It was Parkin; Bloggs could tell by the ticket inspector's uniform. He was curled up on the floor. Bloggs took the policeman's light, knelt down beside Parkin, and turned him over.

He saw Parkin's face, looked quickly away. "Oh, dear God."

"I take it this is Parkin?" the policeman said.

Bloggs nodded. He got up, very slowly, without looking again at the body. "We'll interview everybody in this car and the next," he said. "Anyone who saw or heard anything unusual will be detained for further questioning. Not that it will do us any good; the murderer must have jumped off the train before it got here."

Bloggs went back out on the platform. All the searchers had completed their tasks and were gathered in a group. He detailed six of them to help with the interviewing.

The police-inspector said, "Your man's hopped it, then."

"Almost certainly. You've looked in every toilet, and the guard's van?"

"Yes, and on top of the train and under it, and in the engine and the coal tender."

A passenger got off the train and approached Bloggs and the inspector. He was a small man who wheezed badly. "Excuse me," he said.

"Yes, sir," the inspector said. "I was wondering, are you looking for somebody?"

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, if you are, I was wondering, would he be a tall chap?"

"Why do you ask?"

Bloggs interrupted impatiently. "Yes, a tall man. Come on, spit it out."

"Well, it's just that a tall chap got out the wrong side of the train."

"When?"

"A minute or two after the train pulled into the station. He got on, like, then he got off, on the wrong side. Jumped down onto the track. Only he had no luggage, you see, which was another odd thing, and I just thought-"

The inspector said, "Balls."

"He must have spotted the trap," Bloggs said. "But how? He doesn't know my face, and your men were out of sight."

"Something made him suspicious."

"So he crossed the line to the next platform and went out that way. Wouldn't he have been seen?"

The inspector shrugged. "Not too many people about this late. And if he was seen he could just say he was too impatient to queue at the ticket barrier."

"Didn't you have the other ticket barriers covered?"

"Afraid I didn't think of it… well, we can search the surrounding area, and later on we can check various places in the city, and of course we'll watch the ferry."

"Yes, please do," Bloggs said.

But somehow he knew Faber would not be found.

It was more than an hour before the train started to move. Faber had a cramp in his left calf and dust in his nose. He heard the engineer and fireman climb back into their cab, and caught snatches of conversation about a body being found on the train. There was a metallic rattle as fireman shovelled coal, then the hiss of steam, a clanking of pistons, a jerk, and a sigh of smoke as the train moved off. Gratefully, Faber shifted his position and indulged in a smothered sneeze. He felt better.

He was at the back of the coal tender, buried deep in the coal, where it would take a man with a shovel ten minutes' hard work to expose him. As he had hoped, the police search of the tender had consisted of one good long look and no more.

He wondered whether he could risk emerging now. It must be getting light; would he be visible from a bridge over the line? He thought not. His skin was now quite black, and in a moving train in the pale light of dawn he would just be a dark blur on a dark background. Yes, he would chance it. Slowly and carefully, he dug his way out of his grave of coal.

He breathed deeply of the cool air. The coal was shovelled out of the tender via a small hole in the front end. Later, perhaps, the fireman would have to enter the tender when the pile of coal got lower. But he was safe for now.

As the light strengthened he looked himself over. He was covered from head to toe in coal dust, like a miner coming up from the pit. Somehow he had to wash and change his clothes.

He chanced a look over the side of the tender. The train was still in the suburbs, passing factories and warehouses and rows of grimy little houses.

He had to think about his next move.

His original plan had been to get off the train at Glasgow and there catch another train to Dundee and up the east coast to Aberdeen. It was still possible for him to disembark at Glasgow. He could not get off at the station, of course, but he might jump off either just before or just after. However, there were risks in that. The train was sure to stop at intermediate stations between Liverpool and Glasgow, and at those stops he might be spotted. No, he had to get off the train soon and find another means of transport.

The ideal place would be a lonely stretch of track just outside a city or village. It had to be lonely-he must not be seen leaping from the coal tender-but it had to be fairly near houses so that he could steal clothes and a car. And it needed to be an uphill grade of track so that the train would be travelling slowly enough for him to jump.

Right now its speed was about forty miles an hour. Faber lay back on the coal to wait. He could not keep a permanent watch on the country through which he was passing, for fear of being seen. He decided he would look out whenever the train slowed down. Otherwise he would lie still.

After a few minutes he caught himself dropping off to sleep, despite the discomfort of his position. He shifted and reclined on his elbows so that if he did sleep he would fall and be wakened by the impact.

The train was gathering speed. Between London and Liverpool it had seemed to be stationary more than moving; now it steamed through the country at a fine pace. To complete his discomfort, it started to rain: a cold, steady drizzle that soaked right through his clothes and seemed to turn to ice on his skin. Another reason for getting off the train: he could die of exposure before they reached Glasgow.

After half an hour at high speed he was contemplating killing the engine crew and stopping the train himself. A signal box saved their lives. The train slowed suddenly as brakes were applied. It decelerated in stages; Faber guessed the track was marked with descending speed limits. He looked out. They were in the countryside again. He could see the reason for the slowdown: they were approaching a track junction, and the signals were against them.

Faber stayed in the tender while the train stood still. After five minutes it started up again. Faber scrambled up the side of the tender, perched on the edge for a moment, and jumped.

He landed on the embankment and lay, face down, in the overgrown weeds. When the train was out of earshot he got to his feet. The only sign of civilisation nearby was the signal box, a two-story wooden structure with large windows in the control room at the top, an outside staircase, and a door at ground-floor level. On the far side was a cinder track leading away. Faber walked in a wide circle to approach the place from the back, where there were no windows. He entered a ground-floor door and found what he had been expecting: a toilet, a washbasin, and, as a bonus, a coat hanging on a peg.

He took off his soaking wet clothes, washed his hands and face and rubbed himself vigorously all over with a grubby towel. The little cylindrical film can containing the negatives was still taped securely to his chest. He put his clothes back on, but substituted the signalman's overcoat for his own sopping wet jacket.

Now all he needed was transport. The signalman must have got here somehow. Faber went outside and found a bicycle padlocked to a rail on the other side of the small building. He snapped the little lock with the blade of his stiletto. Moving in a straight line away from the blank rear wall of the signal box, he wheeled the cycle until he was out of sight of the building. Then he cut across until he reached the cinder track, climbed on the cycle, and pedalled away.