In the cold blue light at the bottom of the gangway there were four gendarmes and two other officiais. One had a submachine gun. Just slung from his shoulder, but still not the normal way to greet innocent ski-parties and coach tourists who don't want to see more than five capitals in four days, if that much.

A bunch of schoolboys went down first and were let through – but their master was stopped and his passport checked. A couple of women went through without any trouble. And that was enough for me. I broke some sort of record back down two flights of stairs and up to Denniston's Tours bus; Harry was just starting the engine.

The courier gave me a look of genuine home-cooked fright and held out a hand to stop me swinging back on board.

I said, 'I'm coming off with you, after all.'

'You can't!'

'We can but try. Get my case out of sight.'

He reached and pushed it away behind him, in a sort of a cubby-hole behind the driver's seat. Then he started to protest again.

I soothed him. 'You've still got the Evans passport. Use it. You're not risking any more than I am.'

That really got through to him. 'I'm not riskinganything.'

'Yes you are, chum. If anybody asks, I did this deal directly with you. No Dave Tanner, no middlemen at all. Swing, swing together – is that how the Eton Boating Song goes? I wasn't ever there anyway – were you?'

Harry the driver, who must have overheard at least some of this, growled, 'For Chrissake – dosomething: I've got to move.'

The bus lurched forward a few feet, waved on by a sailor controlling the unloading.

The courier flapped his hand in small circles and squawked, 'But what can we do? If they're looking for you, they'll see you.'

'Then I'll stand up here beside you and you explain I'm learning the trade. They won't mistrust your nice honest face.' But I pulled off my sheepskin and slung it into the rack along with all the plastic bags of duty-free booze and cigarette cartons; that had been in my Arras description. The bus moved forward in whining jerks.

Behind me, most of the interior lights were out and most of the passengers dozing; it was after midnight and they weren't going to sleep anywhere else tonight. We followed a short queue of cars up the ramp and out across the cold, neon-lit concrete towards the passport control.

Suddenly, sooner than I'd expected, a gendarme swung up on to the step and sang out,'Les passeports, s'il vous plaît, et les noms des passagers.'

Silently, the courier gave him the stack of passports and a typed list – the right one, I hoped. Then he nodded nervously to me and said,'Je vous présente Monsieur Evans. Il est en train d'apprendre le métier.'

The cop shook hands without really bothering to look at me, and went on shuffling passports. I asked,'Cherchez-vous quelqu'un en particulier? '

'Un Monsieur Card.'Then, to the courier.'Est-te que. quelqu'un d'autre, est monté dans le car depuis l'embarquement?'

'Non, non. Personne.'

The cop nodded briskly, handed over the paper and passports, and hopped off.

"There, you see?' I said. 'It wasn't so bad, was it?'

He looked back at me with a sick expression. Half an hour later, we were in Belgium.

They dumped me off outside the Gare Central in Brussels at half past five, with a bloodshot dawn breaking behind the Palais de la Nation and a nagging cold wind scouring the empty streets. The courier didn't even bother to wave, and Harry nearly made the bus stand on its hind legs getting away from me. I knew I must have BO by now, but I didn't think it wasthat bad.

I had a few coffees in the station itself and when I came out, the Aérogare opposite was open, so I booked on the eight-fifteen Sabena flight for Copenhagen and then a Danair connection to Bergen. Out at the airport I found a chemist shop open and bought a razor and blades, and spent most of the flight standing straddle-legged in the toilet of a Caravelle, balancing against the air pockets and trying to shave a face roughly smeared with perfumed airline soap.

At Copenhagen I got my case back just long enough to snatch a fresh shirt out of it and hand it back for the Bergen flight. And to find out that while it had been supposedly shut up in the back of Denniston Tours' bus, somebody had worked open the locks and taken the log of the Skadi.

I climbed on to the plane in a daze, my jaw waggling loosely as I nodded back to the stewardess's 'Good morning, sir.' I'd've nodded just as willingly if she'd asked 'Are you smuggling a thirty-eight Special copy of the Remington forty-one derringer up your left sleeve, sir?'

But after a time, the numbness wore off. I'd still got the photo-copies; I'd still got Willie as witness to its existence and what it said. And Iwasn't in Arras jail, was I? And it hadn't been BO but guilty conscience that made Denniston Tours leave me at such speed. Which reminded me, so I went back to the toilet and changed my shirt.

Beside the washbasin there was a small bottle of lime-green after-shave lotion and for a moment I wondered what it tasted like, and, if so, I might fill my KGB flask with it. Which must prove something about how I still felt. But at least I was thinking Nygaard. It might help me find him.

The Friendship whistled down into Bergen at a quarter to one, just five minutes behind time – and guess what? – it was raining. I tried to ring Kari, couldn't get her, and left a message to say I'd be lunching at the Norge. So then I caught the airport bus and got myself hauled to the terminal in the hotel itself.

She was there to meet me, and even offered to carry my case, so maybe I looked as bad as I felt. But I decided to leave it at the terminal; I didn't yet know where I'd be for the night anyway.

'Any news?' I asked it just for the record, though her face was as long as an Arctic night.

She shook her head.

'You've tried the hospitals and police stations?'

'Ja, ja.'So it wasn't so likely that he was dead under a bush somewhere, unless he'd gone right out of Bergen – and why should he?

'You asked Mrs Smith-Bang?'

'She is very worried also.'

Til bet. Just when did he go missing?'

'He left the Home on Saturday morning, before midday.'

'Forty-eight hours by now. Well…' It wasn't too long for a practising alcoholic. Amnesia's a normal part of the game at this stage, so he could still be under somebody's table thinking that Saturday was taking a long time to go past. 'Well,' I said again, 'I've got to eat or die. D'you want to lunch here?'

The short answer was No, though she spun it out a bit. I don't know if she really didn't want that size of lunch, whether she was scared of the flossy great dining-dancing room with its thirty-two Japanese lanterns, or whether she thought I was suggesting she pay for it herself. Anyhow, she obviously preferred to go out for a coffee and a sandwich, so I made a date for a quarter past two and gave her a cable to send off to Willie, reassuring him that I wasn't in jail – yet. No mention of the Skadi's log, though.

After lunch I had time to ask at the desk about Maggie Mackwood – but she'd left for London two days before.

Kari's Volkswagen hadn't gone to its Great Reward yet – not quite – so we started down at the Home itself. After a fair bit of ringing and knocking the door was opened by a character who'd sailed as cabin boy on the first Ark. He thought young Herr Ruud was out, and as for Nygaard – who?

I don't think he was hiding anything; it was just that his mind hadn't touched harbour for ten years and Nygaard had only been around for the last four months.

Still, it reminded me to ask Kari, 'Did you try asking any of the other sailors here?'

'Oh, ja. But they did not know where he had gone. He went in the morning and they do not get up so early always.'