. 'She says he's real good. I wonder what your Henry's being so good at now.'

Eva hardly heard. Any lingering doubt that Henry had been deceiving her had gone and she was staring through the wire at the drab houses and prefabricated buildings with the feeling that she was looking ahead into the drabness and barren years of her future life. Henry had run off with some woman, perhaps this same Captain Clodiak, and she was going to be left to bring up the quads on her own and be poor and known as a...a one-parent family? But there was no family without a father and where was she going to get the money to keep the girls at school? She'd have to go on Social Security and queue up with all those other women...She wouldn't. She'd go out to work. She'd do anything to make up for...The images in her mind, images of emptiness and of her own fortitude, were interrupted by the return of the Lieutenant.

His manner had changed. 'I'm sorry,' he said abruptly, 'there's been a mistake. I've got to tell you that. Now if you'll move off. We've got this security exercise on.'

'Mistake? What mistake?' said Mavis, reacting to his brusqueness with all her own pent-up hatred. 'You said Mrs Wilt's husband...'

'I didn't say anything,' said the Lieutenant and, turning on his heel, ordered the barrier to be lifted to allow a truck to come through.

'Well!' said Mavis furiously. 'Of all the nerve! I've never heard such a bare-faced lie in my life. You heard what he said just a moment ago and now'

But Eva was moving forward with a new determination. Henry was in the camp. She knew that now. She'd seen the look on the Lieutenant's face, the changed look, the blankness that had been in such contrast to his previous manner, and she'd known. Without thinking she moved into the drabness of life without Henry, into the desert beyond the barrier. She was going to find him and have it out with him. A figure got in her way and tried to stop her. There was a flurry of arms and he fell. Three more men, only figures in her mind, and she was being held and dragged back. From somewhere seemingly distant she heard Mavis shout, 'Go limp. Go limp.' Eva went limp and the next moment she was lying on the ground with two men beside her and a third dragging on an arm.

Three minutes later, covered with dust and with the heels of her shoes scuffed and her tights torn, she was dragged beneath the barrier and dumped on the road. And during that time she had uttered no sound other than to pant with exertion. She sat there for a moment and then got to her knees and looked back into the camp with an intensity that was more dangerous in its implications than her brief battle with the guards.

'Lady, you got no right to come in here. You're just asking for trouble,' said the Lieutenant. Eva said nothing. She helped herself up from the kneeling position and walked back to the car.

'Eva dear, are you all right?' asked Mavis.

Eva nodded. 'Just take me home,' she said. For once Mavis had nothing to say. Eva's strength of purpose needed no words.

Wilt's did. With time running out on him, Glaushof had resorted to a new form of interrogation. Unable to use more forceful methods he had decided on what he considered to be the subtle approach. Since it involved the collaboration of Mrs Glaushof clad in garments Glaushof and possibly even Lieutenant Harah had found so alluringjackboots, suspender belts and teatless bras figured high in Glaushof's compendium of eroticaWilt, who had been hustled yet again into a car and driven to the Glaushof's house, found himself suddenly lying on a heart-shaped bed clad in the hospital gown and confronted by an apparition in black, red and several shades of pink. The boots were black, the suspender belt and panties were red and the bra was black fringed with pink. The rest of Mrs Glaushof was, thanks to her frequent use of a sun lamp, mostly brown and definitely drunk. Ever since Glausie, as she had once called him, had bawled her out for sharing her mixed charms with those of Lieutenant Harah she had been hitting the Scotch. She had also hit a bottle of Chanel No 5 or had lathered herself with the stuff. Wilt couldn't decide which. And didn't want to. It was enough to be cloistered (the word seemed singularly inappropriate in the circumstances) in a room with an alcoholic prostitute who told him to call her Mona.

'Logic dictates,' said Mr Gosdyke, 'that we should look at this problem rationally. Now I know that's difficult but until we have definite proof that your husband is being held at Baconheath against his will there really isn't any legal action we can take. You do see that?'

Eva gazed into the solicitor's face and saw only that she was wasting time. It had been Mavis' idea that she should consult Mr Gosdyke before she did anything hasty. Eva knew what 'hasty' meant. It meant being afraid of taking real risks and doing something effective.

'After all,' Mavis had said, as they drove back, 'you may be able to apply for a court order or habeas corpus or something. It's best to find out.'

But she didn't need to find out. She'd known all along that Mr Gosdyke wouldn't believe her and would talk about proof and logic. As if life was logical. Eva didn't even know what the word meant, except that it always produced in her mind the image of a railway line with a train running along it with no way of getting off it and going across fields and open countryside like a horse. And anyway when you did reach a station you still had to walk to wherever you really wanted to go. That wasn't the way life worked or people behaved when things were really desperate. It wasn't even the way the Law worked with people being sent to prison when they were old and absent-minded like Mrs Reeman who had walked out of the supermarket without paying for a jar of pickled onions and she never ate pickles. Eva knew that because she'd helped with Meals on Wheels and the old lady had said she never touched vinegar. No, the real reason had been that she'd had a pekinese called Pickles and he'd died a month before. But the Law hadn't seen that, any more than Mr Gosdyke could understand that she already had the proof that Henry was in the airbase because he hadn't been there when the officer's manner had changed so suddenly.

'So there's nothing you can do?' she said and got up.

'Not unless we can obtain proof that your husband really is being held against...' But Eva was already through the door and had cut out the sounds of those ineffectual words. She went down the stairs and out into the street and found Mavis waiting for her in the Mombasa Coffee House.

'Well, did he have any advice?' asked Mavis.

'No,' said Eva, 'he just said there was nothing he could do without proof.'

'Perhaps Henry'll telephone you tonight. Now that he knows you've been out there and they must have told him...'

Eva shook her head. 'Why should they have told him?'

'Look, Eva, I've been thinking,' said Mavis, 'Henry's been deceiving you for six months. Now I know what you're going to say but you can't get away from it.'

'He hasn't been deceiving me the way you mean,' said Eva. 'I know that.'

Mavis sighed. It was so difficult to make Eva understand that men were all the same, even a sexually subnormal one like Wilt. 'He's been going out to Baconheath every Friday evening and all that time he's been telling you he's got this prison job. You've got to admit that, haven't you?'

'I suppose so,' said Eva, and ordered tea. She wasn't in the mood for anything foreign like coffee. Americans drank coffee.

'The question you have to ask yourself is why didn't he tell you where he was going?'

'Because he didn't want me to know,' said Eva.

'And why didn't he want you to know?'

Eva said nothing.

'Because he was doing something you wouldn't like. And we all know what men don't think their wives would like to know, don't we?'

'I know Henry,' said Eva.

'Of course you do but we none of us know what even those closest to us are really like.'

'You knew all about Patrick's chasing other women,' said Eva, fighting back. 'You were always going on about his being unfaithful. That's why you got those steroid pills from that beastly Dr Kores and now all he does is sit in front of the telly.'

'Yes,' said Mavis, cursing herself for ever mentioning the fact. 'All right, but you said Henry was undersexed. Anyway that only goes to prove my point. I don't know what Dr Kores put in the mixture she gave you...'

'Flies,' said Eva.

'Flies?'

'Spanish flies. That's what Henry called them. He said they could have killed him.'

'But they didn't,' said Mavis. 'What I'm trying to get across is that the reason he wasn't performing adequately may have been'

'He's not a dog, you know,' said Eva.

'What's that got to do with it?'

'Performing. You talk as though he were something in a circus.'

'You know perfectly well what I meant.'

They were interrupted by the arrival of the tea. 'All I'm saying,' Mavis continued when the waitress had left, 'is that what you took for Henry's being undersexed'

'I said he wasn't very active. That's what I said,' said Eva.

Mavis stirred her coffee and tried to keep calm. 'He may not have wanted you, dear,' she said finally, 'because for the last six months he has been spending every Friday night in bed with some American servicewoman at that airbase. That's what I've been trying to tell you.'

'If that had been the case,' said Eva, bridling, 'I don't see how he could have come home at ten thirty, not if he was teaching as well. He never left the house until nearly seven and it takes at least three-quarters of an hour to drive out there. Two three-quarters make...'

'One and a half hours,' snapped Mavis. 'That doesn't prove anything. He could have had a class of one.'

'Of one?'

'One person, Eva dear.'

'They're not allowed to have only one person in a class,' said Eva. 'Not at the Tech. If they don't have ten...'

'Well, Baconheath may be different,' said Mavis, 'and anyway they fiddle these things. My bet is that Henry's teaching consisted of taking off his clothes and'

'Which just shows how much you know about him,' interrupted Eva. 'Henry taking his clothes off in front of another woman! That'll be the day. He's too shy.'

'Shy?' said Mavis, and was about to say that he hadn't been so shy with her the other morning. But the dangerous look had come back on to Eva's face and she thought better of it. It was still there ten minutes later when they went out to car park to fetch the quads from school.

'Okay, let's take it from there,' said Colonel Urwin. 'You say you didn't shoot Major Glaushof.'

In Ipford Police Station Inspector Flint was savouring his triumph. 'It's all there, sir,' he told the Superintendent, indicating a pile of folders on the desk. 'And it's local. Swannell made the contact on a skiing trip to Switzerland. Nice clean place, Switzerland, and of course he says he was the one who was approached by this Italian. Threatened him, he says, and of course our Clive's a nervous bloke as you know.'

'Could have fooled me,' said the Superintendent. 'We nearly did the bugger for attempted murder three years ago. Got away because the bloke he scarred wouldn't press charges.'

'I was being ironical, sir,' said Flint. 'Just saying his story for him.'

'Go on. How did it work?'

'Simple really,' continued Flint, 'nothing too complicated. First they had to have a courier who didn't know what he was doing. So they put the frighteners on Ted Lingon. Threaten him with a nitric acid facial if he doesn't co-operate with his coach tours to the continent. Or so he claims. Anyway he's got a regular run to the Black Forest with overnight stops. The stuff's loaded aboard at Heidelberg without the driver knowing, comes through to Ostend and the night ferry to Dover and halfway across one of the crew dumps the muck over the side. Always on the night run so no one sees. Picked up by a friend of Annie Mosgrave's who happens to be in his floating gin palace nearby and'

'Hang on a minute,' said the Superintendent. 'How the hell would anyone find a package of heroin in mid-Channel at night?'

'The same way Hodge has been keeping tabs on Wilt. The muck's in a bloody great suitcase with buoyancy and a radio signal that comes on the moment it hits the water. Bloke beams in on it, hauls it aboard and brings it round to a marker buoy in the Estuary and leaves it there for a frogman to pick up when the gin palace is back in the marina.'

'Seems a risky way of going about things,' said the Superintendent, 'I wouldn't trust tides and currents with that amount of money involved.'

'Oh, they did enough practice runs to feel safe and tying it to the chain of the marker buoy made that part easy,' said Flint. 'And after that it was split three ways with the Hong Kong Charlies handling the London end and Roddie Eaton fixing this area and Edinburgh.'

The Superintendent studied his fingernails and considered the implications of Flint's discoveries. On the whole they seemed entirely satisfactory, but he had a nasty feeling that the Inspector's methods might not look too good in court. In fact it was best not to dwell on them. Defending counsel could be relied on to spell them out in detail to the jury. Threats to prisoners in gaol, murder charges that were never brought...On the other hand if Flint had succeeded, that idiot Hodge would be scuppered. That was worth a great many risks.

'Are you quite certain Swannell and the rest haven't been spinning you a yarn?' he asked. 'I mean I'm not doubting you or anything but if we go ahead now and they retract those statements in court, which they will do'

'I'm not relying on their statements,' said Flint. 'There's hard evidence. I think when the search warrants are issued we'll find enough heroin and Embalming Fluid on their premises and clothing to satisfy Forensic. They've got to have spilt some when they were splitting the packages, haven't they?'

The Superintendent didn't answer. There were some things he preferred not to know and Flint's actions were too dubious for comfort. Still if the Inspector had broken a drug ring the Chief Constable and the Home Secretary would be well satisfied, and with crime organized the way it was nowadays there was no point in being too scrupulous. 'All right,' he said finally. 'I'll apply for the warrants.'

'Thank you, sir,' said Flint and turned to go. But the Superintendent stopped him.

'About Inspector Hodge,' he said. 'I take it he's been following a different line of investigation.'

'American airbases,' said Flint. 'He's got it into his head that's where the stuffs been coming in.'

'In that case we'd better call him off.'

But Flint had other plans in mind. 'If I might make a suggestion, sir,' he said, 'the fact that the Drug Squad is pointing in the wrong direction has its advantages. I mean Hodge has drawn attention away from our investigations and it would be a pity to put up a warning signal until we've made our arrests. In fact it might help to encourage him a bit.'

The Superintendent looked at him doubtfully. The last thing the head of the Drug Squad needed was encouraging. He was demented enough already. On the other hand...

'And how exactly is he to be encouraged?' he asked.

'I suppose you could say the Chief Constable was looking for an early arrest,' said Flint. 'It's the truth after all.'

'I suppose there's that to it,' said the Superintendent wearily. 'All right, but you'd better be right with your own cases.'

'I will be, sir,' said Flint and left the room. He went down to the car pool where Sergeant Yates was waiting.

'The warrants are all settled,' he said. 'Have you got the stuff?'

Sergeant Yates nodded and indicated a plastic packet on the back seat. 'Couldn't get a lot,' he said, 'Runkie reckoned we'd no right to it. I had to tell him it was needed for a lab check.'

'Which it will be,' said Flint. 'And it's all the same batch?'

'It's that all right.'

'No problem then,' said Flint as they drove out, 'we'll look at Lingon's coach first and then Swannell's boat and the back garden and leave enough for Forensic to pick up.'

'What about Roddie Eaton?'

Flint took a pair of cotton gloves from his pocket. 'I thought we'd leave these in his dustbin,' he said. 'We'll used them on the coach first. No need to bother going to Annie's. There will be something there anyway, and besides, the rest of them will try to get lighter sentences by pointing the finger at her. All we need is three of them as guilty as sin and facing twenty years and they'll drop everyone else in the shit with them.'

'Bloody awful way of going about police work,' said Yates after a pause. 'Planting evidence and all.'

'Oh, I don't know,' said Flint. 'We know they're traffickers, they know it, and all we're doing is giving them a bit of their own medicine. Homeopathic, I call it.'

That wasn't the way Inspector Hodge would have described his work. His obsessive interest in the Wilts' extraordinary domestic activities had been alarmingly aggravated by the noises coming from the listening devices installed in the roof space. The quads were to blame. Driven up to their rooms by Eva who wanted them out of the way so that she could think what to do about Henry, they had taken revenge by playing long-playing records of Heavy Metal at one hundred watts per channel. From where Hodge and Runk sat in the van it sounded as though 45 Oakhurst Avenue was being blown apart by an endless series of rythmic explosions.

By the time they reached the parking lot by the gates it was clear that the situation had deteriorated. In an entirely unnecessary effort to rescue their mother from the sentriesEva had already felled one of the men with a knee-jerk to the groin she had learnt at a Rape Resistance Evening Classthe quads had abandoned the Wilts' car and, by dusting the second sentry with pepper, had put him out of action. After that they had occupied the gatehouse itself and were now holding the Lieutenant hostage inside. Since he had torn off his uniform to escape the ammonia fumes and the quads had armed themselves with his revolver and that of the sentry writhing on the ground outside, they had been able to isolate the guardhouse even more effectively by threatening the driver of an oil tanker which had made the mistake of arriving at the barrier and forcing him to offload several hundred gallons of fuel oil on to the roadway before driving tentatively into the base.

Even Eva had been appalled at the result. As the stuff swilled across the tarmac Lieutenant Harah had driven up rather too hurriedly in a jeep and had tried to brake. The jeep was now enmeshed in the perimeter fence and Lieutenant Harah, having crawled from it, was calling for reinforcements. 'We have a real penetration situation here,' he bawled into his walkie-talkie. 'A bunch of leftist terrorists have taken over the guardhouse.'

'They're not terrorists, they're just little girls,' Eva shouted from inside, only to have her words drowned by the Alert siren which Samantha had activated.

Outside in the roadway Mavis Mottram's busload of Mothers Against The Bomb had gathered in a line and had handcuffed themselves together before padlocking the ends of the line to the fence on either side of the gateway and were dancing something approximate to the can-can and chanting 'End the arms race, save the human' in full view of three TV cameras and a dozen photographers. Above their heads an enormous and remarkable balloon, shaped and veined like an erect penis, swung slowly in the breeze exposing the rather confusing messages, 'Wombs Not Tombs' and 'Screw Cruise Not Us' painted on opposite sides. As Wilt and Colonel Urwin watched, the balloon, evidently force-fed by a hydrogen cylinder, shed its few human pretensions in the shape of an enormous plastic foreskin and turned itself into a gigantic rocket.

'This is going to kill old B52,' muttered the Colonel who had until then been enjoying the spectacle of Lieutenant Harah covered in oil and trying to get to his feet. 'And I can't see the President liking it too much either. That fucking phallus has got to hit prime time with all those cameras.'

A fire truck shot round the corner past them and in a jeep behind it came Major Glaushof, his right arm in a sling and his face the colour of putty.

'Jesus,' said Captain Fortune, 'if that fire truck hits the oil we're going to have a body count of thirty of the Mothers.'

But the truck had stopped and men were deploying hoses. Behind them and the human chain Inspector Hodge and Sergeant Runk had driven up and were staring wildly about them. In front the women still kicked up their legs and chanted, the firemen had begun to spray foam on to the oil and Lieutenant Harah, and Glaushof was gesticulating with one hand to a troop of Anti Perimeter Penetration Squad men who had formed up as near the Mothers Against The Bomb as they could get and were preparing to discharge canisters of Agent Incapacitating at them.

'For fuck's sake hold it,' yelled Glaushof but his words were drowned out by the Alert Siren. As the canisters dropped into the roadway at the feet of the human chain Colonel Urwin shut his eyes. He knew now that Glaushof was a doomed man, but his own career was in jeopardy. 'We've got to get those fucking kids out of there before the cameras start playing on them,' he bawled at Captain Fortune. 'Go in and get them.'

The Captain looked at the foam, the oil and the drifting gas. Already a number of MABs had dropped to the ground and Samantha had added to the hazards of approaching the guardhouse by accidentally-on-purpose firing a revolver through one of the windows, an action which had drawn answering fire from Glaushof's APP Squad.

'You think I'm risking my life...' the Captain began but it was Wilt who took the initiative. Wading through the oil and foam he made it to the guardhouse and presently four small girls and a large woman came out with him. Hodge didn't see them. Like the cameramen his attention was elsewhere, but unlike them he was no longer interested in the disaster taking place at the gates. A canister of AI had persuaded him to leave the scene as quickly as possible. It had also made it difficult to drive. As the police van backed into the bus and then shot forward and ricocheted off a cameraman's car before sliding off the road and onto its side, he had a moment of understanding. Inspector Flint hadn't been such an old fool after all. Anyone who tangled with the Wilt family had to come off worst.

Colonel Urwin shared his feelings. 'We're going to get you out of here in a chopper,' he told Wilt as more women slumped across the gateway.

And what about my car?' said Wilt. 'If you think I'm leaving...'

But his protest was shouted down by the quads. And Eva.

'We want to go up in a helicopter,' they squealed in unison.

'Just take me away from all this,' said Eva.

Ten minutes later Wilt looked down from a thousand feet at the pattern of runways and roads, buildings and bunkers and at the tiny group of women being carried from the gate to waiting ambulances. For the first time he felt some sympathy for Mavis Mottram. For all her faults she had been right to pit herself against the banal enormity of the airbase. The place had all the characteristics of a potential extermination camp. True, nobody was being herded into gas chambers and there was no smoke rising from crematoria. But the blind obedience to orders was there, instilled in Glaushof and even in Colonel Urwin. Everyone in fact, except Mavis Mottram and the human chain of women at the gate. The others would all obey orders if the time came and the real holocaust would begin. And this time there would be no liberators, no successive generations to erect memorials to the dead or learn lessons from past horrors. There would be only silence. The wind and the sea the only voices left. And it was the same in Russia and the occupied countries of Eastern Europe. Worse. There Mavis Mottram was already silenced, confined to a prison or a psychiatric ward because she was idiosyncratically sane. No TV cameras or photographers depicted the new death camps. And twenty million Russians had died to make their country safe from genocide, only to have Stalin's successors too afraid of their own people to allow them to discuss the alternatives to building more machines to wipe life off the face of the earth.

It was the end of term at the Tech and the staff were seated in the auditorium, as evidently bored as the students they themselves had previously lectured there. Now it was the Principal's turn. He had spent ten excruciating minutes doing his best to disguise his true feelings for Mr Spirey of the Building Department who was finally retiring, and another twenty trying to explain why financial cuts had ended any hope of rebuilding the engineering block at the very time when the College had been granted the staggering sum of a quarter of a million pounds by an anonymous donor for the purchase of textbooks. In the front row Wilt sat poker-faced among the other Heads of Departments and feigned indifference. Only he and the Principal knew the source of the donation and neither of them could ever tell. The Official Secrets Act had seen to that. The money was the price of Wilt's silence. The deal had been negotiated by two nervous officials from the United States Embassy and in the presence of two rather more menacing individuals ostensibly from the legal division of the Home Office. Not that Wilt had been worried by their attitude. Throughout the discussion he had basked in the sense of his own innocence and even Eva had been overawed and then impressed by the offer of a new car. But Wilt had turned that down. It was enough to know that the Principal, while never understanding why, would always be unhappily aware that the Fenland College of Arts and Technology was once again indebted to a man he would have liked to fire. Now he was lumbered with Wilt until he retired himself.

Only the quads had been difficult to silence. They had enjoyed pumping ammonia over the Lieutenant and disabling sentries with pepper too much not to want to make their exploits known.