I decided to give it a break and go and see how Doug Yeodal was getting on. A lot hung on his findings, and I was pretty certain he was going to find something. If Sleder had nothing to hide, he wouldn’t have got so bothered as he evidently had. I got up and walked down the aisle and through into the next coach, a first-class sleeper. I stopped outside a compartment where the blinds were drawn; it was in this compartment that I was sure I had seen a girl I recognized. I wondered whether to knock, and then decided against it. She had had as clear a look at me as I’d had at her. She had changed the colour of her hair, and now wore glasses; I hadn’t changed at all. If it was the same girl, she would have recognized me without doubt, and if she was interested in seeing me again, she would have come and found me. She hadn’t come. I turned and walked on down the corridor, into the next coach, and up to Doug Yeodal’s compartment. The blinds were down, and I knew the door would be locked; I opened it with the key I had and went in.

‘Hallo, Doug,’ I said, and then I found I was talking to an empty compartment, and I turned very, very cold. There was nothing: no suitcases full of instruments and chemicals, no nuclear fuel bundle, and no Doug Yeodal. I checked the compartment number and the coach number. There was no mistake; he had gone, lock, stock and bundle.

The compartment was neat and tidy, there was no sign that there had been a struggle; and yet, the blinds were drawn and the door was locked. It didn’t make any sense. There was no way Doug would have left of his own accord, no way at all. Something had happened. I didn’t yet know what, but I didn’t like it.

I walked up the rest of the train, and then back down, peering in every compartment that didn’t have its blinds down, and I saw no sign of either Doug Yeodal or his suitcases. Unless what had been in that bundle had vapourized Yeodal, his baggage and itself, someone had come and taken him and his apparatus clean away.

I returned to my carriage. Harvey Sparrow wasn’t in his seat and I wasn’t very pleased; I assumed he’d gone either to the lavatory or to get a drink, which was bloody stupid of him; he knew his instructions were not to be out of the carriage if I was.