Leni fought hard to control herself. Although she desperately wanted to live, part of her wanted the explosion to rip her to pieces, to vaporize her. As far as the SD was concerned, she was already dead—killed by the bomb that had destroyed her flat—and no doubt her parents had been informed of her death. What she didn’t want was to survive and be captured, because then her parents would also be executed. And she couldn’t bear that, even if in some afterlife she could tell them that she had risked all their lives so that so many others might live. Perhaps they would understand; perhaps they would forgive her.

Lockhart looked at the nervous faces of Leni and Pugh, smiled at them, and then looked at his watch. He noticed that it was still morning. It couldn’t be, he thought, surely not. What an inane thing to think, he said to himself, and then it happened, with a sort of hollow thud. The sides of the still bulged dramatically outward, but remained intact. The lid stayed on. Was there gas coming out? If he was still alive, then there couldn’t be. He heard nothing, just the sound of his own breathing. He felt more alive than ever, as though what he was seeing was more than real.

For a moment, he almost fainted. Was this it? Was he dying? No. He was still alive. He looked back at the other two, and heard himself say:

“We’ve done it! We’ve gone and bloody done it!”

Slowly their faces lit up. Leni had tears in her eyes.

“You fucking genius!” Pugh yelled. “You fucking genius!”

“Don’t thank me, thank Test Tube!”

“Who the hell is Test Tube?”

“I’ll tell you later,” said Lockhart. “Come on—let’s get out!”

They paused, took one last look at the swollen still, and then ran. As they did so, Lockhart wondered whether they had really succeeded. What if even just one of the canisters was intact? He kicked himself for worrying—nobody would be able to open the still and live. Any canisters that remained undamaged were utterly inaccessible.

They got back into the main tunnel, ducking as the occasional round flew past them. Down to the left, Lockhart could just about make out Strasser and a couple of the others.

“We’ve done it!” Lockhart shouted. “We’ve done it!”

But all he saw was Strasser’s hand go up in the air, waving Lockhart away. That was Strasser’s apology, the ultimate apology. He was going to let them get away, and Lockhart was going to accept it.