'Watch yourself,' Waterford said quietly. 'No heroics, and no panic. If - if there's anyone nasty down there, it'll be the time to remain normal in the abnormal situation. That's what it's about, son - being ordinary when the world goes mad.'

'I'll try.'

Waterford nodded, seemingly satisfied; yet Davenhill thought he caught something in the twitch of the lips that might have been pity, or disappointment. Then the bigger man got up, into a crouch, and dusted off his waterproof trousers.

'Ready?'

'Ready.'

Davenhill followed him down the slope, keeping to a crease in the land as to a path, his body balanced inwards towards the slope, his eyes on the path Waterford was making through the restraining, glutinous snow. Waterford, he knew, was ceaselessly scanning the village as their viewpoint dropped lower, to the level of the ground floor of the house that steadily, jerkily seemed to move towards them.

Beneath them then was what must be the garden, or at least the strip of land belonging to the house. There were no footprints in the snow, but it had snowed that previous night, and Davenhill dismissed the relief that threatened to bubble up in him. He felt the tension, withdrawing into himself, unaware of Waterford except when he touched the body in front of him whenever the man stopped, or as he watched the sunken footprints. A little narrow frightened world that was Alex Davenhill.

Ordinary.

He understood what Waterford meant. Like entering the club, or the new bar, this should be.

No, not even that. Like the washing-up, or mowing a lawn.

Christ, he wondered, how does he manage it, to be like that when a bullet might tear the life out of him at any moment ?

Davenhill tried breathing deeply, regularly.

'Do your exercises later,' Waterford snapped in a whisper. They were almost at the rear door of the house, and Davenhill saw, as Waterford pointed, the chipped whiteness against the door and the frame around it; the absence of a lock. He said nothing, however, moving instead to the window to the left of the door. He rubbed at the frost, and peered in.

'Well ?' Davenhill asked after what seemed like minutes of Waterford craning and bobbing his head.

'It's very tidy,' Waterford observed. 'Very houseproud. And not what you might expect from someone having to leave their home suddenly.' He moved back to the door, abstracted, and Davenhill felt more than ever outside what was taking place. This was a celluloid reconstruction of events - a demonstration film.

Waterford touched the handle of the door with a mittened hand. Then he suddenly had the Parabellum in his hand, and Davenhill clutched inside his pocket for the Walther. It was an instinctive, clumsy gesture. It was years since he had fired a gun, and never in anger. Unless grouse counted. He almost laughed at the idea, and hated the nerves that bubbled dose to hysteria. Ignoring them for something like a minute had only made them multiply, like ameoba.

The door swung open soundlessly. Waterford glanced at him, shrugged, and put the gun to his lips for silence. Then he opened the door suddenly wide, and ducked inside. Davenhill waited for a moment, as if forgetting a cue, and feeling foolish. Then he went through the door.

Waterford was already in the big main room of the house where Folley had sat. It was empty, tidy, clean. Waterford wiped his ringers over a mirror, then along the edge of a table.

There was no dust. His face was creased into a dramatic, abstracted frown.

'There is no one here,' Davenhill said, and his voice was very loud.

'Possibly. But the evacuation is recent, and perhaps temporary. I wonder - ?'

Swiftly, he checked the bedrooms, all on the one floor. Then he paused before the cellar door.

'Is that the cellar ?' Davenhill asked. 'What - do you expect ?' He was suddenly assailed by a Gothic imagining which was stupid, and only served to emphasise the unhealthy state of his nerves.

'Not the corpses - I hope.' He pushed open the door, which creaked, and reached for the light. There was only the usual slight mustiness of a cellar, and the smell of stored animal fodder. He went down the steps. Davenhill waited, again with the foolishness not so much of reluctance but of incompetence. In this water, he could not swim. And he knew it before he dipped his toe.

He joined Waterford at the bottom of the steps.

'See?' Waterford said, holding a Kalashnikov rifle up for his inspection. It was neatly stacked, with three others, against one wall. Looking at them, Davenhill noticed the uniforms hanging from fresh pegs, the boots - then, near the stacked hay, a military cot.

Are they Russian uniforms ?' he asked.

'Not the Lapland Fire Brigade, that's for certain.'

'What does it mean ?'

Waterford was patient, probably because he conceived no immediate danger.

'A special detachment, left to guard the village.'

'And - the villagers ?'

'Settled - elsewhere.'

'Well, where are they ?'

Davenhill pursued, determined not to move ahead of the answers he elicited from Waterford.

'Out and about - looking for us, or someone like us.'

'What?'

'Folley must have come here, or been brought. They found him, and they'd expect another enquiry of the same sort. That's why the uniforms are here. And I bet they speak Finnish.'

It was not a voice that they heard next, but footsteps on the bare floorboards above their heads. Waterford saw Davenhill's eyes roll comically in his head, and almost laughed inwardly at the way in which real fear hadn't even begun for the clever queer. He felt him an encumbrance, and pitied him at the same moment.

'What do we - ?' Davenhill's whisper was a squeak.

Waterford covered his lips again with the gun barrel, then listened. A voice called out in Finnish, and Waterford smiled. He motioned to Davenhill to put the gun away, and slipped his Parabellum back into the shoulder holster. Again the voice called out, then the footsteps began on the stairs, and they watched two legs above high boots come into view. There was an assuredness about the unhesitating steps.

Waterford called out, 'I say - can you help us ?'

He moved swiftly to the foot of the steps, looking up into the face of the young man before he could leave the steps. The man, dark, thin-faced, was smiling openly, and yet contrived to appear surprised. 'You speak English, old man ?' Waterford added.

Davenhill remained where he was, confused and withdrawn. He could no longer fathom motive, even identity. He wasn't sure who the young man on the steps was, but he believed, with difficulty, that he must be Russian. And his ignorance screamed that Waterford had betrayed them by addressing the man in English.

'A little ?' the young man said, and the accent was no longer Scandinavian.

'Ah, how lucky, eh, Alex?' He turned momentarily to Davenhill. 'We're electricity board surveyors from England -our jeep broke down about a mile from here. Do you think the chaps here might help us ?'

It was ridiculous, Davenhill had time to think. Then the young man said, with difficulty, 'I saw you - come here ? Why are you in the cellar ?'

'Couldn't find anyone, old man. Thought there might be someone down here. Not your cellar, is it, old man ? Awfully sorry.'

'No - I live - other house. You come up now ?' There was nothing of menace in the voice, perhaps only anxiety that they come quickly.

There were wet footprints on the stone floor of the cellar, next to the uniforms and the leaning rifles. It was stupid, a farce that they should be pretending to be innocent travellers. Davenhill felt something in him collapsing. His breath smoked round him in the cold.