Battle stations.

"Now you can tell me all you want to, Quiller."

"There's nothing to tell."

"I'm listening -"

"I'm not talking, Fabian. There's nothing to tell you."

"But I'm interested and there's a sympathy between us -"

"Listen you can keep me here till I'm black in the face but it's no go, it's no bloody go!" I'd switched into English but he was with me, switching too.

"We don't want to keep you here long because your Control will be worried about you. You haven't reported for a long time -"

"I don't report, don't have to report, they -" Hold back!

"But you can't lose touch with them -"

"There's Post and -"

"Yes?"

"Postman always rings twice." Sweat pouring from under the arms, breathing like a pair of bellows.

"We've told your Control you'll be out of touch with them for a few -"

"You don't have to stamp – stamp your foot, Fabian, I say bloody well stamp your foot, man!" Madness, a kind of madness, you murder and then blurt it out. Switch back into German and try muddling thought-processes. "Listen, there's nothing to tell you – you think you can sit me in a chair and pump me full of dope and expect me to squeal on people like Kenneth Lindsay – Solly Joe, poor Solly Joe it was my fault, my fault, just as I told him but he didn't hear because he was dead – you think he'll ever forgive me, you think he will, ever ?"

Shaking all over. Stink of sweat. The schism again but a different kind: perfectly aware, acutely aware of what they were trying to do – make me give them names and ciphers and details of missions – yet acutely aware too of the necessity of holding back, of safeguarding lives and the entire existence of the Bureau. And all the time the overwhelming urge to spill it all out and be done with it. It was the schism of the alcoholic: the hand reaching for the bottle and the mind trying to stop it, and failing.

"You don't have to stamp the letters in the post? We know that." A gentle voice, almost hypnotic. "We don't know how you receive the signals. That must be very clever for people not to know -"

"How the hell can people be allowed to know what we're doing when the whole object is strict hush? You think our kind of organisation could go on running against people like Phoenix if half the administration weren't geared to finding out ways of sending and receiving hush-signals without putting Pol in the box and Win – winter – winter windsay Jones keeping up with her bloody stinking necrophilia when she leans across like that if you won't tell you I won't tell you Naumann the snowman -"

"Winter wind?"

"Stuff it!"

"Oh, I know the box you mean -"

"You don't you never went there -"

"Poll? Polling-booth? Box?"

"She's dead bones I tell you -"

"Jack in the box? A toy-shop? Spielleugladen?"

"Think again -"

"You've got me guessing -"

"Guess again then Arabian guess again Fabian forgive me Solly my fault!"

Acute awareness of danger, acute awareness of drift. No immediate amnesia, knew what they were doing, picked me up on winter straight away and dear God help me I let Pol come out. Hold back. Or better, let it rip. Main psychic contents, three things: Inga (sex), Kenneth Lindsay Jones (shock of his death) and Solly Rothstein (guilt). Could play on these because they were clamouring for attention and confession. Safe, because two were dead and she was death itself.

Still shaking. Chair like seat in a roaring roller-coaster swinging round the sky. Mouth full of tongue and the only thirst was for words – tell, tell tell! "Flowers on the pavement – I'll throw flowers over the wall for Solly in the event of my death please send this container Flores for Solly Las Ramblas personally – I said personally, you hear me, you bloody well hear me?" Shivering and feverish now, swinging along and a hand on my wrist. "How am I, Doctor? How am I?"

A glass vase tinkling somewhere near because I'd shouted it loud as I could, bellowed it out at the globe of stars. If only he'd co-operate!

"That's Barcelona. We know that.

"Don't know everything."

"We know the avenue called Las Ramblas, in Barcelona.

"What number is it?"

"Spanish inquisition new-style with amytal these days is it, oh but you're damn clever see the bull-ring, ever see the bull-ring? She stands like a matador feet together and hips forward till you want to horn her like a bull would if she stood like that in a bull-ring but -"

"But we've forgotten the number in Las Ramblas "

"You never knew it and never will -"

"We know it isn't fifteen -"

"Men to mow, men to mow a meadow -"

"We have to send them the container, you see, and we don't know the number -"

"Go and shit."

"Where is your Control? Not in Barcelona, surely? "

"Keep control."

Keep control. Christ, not easy. Shivering all over blast their eyes he'll never forgive me. Breath like a bellows, slanting light like arrows at the eyes blast their eyes. You have the advantage. Use it! Invincible – Quiller the Killer!

The down-curve. I could feel it. The down-curve, glory to God it was coming. I was over the bloody top and on the way down and what had they got? Four names: Pol, Jones, Solly, Inga. Jones dead, Solly dead, Inga mad. Pol left. A dozen Pols in the Berlin directory, fat lot of use to them that was. What else? Post, and stamp, don't have to stamp the letters. In the event of my death. Container. Las Ramblas. A lot of stuff about that lean black cacodemon. Nothing important.

Over the top and on the way down. Play it cool now.

"We'll send the container to Barcelona for you and your man can pick it up in Las Ramblas. What could be simpler? Just put the number on the container and -"

"Yes yes yes. Jawort!"

Say anything. English or German or French. Anything. Watch it, though. Easy does it. In English: "They never got me, though, because I linked up with three others, a Jew and a Dane and a Pole and a Dutchman – nine others, that's right. Proper old beanfeast – how's your idiom, friend Fabian? "In German: "We are not concerned with reaching a particular line on the map but with the extermination of living forces, in other words plain bloody murder and you know who said that? Hitler the fidget, and may the good Lord rot his soul in hell." In French: "They dropped parachutes that night and Barney got shot dead before he hit the ground. It didn't make any difference, there were ten of us. If we'd -"

"There are two lines of trees, and they sell goldfish and puppy-dogs in the middle – now where are we?"

"Las Ramblas."

"Yes, but what number?"

"Five."

"Five?"

"Six. Seven. All good niggers -"

" Fifty-six?"

"Jawort!"

Tiring. Splendid sign. The pressure coming off. Everything quite clear, quite lucid, but the fever going. Fox them.

"Nona fia buro-ki muldhala im bhano-jhim, sembali vadha."

Sitting up there with his Fowler's, never get his D.Lit. in Rabinda-Tanath. "Darmha valthala-mah im jhuma! " Sense not important. Tree tall, man very dead, fire-cart kill quick, just let it come. No word, oddly, for bullet. "Varstra-las! "

"Is that Indian?"

"Ink."

"The American infantry used to take Cotapeeke Indians with them on the battlefield in Normandy, so that orders could be shouted without the enemy understanding them. I expect your Bureau got the idea from that, didn't it?"

"Burro. Donkey. Speak Spanish?" Had to answer, had to. Verbal diarrhoea. Say anything. Urge to speak. Question of time now.

"I always speak Spanish in Las Ramblas, yes. Shall we contact your man in Barcelona by radio for you?"