Here at last, the end of the steps. Now he was in seawater, sometimes over his feet. The roar of the channel was all-obliterating. The gale flattened his lips and filled his eyes with tears. When he made the jetty, he had to double-up and grope with his left hand, keeping the right, with Fox’s torch still alive, held out in front: he was whipped by the sea.

He had gained ground. The other was moving on again, doubled up, like Alleyn himself, and still using a torch. There were no more than thirty feet between them. The riding-lights danced near at hand and shuddered when the launch banged against the jetty.

The figure was poised: it waited for the right moment. A torchlight swung through the rain and Alleyn found himself squinting into the direct beam. He ducked and moved on, half-dazzled but aware that the launch rose and the figure leapt to meet it. Alleyn struggled forward, took his chance, and jumped.

He had landed aft, among the passengers’ benches; had fallen across one of them and struck his head on another. He hung there, while the launch bucketed under him and then he fell between the benches and lay on the heaving deck, fighting for breath and helpless. His torch had gone and he was in the dark. There must have been a brief rent in the night sky because a company of stars careened across his vision, wheeled and returned. The deck tilted again and he saw the hotel windows, glowing. They curtsied and tipped. ‘The power’s on,’ he thought, and a sudden deadly sinking blotted everything out. When he opened his eyes he thought with astonishment: ‘I was out.’ Then he heard the engine and felt the judder of a propeller racing above water. He laid hold of a bench and dragged himself to his knees. He could see his opponent, faintly haloed by light from the wheelhouse, back towards him, wrestling with the wheel itself. A great sea broke over them. The windows along Portcarrow front lurched up and dived out of sight again.

Alleyn began to crawl down the gangway between rows of fixed seats, clinging to them as he went. His feet slithered. He fell sideways and propping himself up, managed to drag off his shoes and socks. His head cleared and ached excruciatingly. The launch was now in midchannel, taking the seas full on her beam and rolling monstrously. He thought ‘she’ll never make it,’ and tried to remember where the lifebelts should be.

Did that other, fighting there with the wheel, know he was aboard? How had the launch been cast off? Were the mooring-lines freed from their cleats and was she now without them? Or had they been loosed from the bollards while he was unconscious? What should he do? ‘Keep observation!’ he thought sourly. An exquisite jab of pain shot through his eyeballs.