One of the other two men moved again uncomfortably. They reminded me of Guhl, the man who had liked marzipan. He had been gun-dependent: these two were Kohn-dependent.

'Your thinking is wrong, Herr Martin, but we may decide at a later date to correct it for you. At Aschau we hold the view that every man is valuable, and that it requires only a little adaptation to put his values to good use. Meanwhile I will ask you to give me full information on the character, functions and personnel of the organization controlling you.'

'Oh come on, be your age.' I was getting fed up.

'You must remember that this is a re-education centre. We are giving you the opportunity of telling us what we require to know without first undergoing re-education. It would save time.'

'I'm in no hurry.'

'Perhaps you underestimate our persuasive abilities?'

'No, I should say they're pretty good.'

Then why decline to do something voluntarily that you will eventually do under duress? Surely that is a little unrealistic?'

I got out of the chair. He'd given me a lot of info and I wanted to think about it undisturbed and if I stayed here arguing the toss I might forget some of the details that I would need to fit into the pattern before I handed it to Ferris, one fine day.

It never does any good to consider that the only fine day you'll ever get is this one.

'It's no go,' I said.

They all watched me. I took a look at the other two but they weren't interesting. Kohn said:

'Perhaps I can be of help to you by repeating — '

'I don't need help.'

'In your position any man would be glad of it.'

'But not every man. Not this one.'

I was trying to make him specify. If I could get some idea of the actual method it would give me a chance to prepare myself and start combatting it before it began. In London they'd put the 9-suffix against my code-name because I'd twice proved reliable under torture and although I'd stuck it out on those two occasions by the doubtful virtue of sheer bloody pig-headedness it had been Norfolk training that had saved me in the end and a lot of the Norfolk training deals with the efficacy of psychological preparation. If you can find out what kind of thing you're going into you've got a chance of containing the natural fear while you're still fit and in full possession so that when the breath speeds up and the skin goes cold the mind can be released from the worst fear of them all: of the unknown.

'I must accept your decision,' he said.

Still wouldn't name it.

'Thank you. Now tell them to heat up the irons.'

He pressed a switch but I couldn't hear anything. It was probably a light-signal outside the room. He said indifferently: 'Our methods here at Aschau are not those of the Spanish Inquisition. You will not be molested in any way, of course. Nevertheless you will shortly give us the information required — that is quite certain'.

The big man came in and Kohn stood up when we left, which was civil of him.

It was now well after midnight by mental reckoning and most of the building was quiet, but sometimes I heard voices and a crack of light showed under some of the doors as I was taken along the passages. It might have been Cambridge, a few people still talking in their rooms.

But it was Aschau and I didn't like it because you can't correct a man's thinking unless you molest him and Kohn said you could and he ought to know: he'd done it before and was doing it now to the man who'd made that sound up there and you can only keep the 9-suffix until you meet someone who knows how to take it away from you and I believed that Kohn knew how. He was already applying the worst fear of them all: of the unknown.

They had double-locked the steel door and I was alone.

They didn't like you to have access to sharp things here and the beaker above the handbasin was made of soft plastic. I turned on a tap but it didn't work so I tried the other one but that didn't work either. Like everything else in East Germany the plumbing was shoddy. Then I realized this was wrong thinking, just — as Kohn had said: it was mere prejudice. The plumbing was perfectly all right, and I knew why he was so certain that I was going to tell him all he wanted to know.

The scorpion, trapped, will sting itself to death.

Estimation: it would be five days before they dragged me out of here with my tongue rattling. Then Kohn would put his questions and I wouldn't say anything and they would bring me back and leave me alone for another twelve hours and then drag me out again and I wouldn't say anything and they would go on doing it until it became humiliating. I would avoid that. Humiliation.

There were various ways. The window was glazed on the outside of its recess and the bars were inside and level with the wall but I could just reach far enough to smash the glass and get hold of a splinter and use it. The actual flow would take time because of the dehydration and they might be quick getting to me but the chance was good if I went for both wrists and the groin.

The two blankets on the bed were made of processed cellulose pulp stitched inside loose-spun fibre that didn't have any weave to it and even if I could make strips the knots wouldn't hold enough to bear my weight. The bed it's self was fixed to the wall with mason's rag-bolts and the handbasin was metal. But they hadn't thought of everything because the electric light worked and when I was ready I could just about bridge the distance between the lamp and the basin, a thumb pressed into the bayonet and a bare foot on the water-pipe.

The other ways might work but I didn't spend too much time thinking about them because they weren't certain. The hand will do what it's told to do and blood-letting and electrocution depend on voluntary manipulation but in a deliberate backward fall with the neck angled the body itself will try to survive: we only have to trip and the hand goes out at once.

Five days before they thought I looked ready, seven or eight before I had to pull the chicken-switch. That was a long time and there might be something I could do as an alternative from going slowly mad with thirst. But I didn't think so. They'd got it all worked out and I wasn't the first one to look round this room and see in everyday things the potential instruments of death.

The air was cold and I checked the radiator. It had lost most of its heat and the tap was open so it looked as if they turned off the main system about midnight. The unit held something like twelve litres of water but the octagonal unions and blanking-plugs were encrusted with paint and it would need a 5-cm spanner to loosen them so I would have to forget it.

I stripped off most of my clothes and dumped them on to the bed for a pillow. The thing was to work out a compromise between staying too warm and getting too cold: normal body-heat produced invisible sweat and I had to hold on to all the fluid I could. Excess cold would drive the blood from the surface and stimulate the kidneys into producing urine. Muscular effort would have to be cut to a minimum but that called for another compromise: there was just a chance that when they came in here again they might make a silly mistake and leave me an opening and I wouldn't be able to take it if the muscles were slack from disuse.

The physical set-up was all right except that the shock-dose of saline in the caviar and beer was already drying the mouth: they had cut down the time-factor by a couple of days. But the problem wasn't only physical. Denied fluid, the body will slowly shrivel to a point where it can no longer support life, but between the onset of thirst and final desiccation there is the effect on the mind. The resolves I was capable of making now could be maintained only so long as I stayed sane.