The attendant approached, cleaning his spectacles on an oily rag. "Five quids' worth," Jesse said. "Where's the khasi?"

"Round the side."

Jesse followed the jerked thumb. A rough concrete path led alongside the garage. He found a broken door marked GENTS and went past it.

Behind the garage was a small patch of waste ground where newish cars in for repair jostled with rusty doors, buckled wings, and discarded machinery. Jesse could not see what he was looking for.

The back entrance to the repair shop gaped open beside him, big enough to drive a bus through. There was no point in being furtive. He walked in.

It took a moment to adjust to the gloom after the sunlight outside. The air smelled of engine oil and ozone. A Mini was on a ramp at head height, its entrails hanging down obscenely. The front end of an articulated truck was wired up to a Krypton tester. A Jaguar on chocks had its wheels off. There was no one about. He looked at his wristwatch: they would be having their dinner. He looked around.

He spotted the things he needed.

A pair of red-and-white trade plates stood on an oil drum in a corner. He crossed the floor and picked them up. He looked around again, and stole two more things: clean overalls hanging on a peg in the brick wall, and a length of dirty string off the floor.

A voice said: "Looking for something, brother?"

Jesse jerked around, his heart in his mouth. A black mechanic in a grimy overall stood on the far side of the shop, leaning on the gleaming white wing of the Jaguar, his mouth full of food. His Afro haircut shifted as he chewed. Jesse tried to cover the trade plates with the overalls. "The khasi," he said. "Want to change my clothes." He held his breath.

The mechanic pointed. "Outside," he said. He swallowed, and took another bite out of a Scotch egg.

"Thanks." Jesse hurried out.

"Anytime," the mechanic called after him. Jesse realized the man had an Irish accent. Irish spades? That was a new one.

The pump attendant was waiting beside the van. Jesse climbed in and threw the overalls and their contents over the seat into the back. The attendant looked curiously at the bundle. Jesse said: "My overall was hanging out the back door. It must be filthy. How much?"

"We generally charge a fiver for five quids' worth. I didn't notice it."

"Nor did I, for fifty bleeding miles. I did say five quids' worth, didn't I?"

"That's what you said. No charge for the bog."

Jesse gave him a five-pound note and pulled away rapidly.

He was a little off his route now, which was good. The area was quieter than the places he had traveled through earlier. There were oldish detached houses on either side, set back from the road. Horse-chestnut trees lined the pavements. He saw a Green Line bus stop.

He needed a quiet lane in which to perform the switch. He checked his watch again. It must be fifteen minutes since the accident. There was no time left for finesse.

He took the next turning. The street was called Brook Avenue. All the houses were semis. He needed somewhere less exposed, for Christ's sake! He could not switch plates in full view of sixty nosy housewives.

He took another turn, and another-and found a service road behind a little row of shops. He pulled in and stopped. There were garages and garbage cans, and the back doors through which goods were delivered to the stores. It was the best he could hope for.

He climbed over the seat into the back of the van. It was very hot. He sat on one of the money chests and pulled the overalls up his legs. Jesus, he was nearly there. Give me a couple more minutes, he thought-it was almost a prayer.

He stood up, bending over, and shrugged into the garment. If I'd blown it, Tony would have slit my throat, he thought. He shuddered. Tony Cox was a hard bastard. He had a bit of a kink about punishment.

Jesse zipped up the overalls. He knew about eye-witness descriptions. The police would by now be looking for a very big, vicious-looking character with desperate eyes, wearing an orange shirt and jeans. Anyone actually looking at Jesse would just see a mechanic.

He picked up the trade plates. The string had gone-he must have dropped it. He looked around the floor. Damn, there was always a piece of rope floating around on the floor of a van! He opened the toolbox and found a length of oily string tied around the jack.

He got out and went to the front of the van. He worked carefully, afraid to botch the job by hurrying. He tied the red-and-white trade plate over the original license plate, just as garages usually did when taking a commercial vehicle for a road test. He stood back and examined his work. It looked fine.

He went to the rear of the van and repeated the job on the back plate. It was done. He breathed more easily.

"Changing the plates, then?"

Jesse jumped and turned. His heart sank. The voice belonged to a policeman.

For Jesse it was the last straw. He could think of no more wrinkles, no more plausible lies, no more ruses. His instincts deserted him. He did not have a single thing to say.

The copper walked toward him. He was quite young, with ginger sideburns and a freckled nose. "Trouble?"

Jesse was amazed to see him smile. A ray of hope penetrated his petrified brain. He found his tongue. "Plates worked loose," he said. "Just tightened them up."

The copper nodded. "I used to drive one of these," he said conversationally. "Easier than driving a car. Lovely jobs."

It crossed Jesse's mind that the man might be playing a sadistic cat-and-mouse game, knowing perfectly well that Jesse was the driver of the hit-and-run van, but pretending ignorance so as to shock him at the last minute.

"Easy when they're running right," he said. The sweat on his face felt cold.

"Well, you've done it now. On your way, you're blocking the road."

Like a sleepwalker, Jesse climbed into the cab and started the engine. Where was the copper's car? Did he have his radio switched off? Had the overalls and the trade plates fooled him?

If he were to walk around to the front of the van and see the dent made by the bumper of the MarinaJesse eased his foot off the clutch and drove slowly along the service road. He stopped at the end and looked both ways. In his wing mirror, he saw the policeman at the far end getting into a patrol car.

Jesse pulled into the road and the patrol car was lost from view. He wiped his brow. He was trembling.

"Gawd, stone the crows," he breathed.

Evan Jones was drinking whiskey before lunch for the first time in his life. There was a reason. He had a Code, and he had broken it-also for the first time. He was explaining this to his friend, Arny Matthews, but he was not doing too well, for he was unused to whiskey, and the first double was already reaching his brain.

"It's my upbringing, see," he said in his musical Welsh accent. "Strict chapel. We lived by the Book. Now, a man can exchange one Code for another, but he can't shake the habit of obedience. See?"

"I see," said Arny, who did not see at all. Evan was manager of the London branch of the Cotton Bank of Jamaica, and Arny was a senior actuary at Fire and General Marine Insurance, and they lived in adjoining mock-Tudor houses in Woking, Surrey. Their friendship was shallow, but permanent.

"Bankers have a Code," Evan continued. "Do you know, it caused quite a stir when I told my parents I wanted to be a banker. In South Wales the grammar school boys are expected to become teachers, or ministers, or Coal Board clerks, or trade union officials-but not bankers."

"My mother didn't even know what an actuary was," said Arny sympathetically, missing the point.

"I'm not talking about the principles of good banking-the law of the least risk, the collateral to more-than-cover the loan, higher interest for longer term-I don't mean all that."