Maximfell back on the old Army answer: "Sir."

"Never explain, never complain." The DDCR eyed him with what might have been friendly coolness. "The trouble that daft phrase has got me into. The problem is, people-"

George's assistant poked his head round the door. "I'm terribly sorry, Deputy Director, but I've got Mrs Harbinger on the phone. She's a bit troubled and… actually, I rather think she'd like to speak to Major Maxim instead, if you don't mind, she didn't know he was back until I told her he'd just got off the-"

The DDCR picked up the phone. "Transfer the call on Mr Harbinger's line, would you?" He smiled and nodded at the assistant, who melted away. The transfer took time, as usual, so he went on: "-the problem is, people don't understand the second, unstated, half: Do something about it, or live with it. Preferably the first, although the Civil Service-Annette? How are you… Yes, you want to speak to Harry, he's here…"

Maxim listened and asked quickly: "Where are you speaking from? Okay, fine… Give me that address…" He scribbled on a pad the DDCR pushed towards him. "No, I'm sure he's all right. I know something about these people, there won't be a problem, but I'll be down there as soon as… he'll be allright, I'll handle it."

When he had finished, the DDCR said: "Handle what and how? No, don't explain, but has something happened to George?"

Maxim took a deep breath. "I think he must have got himself… kidnapped. I know it sounds weird, but it's part of this whole thing."

"If you know where, we'd better get the police on to it."

"I'd rather have a go first myself, sir."

The DDCR looked at him. "One day, Harry, with a bit-or a lot-of luck you'll find yourself leading a whole battalion, 680 men at current establishment, and then that road is going to be more lonely than anything you've ever known. Because, for them, by God you'vegot to be right. Tell me something: does all this go back to the Abbey and the fake copper nobody believed in? Yes? Then tell me one thing more: are you doing this to prove you were right, or because it matters to this country?"

Maximsaid: "I started trying to find somebody nobody else wanted to find. Now I know it's important."

"All right. I'll give you three hours. If you haven't rung in, I'll have to do something."

George Harbinger was in darkness, the total darkness of a windowless room and probably darker in the mind from knowing it was underground. The lights had been on for a minute or so while the man had handcuffed his left wrist to a water pipe, so George knew he was in a long narrow cellar, roughly walled with breeze blocks, that led out of the small original cellar at the back of the house. He was probably under the slope across the courtyard, with ten or twelve feet of earth above him. Thinking about that didn't help.

It was a timeless place, because the man had taken his watch: George recognised this as a trick to speed the feeling ofdisorientationthat, in time, would leave him so grateful for light and company that he would answer any question. He was a long way from that, he told himself, but in time any man… and how much time had passed already? Would Annette have opened the envelope yet? And would anybody believe her? Oh yes: if she thought George was in trouble, she'd get herself believed.

How much time dothey think they've got? He was pretty sure there was a second man who had stayed out of sight: perhaps somebody who knew George-they had got his name and posting right-and whom George might know. What were they doing?-waiting for him to soften up, or packing up and pulling out?… and leaving him here? They wouldn't do that… would they?

Why didn't they come and ask some questions? That bowl of crocuses had been a question, in its way, seeing if he reacted. Stupid romantics, sitting around a totem of their codename, probably drinking red wine to toast the future! Really… The only other question had been who knew he was here. He thought he had handled that quite well. "I have left a sealed envelope naming my whereabouts that is to be opened if I do not ring in by one o'clock," he had said pompously, hoping to be disbelieved. He had just been prodded downstairs to the cellar.

It must be noon now, an hour earlier than he had told them, and the envelope opened and help on its way. He was certain it must be well past noon, but without light and time there are very few certainties… except that George needed a drink.

Maxim came to Oxendown House in his own way. If they were expecting more visitors-and he had to assume they were-they probably expected the police, charging up the track in cars. Once a policeman gets his aching feet into a car, he is loath to take them out again. So Maxim came from the cliff side.

He wore his 'Cammie' jacket of broken browns and greens (many civilians now wore those, in the country) with gloves to hide his hands and a net scarf stuffed with tufts of grass that he draped over his face as he raised his head, very slowly, into a gorse bush atop the last crest before the valley-a 'combe', as it was known locally -that became a lawn at the top.

The house was about two hundred metres away, its wide front and terrace nicely framed by the spreading cedars. What interested him more was the sprawl of bushes that ran out from the trees on either side of the lawn. If he could reach the nearest of those bushes unseen, he had cover right up to the terrace.

He watched for several minutes but saw no movement; he was in a hurry, but not that much of one, and not now that he had the house almost in his grasp. He lowered his head as slowly as he had raised it and wriggled back down the slope, then took out the Walther and jacked a round into the chamber.

Keeping the chimney-pots of the house in view over the crest, he jogged along the reverse slope, and when another patch of gorse on the crest offered, slid up for another look. The trouble was the bare slope on the far side that led down to the shrubbery. But already he was out of sight from anybody at the dormer windows looking out to the sea, unless a watcher was right up against the glass. He hoped these people were trained to stand well back in theshadow. There was a gable window overlooking his side, but if he moved just a few metres on, there would be the broad trunk of a cedar in line with it.

He crawled along to position the tree carefully, then, keeping his body dead in line with it, wriggled slowly over the top and down the slope, in plain view should anybody walk out on to the terrace.

Then he was among the bushes, picking broken sticks out of his way as he worked towards the corner of the house, watching both front and side. When he touched brickwork he felt, almost as tangibly, the advantage pass to himself. To somebody like Maxim, close was safe.

The front of the house had too many windows, the terrace was too wide, and there he would have the south light behind him. So he moved towards the darker side, keeping right up against the wall, with the pistol and his head twitching in every direction. As he ducked to pass a ground-floor window he heard the muffled buzz-buzz of the telephone, and waited to see if it got answered. It stopped after three rings, and now he had one person at least pinned down somewhere in the middle of the house; he could risk making the next mcve quickly.

A single-storey outhouse had been bu Ut on at that corner, forcing him away from the main house and into the view from the gable window. He slipped around it with the pistol watching the window. Ahead was a newish garage, separated from the outhouse by a shoulder-wide alley floored with rotting leaves.

Distantly, there was a moment of hammering and he paused, puzzled. At the end of the alley, he could see the rear corner ofa Land-Roverstanding on a courtyard of smeary green stone.