As he sat down the cockney said, "You took your time. Is there a queue?" Faber said, "It must have been something I ate."

"Probably a dried-egg sandwich." The cockney laughed.

Faber was thinking about Godliman. He knew the name; he could even put a vague face to it: a middle-aged, bespectacled face, with a pipe and an absent, professional air… That was it: he was a professor.

It was coming back. In his first couple of years in London Faber had had little to do. The war had not yet started, and most people believed it would not come. (Faber was not among the optimists.) He had been able to do a little useful work-mostly checking and revising the Abwehr's out-of-date maps, plus general reports based on his own observations and his reading of the newspapers-but not much. To fill in time, to improve his English, and to flesh out his cover, he had gone sightseeing.

His purpose in visiting Canterbury Cathedral had been innocent, although he did buy an aerial view of the town and the cathedral which he sent back for the Luftwaffe, not that it did much good; they spent most of 1942 missing it. Faber had taken a whole day to see the building: reading the ancient initials carved in walls, distinguishing the different architectural styles, reading the guidebook line by line as he walked slowly around.

He had been in the south ambulatory of the choir, looking at the blind arcading, when he became conscious of another absorbed figure by his side, an older man. "Fascinating, isn't it?" the man said, and Faber asked him what he meant.

"The one pointed arch in an arcade of round ones. No reason for it-that section obviously hasn't been rebuilt. For some reason, somebody just altered that one. I wonder why."

Faber saw what he meant. The choir was Romanesque, the nave Gothic; yet here in the choir was a solitary Gothic arch. "Perhaps," he said, "the monks demanded to see what the pointed arches would look like, and the architect did this to show them."

The older man stared at him. "What a splendid conjecture! Of course that's the reason. Are you an historian?"

Faber laughed. "No, just a clerk and an occasional reader of history books."

"People get doctorates for inspired guesses like that!"

"Are you?-An historian, I mean?"

"Yes, for my sins." He stuck out his hand. "Percy Godliman."

Was it possible, Faber thought as the train rattled on through Lancashire, that that unimpressive figure in a tweed suit could be the man who had discovered his identity? Spies generally claimed they were civil servants or something equally vague; not historians. That lie could be too easily found out. Yet it was rumoured that Military Intelligence had been bolstered by a number of academics. Faber had imagined them to be young, fit, aggressive, and bellicose as well as clever. Godliman was clever, but none of the rest. Unless he had changed.

Faber had seen him once again, although he had not spoken to him on the second occasion. After the brief encounter in the cathedral Faber had seen a notice advertising a public lecture on Henry II to be given by Professor Godliman at his college. He had gone along, out of curiosity. The talk had been erudite, lively and convincing. Godliman was still a faintly comic figure, prancing about behind the lectern, getting enthusiastic about his subject; but it was clear his mind was as sharp as a knife.

So that was the man who had discovered what Die Nadel looked like. An amateur.

Well, he would make amateur mistakes. Sending Billy Parkin had been one: Faber had recognised the boy. Godliman should have sent someone Faber did not know. Parkin had a better chance of recognising Faber, but no chance at all of surviving the encounter. A professional would have known that.

The train shuddered to a halt, and a muffled voice outside announced that this was Liverpool. Faber cursed under his breath; he should have been spending the time working out his next move, not remembering Percival Godliman.

They were waiting at Glasgow, Parkin had said before he died. Why Glasgow? Their inquiries at Euston would have told them he was going to Inverness. And if they suspected Inverness to be a red herring, they would have speculated that he was coming here, to Liverpool. This was the nearest link point for an Irish ferry. Faber hated snap decisions. Whichever, he had to get off the train.

He stood up, opened the door, stepped out, and headed for the ticket barrier.

He thought of something else. What was it that had flashed in Billy Parkin's eyes before he died? Not hatred, not fear, not pain, although all those had been present. It was more like… triumph? Faber looked up, past the ticket collector, and understood. Waiting on the other side, dressed in a hat and raincoat, was the blond young tail from Leicester Square.

Parkin, dying in agony and humiliation, had deceived Faber at the last. The trap was here.

The man in the raincoat had not yet noticed Faber in the crowd. Faber turned and stepped back onto the train. Once inside, he pulled aside the blind and looked out. The tail was searching the faces in the crowd. He had not noticed the man who got back on the train.

Faber watched while the passengers filtered through the gate until the platform was empty. The blond man spoke urgently to the ticket collector, who shook his head. The man seemed to insist. After a moment he waved to someone out of sight. A police officer emerged from the shadows and spoke to the collector. The platform guard joined the group, followed by a man in a civilian suit who was presumably a more senior railway official.

The engine driver and his fireman left the locomotive and went over to the barrier. There was more waving of arms and shaking of heads.

Finally the railwaymen shrugged, turned away, or rolled their eyes upward, all telegraphing surrender. The blond and the police officer summoned other policemen, and they moved on to the platform. They were obviously going to search the train.

All the railway officials, including the engine crew, had disappeared in the opposite direction, no doubt to seek out tea and sandwiches while the lunatic tried to search a jam-packed train. Which gave Faber an idea.

He opened the door and jumped out of the wrong side of the train, the side opposite the platform. Concealed from the police by the cars, he ran along the tracks, stumbling on the ties and slipping on the gravel, toward the engine.

It had to be bad news, of course. From the moment he realised Billy Parkin was not going to saunter off that train, Frederick Bloggs knew that Die Nadel had slipped through their fingers again. As the uniformed police moved onto the train in pairs, two men to search each car, Bloggs thought of several possible explanations of Parkin's non-appearance; and all the explanations were depressing.

He turned up his coat collar and paced the draughty platform. He wanted very badly to catch Die Nadel; and not only for the sake of the invasion although that was reason enough, of course, but for Percy Godliman, and for the five Home Guards, and for Christine, and for himself…

He looked at his watch: four o'clock. Soon it would be day. Bloggs had been up all night, and he had not eaten since breakfast yesterday, but until now he had kept going on adrenalin. The failure of the trap-he was quite sure it had failed-drained him of energy. Hunger and fatigue caught up with him. He had to make a conscious effort not to daydream about hot food and a warm bed.

"Sir!" A policeman was leaning out of a car and waving at him. "Sir!"

Bloggs walked toward him, then broke into a run.

"What is it?"

"It might be your man Parkin."

Bloggs climbed into the car. "What the hell do you mean, might be?"

"You'd better have a look." The policeman opened the communicating door between the cars and shone his flashlight inside.