A few flakes of snow scudded horizontally across the screen. Behind him he could see one car, catching up; and a plum-red bus, white-whiskered like Father Christmas trundled timidly downhill. Brett drove round a bend, and at once saw why the bus had hugged the far verge. On the left, the land dropped as if it had been scooped away by a gigantic soup ladle. The road crept round the hillside by courtesy of the Ancients, who had cut a ledge there with their earth-works. For good measure the bend was double; and the lightly packed snow carpet was not helpful.

At this place, the car following elected to pass. Brett’s casual glance in the mirror sharpened quickly as he saw the radiator nudging out behind him. He must either shoot forward on the slippery curve, blocking the road, or draw closer to the edge to give the other room. He did neither. He simply held on, trying not to think of what would happen if another bus swung round the approaching bend. The car passed close, uncomfortably close, cleared, swerved back in front of him and raced recklessly on. Uncouth maniac, Brett commented to himself. Christmas. The party spirit. One for the road. Swilled insolence. He half hoped the homicidal lout would skid and bucket over the side; but the lights remained on the road, which now ran straight. At least that meant Majendie couldn’t be crowded in such a nasty spot, not that he mattered, but he had a passenger; for the funereal antiquity had reached the end of the drop. Or so he thought. Thickening snow and darkness made it increasingly hard to see Majendie’s lights.

The road, here ceased to rise, crossed a gently undulating plateau. Scanty habitation of shacks and bungalows clung to its lifeline. The gradients were easy, but the snow had piled deeper, and was now cascading down. In spite of this, Brett put on a spurt lest he should miss Majendie’s turn to Pettinge. He sighed. Why wind down country lanes after Majendie? Why not keep on the main road to Barton, Majendie’s own village, and watch him arrive? But then, after all, Majendie might not.

All at once he found himself isolated. A whirling, fragmented blanket of snow had swallowed the lights, the road, everything. He crawled on. If this choked him, so it must Majendie, who must also dawdle and struggle, and feel a similar disquiet at the clogging round the wheels. Could even a helicopter battle through such a storm, Brett wondered. The snow lifted freakishly, revealing a long avenue of clarity. He saw bosky country on either hand; and far in front, dim red pinpricks. That was either Majendie or the hog who had passed on the bend. How had they drawn so far ahead? Majendie had hurried, whether they were his lights or the other’s. Why? Because he had seen at Folkestone who was following him in the grey Wyvern?