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join you.’
    ‘Have I ever told you how your bloody nobility gives me a pain in my posterior?’
    ‘More than once.’
    ‘One of these days you must tell me the real reason you engage in such asinine activities.’
    Jardine pocketed his Mauser, picked up the Gladstone bag and went to the door, turning the handle. ‘I would advise you not to hold your breath while waiting for a response.’
    ‘Where are you going?’
    ‘To see if I can draw off any watchers. Maybe if I move, so will they, because I am convinced they cannot know who is coming and from where, or if they are close to the real escape route. But for certain they know my identity, so they might tail me, which will leave the way clear for the Ephraims.’
    ‘And if you’re wrong?’
    ‘Then you will hear gunshots. After that, you must decide how to act on your own.’
    ‘Say they do follow you, I assume that leaves me to get these bloody people through the tunnel?’
    ‘If you wouldn’t mind.’
    ‘And you, how do you get out?’ Jardine just grinned and touched the side of his nose with an index finger, which exasperated Lanchester. ‘If you do manage, Cal, forthe sake of the Lord do not tell anyone I helped to rescue some Yids. I’ll never live it down.’
    ‘Army & Navy Club, Peter, two weeks from now and you can buy me luncheon. Oh, and by the way, don’t be surprised by the way our party is dressed. Can I have my scarf back? I might need it.’
    Lanchester was taking the muffler off when he too grinned. ‘Does Bonny Lass speak Yiddish?’
    ‘No idea.’
    Lanchester ran a tidying hand over his glossy black hair. ‘Might be prepared to learn if she does, don’t you know. How long does it take to get to Rotterdam?’
    ‘I saw the way she looked at you, Peter; for what you’re thinking about, Tokyo is not far enough.’
    ‘And I saw the way she looked at you, Cal, but never underestimate the charm of a true Englishman.’
     
    The sun is slow to fall near the Baltic, but it is low in the long evenings, so it cast deep shadows between the high warehouses that lined the deserted street. Approaching the lorry, with a couple of men seemingly working to load it, moving boxes about, it was hard to appear nonchalant, even harder not to look too directly at them to see if they had the kind of coarse appearance such labourers should have.
    Gladstone bag swinging in one hand, the other in his trench coat pocket holding tight the now warm stock of his pistol, Jardine did flick a glance towards them as he passed close by, throwing them a crisp ‘ Guten Abend ’.
    His suspicions were heightened by the way they failed torespond, it being a mark of polite behaviour for Germans to do so, while the impression of faces too bland was fleeting, of hands a bit too white and teeth that seemed too even. Likewise the clothing had none of the wear that came from doing a lousy job for low pay. The hairs were standing on the back of his neck when he passed the cab, yet he dare not look back to see if they were watching him.
    In such building-created canyons, sound travels, and though he could not see it, he heard the distant start of a car engine, as well as that particular whining noise one makes when reversing. As he came to the first junction, to a road running away from the dockside, he looked along it to observe it was empty; had the car been there and so obviously official-looking it had needed to be withdrawn? How many bodies did they have on this job?
    His heart jumped when the lorry engine started, a deep throbbing note as it idled, then the pitch of the engine rising as it revved and moved, that mixing with the crack of his heels on the pavement. Gears and engine pitch changed twice, then the noise became a diminishing echo, fading eventually till his shoes were making the only audible sound. The combination of that car noise and a lorry, hitherto stationary too long, indicated they were either police or Gestapo. It made no odds which, they had moved