A psychologist would have told him that making a definite decision, choosing a course of action, had resolved his conflict situation. The Gunner would have wondered what in the hell he was talking about. All he knew was that for some unaccountable reason he was cheerful again. One thing was certain – he’d give the bastards something to think about.

On the other side of the park he plunged into the maze of back streets in which he had been hunted during the previous night and worked his way towards the Infirmary. It occurred to him that it might be fun to turn up in the very room from which he had disappeared. But there were certain precautions to take first, just to make certain that the police could never link him with Jenny and her grandmother.

A few streets away from the Infirmary he stopped in a back alley at a spot where houses were being demolished as fast as the bulldozers could knock them down. On the other side of a low wall, a beck that was little more than a fast-flowing stream of filth rushed past and plunged into a dark tunnel that took it down into the darkness of the city’s sewage system.

He took off the raincoat, sweater, boots and socks and dropped them in. They disappeared into the tunnel and he emptied his pockets. Three pound notes and a handful of change. The notes went fluttering down followed by the coins – all but a sixpenny piece. There was a telephone box at the end of the street …

He stood in the box and waited as the bell rang at the other end, shivering slightly as the cold struck into his bare feet and rain dripped down across his face. When she answered he could hardly get the coin into the slot for excitement.

‘Jenny? It’s the Gunner. Is anyone there?’

‘Thank God,’ she said, relief in her voice. ‘Where are you?’

‘A few hundred yards from the Infirmary. I’m turning myself in, Jenny. I thought you might like to know that.’

‘Oh, Gunner.’ He could have sworn she was crying, but that was impossible. She wasn’t the type.

‘What about the police?’ he asked.

‘No one turned up.’

‘No one turned up?’ he said blankly.

A sudden coldness touched his heart, something elemental, but before he could add anything Jenny said, ‘Just a minute, Gunner, there’s someone outside in the yard now.’

A moment later the line went dead.

‘You fool,’ the Gunner said aloud. ‘You stupid bloody fool.’

Why on earth hadn’t he seen it before? Only one person could possibly have known he was at the house and it certainly wasn’t Ogden who hadn’t even seen his face. But the other man had, the one who had attacked Jenny outside the door in the yard.