(3)The ferret was still in fair shape but the hole was now virtually a cul-de-sac. I was blocked off from Hanover, Linsdorf and all communications with people who had accepted me up to now as, persona grata: Philpott of A.I.B., Dr Wagner, Rohmhild, Boldt, Dissen and the rest of the Striker pilots. (Add Nitri from the time she saw the noon editions. I didn't know if she would go to the police when she heard they wanted me but I didn't think so: she had a curious interest in me either because I was probably the only man ever to have turned down the chance of a novel experience or because she believed I could find the answer to the Striker problem before it killed Franz.) The engine was warm and I checked my few belongings. At the hospital they'd given me back the silk scarf that had been round my arm as a tourniquet: it was a vaguely Freudian design and very Nitri. It was already in my pocket and it could stay there because I didn't want the police to find anything that could lead them to her if I had to abandon the car. The good Frau Doktor had fixed my arm in a sling so that my stitched hand couldn't fidget about and I took the thing off and stowed it in the sheepskin coat because during an interrogation you can conceivably keep a bandaged hand out of sight and when they'd tallied the number of the N.S.U. with the number in the motel register they'd be looking for someone in poor condition and a sling would be a positive advertisement.

At eighty-odd minutes before dawn in a wintry street I should have been prey to depression: mentally I was sound except for a patch of retrograde amnesia that couldn't be critical to the mission but physically I would have less chance than normal if anyone came for me close in and I didn't like that. Ferris had set me running and after three days I'd had to report that I'd blown my cover and lost the contact and become first suspect in a murder hunt and I didn't like that either. The opposition had twice tried to smear me out and Parkis was so scared at the size of this show that he wanted to stick a shield on to me so if they tried a third time one of two things would happen: either it would be successful and too late for a shield or Parkis would panic and insist on my having one in which case I'd tell Ferris that if I couldn't work alone he could signal London for a replacement and pull me out. Then some snivelling bitch at the Bureau would slide her scummy teacup off the Progress Report and scrawl Mission Unconcluded against my name and I liked that least of all.

But as I closed the driving window and shut myself in with the smell of ether and nail varnish and turned the car to face southwards I was elated instead of depressed. I had changed my cover and my nationality and I was on my own now with every man's hand against me throughout the whole country. From this time on I would follow the ways unknown to other men, digging my own dark tunnels as I went.

There was more stuff along the autobahn, mostly trucks, but I was south of Gottingen before dawn. I went fast and the mirror was clear for a hundred kilometres except once when I thought there was a dark shape drifting in it but it must have been a trick of the light and I never saw it again. Some rain had fallen this side of the mountains and the trees stood wet with it, their branches interlaced with silver in the headlights. Once a hare ran obliquely across my path, its coat already winter-white and its shadow bounding ahead until it found a gap and leapt beautifully, ears' flat and feet together, vanishing. It was the only time I slowed, except when a rash of rearlights spread through the dark towards the Munden loop-road and I saw the police lamp swinging.

It was well organized: they expected fast motoring along this stretch and though the 17M was piling on through the 130s I didn't fetch any squeal from the treads pulling up. There were two long-haulers and a private V.W. standing in a queue, with some police cars drawn in on the margin. Of course there had always been this consideration: the choice when I'd left Hanover had been to make a really fast run and reach Neueburg with as little daylight driving as possible or take it slowly and allow a chance of dodging a police block by trying to see them before they saw me. It would have been practicable at a slower speed to pull up quietly with the lights doused and do a soft-shoe turn and get the hell out, give or take a few degrees of luck.

I had opted for the fast run on the assumption that nobody would find Benedikt before daylight at the earliest and that when they did find him there'd be a decent time-lag before the Kriminal-polizei were notified and the motel manager gave them the name and description of the Englander who had joined the deceased for his last meal and had since left without checking out at the desk. I'd made the wrong decision, even in that moment of elation when my faith in myself had burned brightly in the surrounding gloom.

The one on signalling duty just pointed a gloved hand at the queue and I closed up on the rearmost truck, leaving the engine running. If he told me to switch it off I would switch it off but on principle I left it the way it was because if there's a chance in a thousand you might as well be ready to take it.

Probability: the manager had gone up to see if he could do anything for Benedikt soon after I'd left. He'd been worried about him during dinner: 'He looked ill. Is he all right?' That would have brought the K.P. into the picture long before I'd reached Nitri's apartment but they wouldn't have decided on road-blocks until a bit later. Coming south from Hanover I had passed Linsdorf five kilometres to the west and was now heading away from it. That was why there hadn't been a police trap until now: they expected Martin to be moving away from the scene of the killing. There was probably another trap north of the Linsdorf loop-road along that side of the autobahn and I had passed it but not seen it because of the anti-dazzle screens along some sections of the centre strip.

It was a cold-storage truck standing in front of me, Frankfurt-registered: Vollmond Gesellschaft. Twelve delineation lights and the company's trade-mark: a full moon framing a laughing pig, so happy to be knifed in the abattoir and minced into sausages for the friendly bipeds to eat.

'Your papers, please.' Local, by his accent.

A cloud of diesel gas spread out from the long-hauler at the head of the line as it lumbered away. The uniformed figures stood half-obliterated.

I gave him my papers.

If the probability were correct and the manager had in fact gone up to see if he could do anything for Benedikt he might have decided to knock on my door — it was only the third along — for the sake of immediate human company because he would have been white and shaking by that time, or he'd thought I might have some sort of clue about what had happened since I'd been dining with Benedikt only half an hour ago. It could have started from there: Herr Benedikt dead and Herr Martin missing. Polizei 'When were you born?'

'17 February, 1924.'

He was young and very military, keeping his head up and holding my identity card straight in front of him, only his eyes going down to read it.

'Where?'

'Hamburg.'

Glare began bouncing off the back of the truck and the laughing pig was slowly lost in it. The shadow of the patrolman appeared there like a gaunt secretary-bird, black and beakless. His colleague with the lamp hurried past and the sound of nearing thunder came from behind me and the light grew strong in the mirror.

'Switch off your engine please.'

I switched off my engine.

His torch clicked on and the beam caught me full in the face. What with that and the glare off the truck and the mirror I felt we were about ready for camera.

The thunder rolled loudly and there was a crash of gears. It sounded like a fifteen-tonner with trailer to match and I began wondering if he'd manage to pull up in time because if he chose this moment to leak some hydraulics Fd be no better off than the laughing pig, crashed, minced and canned in one labour-saving operation.