He looked at my split shoe with a shrug.

'Fertig.'

'Fertig.' I nodded.

He dropped them both into an upturned fencing-mask and I gave him 60 DM, 20 for the shoes and 40 for the pair of x6 Zeiss I had found on a shelf. He counted the deutschmarks in the light from the doorway. Over the Harz range the sky was a purple bruise. It was going to be a spectacular storm when it came, and this was why I felt sleepy.

Or it was the after-effects of the crash or the inadequate sleep at Nitri's or the nervous tension of the police trap. Or I was getting old.

'Auf Wiedersehen.'

I went back to the car, walking normally for the first time since I'd left the motel. The left shoe felt too tight but it had two notches on each buckle the same as the other one: the foot had already tried to adapt itself to a split upper and now it would have to relearn.

'Certainly,' I had said, but it had been a nasty five minutes. The air was cold so I made a show of feeling the contrast, blowing out my cheeks as I left the car, one hand in my pocket for warmth, the other finding the right key as though it didn't have to think about it but it had to think about it bloody hard because it wasn't far from the driving-door to the boot and I was doing it one-handed and they were watching me and I knew that.

The latest arrival had doused his lights but it was still awkward having to keep one foot arched so that it sounded normal: it was trying to drag like a slipper. They both came with me, the young one holding the torch and aiming the beam at the boot-lock for me. It was the right key because there were three on the ring and the ignition and the door were the same pattern: one was a spare. But it didn't turn easily because the boot-lid was spring-tensioned by the rubber moulding and you normally had to press down a fraction with the left hand so the choice was to do it with the elbow and show I was injured or go on forcing the key till it snapped. If either happened it would finish me because they were looking for an injured man and if the key snapped they'd think I'd done it on purpose so that they couldn't look in the boot and see Walter Martin curled up there.

But there's a law of averages and my run of bad luck was stretching the odds a bit and the key turned and I raised the lid and they looked inside and that was that.

'Did you give anyone a lift at any time during the night?'

'No.'

'Did you see anyone thumbing you for a lift?'

'No.'

'Very well. You can proceed.'

Still very careful though, testing the lid to make sure it was properly locked, taking my time, there was no hurry. Because that's when they, go on watching you in case you fall prone and give thanks to Allah for getting you off the hook. It still wasn't easy even then: the other group didn't like the way the truck-driver kept on saying 'Nein — nein!' with so much emphasis and now they were helping him open the big double doors and the pig was laughing on both sides of its face. This meant I had to do a series of shunts between the two trucks before I could turn out and I had to do it one-handed, keeping the wheel locked over with my knee while I shifted the gears.

The young one swung his torch to guide me away and the officer saluted. The nerves began their reaction-phase and for the next kilometre I felt as if I'd drunk too much coffee.

None of the other shops were open yet: Munden is a small town and it was nearly full winter. I'd seen the old man swinging back his shutters and stopped on the off chance. It was probably his only life in there among the skis and divers' helmets: they were his toys.

The shoes were excellent and the left-foot clutchwork was normal again and I drove five kilometres without stopping while I worked out the situation and when I'd worked it out I turned into a minor road and found the right kind of spot and ran the 17M as deep as I could into a copse where raindrops still fell from the trees.

Situation: there might be just the two traps, one on each side of the Hanover-Kassel autobahn, or there might be a dozen, a quickly thrown net around Linsdorf. One of them was certain to be farther south towards Neueburg and I would hit in full daylight. No go. It would be safer to reach Neueburg by dark in any case: the guide book gave the population as under 5,000 so it was a place where a stranger would be suspect.

I set each window to an inch gap at the top and tilted the seat back and let sleep come.

Ferris had done a full coverage but there was nothing that he or Philpott or Dr Wagner or Nitri hadn't either told me or led me to consider.

List of witnesses. NB: These were sifted from several hundred and are believed to be the most reliable.

There were sixty-two names and full addresses. Farmers, postmen, bird-watchers, coastguard observers. Mostly farmers, like the one with the red tractor at Westheim. My own name wasn't among them: Ferris never joked on duty.

I just heard a whining noise, and looked up.

There weren't any flames as far as I could see, but the sun was partly in my eyes and shining on the wings, so I won't commit myself on that.

It was almost vertical and so close that I began to run. I remember thinking: 'Poor devil.' (I meant the pilot.) The most common factor was the attitude.

Straight down. Vertical, or nearly vertical, I would say. He came down like a stone.

Chronologically there was no pattern. Thirty-six Strikers had crashed within three hundred and forty-two days. Average: one per 9.5 days. Longest interval between two crashes: 13 days. Shortest: 7.

Geographically there was no pattern. Out of ten main Striker bases each had experienced a crash: i.e., no squadron had been immune. Lowest incidence: 1. Highest: 5. (There was a slight tendency for high-incidence bases to appear in the north and Ferris hadn't missed it. Frequency of accidents at Bederkesa, Quakenbruck, Oldenburg and Hankensbuttel is considered possibly due to weather conditions aggravating unknown effects. NB: Striker is sensitive to severe temperature change.) In the Background of Dead Pilots section there were several common factors but none were unexpected: each had a history with indications of what Dr Wagner called 'Striker psychosis' with attendant periods of anxiety states and hypertension. All had been sent once or more than once to Garmisch-Partenkirchen for two weeks' mud-baths and psychiatrical sessions. Confidential information on their private lives — so far as it could be obtained — showing nothing significant. Marital disturbance slight. Financial worries normal. Professional qualities well above average for front-line tactical squadrons — NB: These pilots were picked from among all operational branches of the Luftwaffe in view of the technical sophistication and high cost of the Striker SK-6. They thus represent the elite of the German Air Arm.

I went through the folder twice and used a pencil in the margins and filled the back cover with averages, common factors, consistencies, anomalies. Blank.

Some time during the afternoon I heard movement and kept perfectly still. I had slept from early morning till one o'clock and was ninety-eight per cent alert and two per cent under the continuing influence of the barometric pressure: the storm still sagged across the mountains, slow to break. The movement went on and sometimes the low leaves trembled within yards of the car. I saw him only once, crossing a clear patch: a wild boar, black, compact, full in tusk and high at the shoulder. He swung his head and then stood rock-still, catching the unfamiliar smell of rubber and petrol, then vanished as if the leaves had drawn over him. He would have slept through the height of the day as I had, and would soon move through the night as I would, and I wished him well.

L-201 — 1-136 — 5-19. The identification figures were prefaced with a letter for each air base: Linsdorf — Mich — Spalt. I went through the whole picture again and came up with nothing and put the folder away and took it out again on the spur of frustration.