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to run to the book. Like a mug I agreed. Johnny won in slow time and kept the belt till Young England thrashed him. I’m glad it was Charlie who finally won it outright, though. I’m out there with him, when he runs, every yard.’
    ‘Except when you take his place here,’ said Cora, laugh-ing. ‘Take my drink, Sam. I’ve already drunk enough this evening.’
    Monk drained his own glass, and then Cora’s.
    ‘There ain’t much time,’ he said. ‘Let’s get upstairs.’
    She was shaking her head.
    ‘I wouldn’t like that, Sam. Why do you think I banked the fire up in here? The bed is cold. This is different, anyway. Charles has never approached me here. Here, Sam. Love me in here.’
    Monk was feeling warm for the first time in twenty-five hours and readily acquiesced. He draped himself along the sofa and kissed her resolutely.
    Minutes later Cora knelt before the fire while Monk began the tantalising work of disrobing her. She had slipped off her shoes, but the rest was left to him. His fingers coped haltingly with hooks and eyes and tiny buttons. The dress bodice eventually fell.
    ‘Warm your hands again before you touch my camisole,’ she commanded him between giggles, squealing as his hands gripped her shoulders and he buried his face in her neck.
    ‘Bows, Sam. They shouldn’t trouble you so much. Here, I’ll pull off a stocking while you untie them.’
    The next layer presented its own problems.
    ‘Leave the corset, then, and I’ll manage my skirt and pet-ticoats,’ she offered. ‘Turn out the gas.’
    When he turned she was stepping from a frothy moun-tain of petticoats. Monk gathered himself. There remained the corset. The rest would not be difficult.
    She gasped with relief from constriction as the unlacing progressed. And finally corset, white chemise, lace drawers, black silk stockings and garters lay scattered.
    ‘If I had the patience and time,’ whispered Monk, ‘I’d make you undress me.’
    Instead he stripped himself in seconds, and lifted her gen-tly back to the sofa.
    ‘I think you’re right,’ he said. ‘Much better in a warm room beside a fire.’
    FEARGUS O’FLAHERTY GRUNTED, turned on his side and sniffed again. He felt sure that he had not been sleeping long. It could not be one of his dreams, he was certain, for he remembered the race, his aching legs and the hut. Nothing was going to make him leave the warmth of that bed; not for three more hours, anyway. But what was that blasted smell, which had not been there before? He opened his eyes reluctantly and looked across to the bed that Mostyn-Smith had been allocated. It was still empty. That greenhorn would probably walk all night. He’d need to if he was going to make a hundred miles. Grinning contentedly, the Irishman closed his eyelids and began to drift back to unconsciousness.
    Suddenly the warmth drained from his veins. His limbs tensed and he held his breath. In the hut he could distinctly hear the sound of breathing. And Mostyn-Smith’s bed lay undisturbed. O’Flaherty slowly lifted his head from the pile of clothes which served as a pillow and looked along the length of the bed towards the door, which was slightly open. His eyes swivelled to the right and left, but nobody was vis-ible. His head dropped heavily back on the pillow and he lis-tened again.
    The breathing was still there, more urgently now, and the smell had returned. But what made O’Flaherty’s eyes bolt wide in horror was a second sound, a powerful scratching on the stone floor, the unmistakable movement of something large, heavy and alive, steadily towards his bed. With a yell of fear the Irishman leapt upright on the bed—or almost upright, for in rising he crashed his head on the hut roof, groaned and collapsed. The young girl who had been detailed by Jacobson to scrub the hut screamed, jumped to her feet and bolted for the doorway, crashing over her pail of liquid carbolic as she went. O’Flaherty lay dazed and groaning. When he recovered