The young man had stood aside on the steps. Waterford, with a charming, bland smile, was passing.

He turned and said, 'Come on, Alex - this chap will give us a hand with the jeep!'

He went up the steps quickly, and Davenhill, seeming to himself to be moving through an element more glutinous than the thick snow behind the house, followed. He hardly glanced at the young man, then, aware of admission in his averted gaze, stared at him, grinning foolishly; hating his inadequacy, already sensing Waterford's scorn.

That, more than the fear as soon as he was above the young man, and his unguarded back was to him.

At the top of the steps, Waterford, relaxed, smiling, was waiting for them. His hands were in the pockets of the heavy anorak. There was, incredibly, nothing to fear. Ridiculous.

The young man was alert - Davenhill saw the tension in his frame. An inappropriate image of nakedness, remembered just for a moment, then he was standing between Waterford and the Russian who was still pretending to be a Laplander.

'Why are you here ?' the young man said then.

Waterford smiled, disarmingly. 'Ah - hydro-electric power.' His hands went into a mime, his voice into a pedantic deliberateness, head moving in emphasis. 'Water - dams, using the power of the water - we are investigating for the British electricity industry ...' Pausing, while the vocabulary caught up.

Davenhill was tempted to laugh, and admire. 'What can we learn from your country ? You understand ?

'Ivalo ?' the young man said.

'Yes. Doing a bit of sightseeing - tourists ? - on our own.' Waterford had moved away from the young man and was looking out of the window. Davenhill saw now how lean the Russian's frame was, how fit the man must be underneath the assumed civilian clothing. He remained near the Russian, as if a token of good faith or an emblem of peace.

'Where is your jeep ?' the young man asked, moving too.

'Just outside the village,' Waterford said, apparently unconcerned, looking up the main street of the village. The young Russian approached him. Davenhill could see the menace in the movement, but could not be objectively certain - hating the impotence that made him a spectator of the tiny events, and concentrating, as if afraid of missing something - but Waterford seemed oblivious.

When he turned from the window, he was holding a knife, glimpsed briefly by Davenhill, and the young man's back flexed convexly as he bucked his stomach away from the point of the blade.

'One move, sonny, and I'll kill you, just one move or sound -understand?' Davenhill knew sufficient Russian to understand what Waterford had said.

Then the older man moved closer to the Russian, turning him with apparent ease, knife now across the stretched white throat above the check shirt and the collar of the anorak.

'Don't kill him - !' Davenhill blurted out, as if disturbed by events on a screen that were unexpectedly real.

'Shut up!' Waterford snapped, and Davenhill almost failed to recognise the voice, as if a trick of ventriloquism had made the man's lips move. Alien . . .

Then Waterford pushed the man so that he stumbled, slipped on a loose thick rug, a splash of bright colours, and even as he turned over on his back Waterford kicked him in the thigh, near the groin, bent and pulled him to his feet, drew the gun with the right hand and hit the Russian across the cheekbone with the barrel.

Davenhill found his long fingers at his quivering lips, and a strange voice saying, 'For Christ's sake, what are you doing to him ?' It was his own voice, and that was horrible, too.

'Disorientate !' snapped Waterford, as if reciting some lesson. 'Get a bucket of water - now!' There was no resistance in Davenhill. He turned and went out into the long kitchen.

He heard the sounds of tearing cloth, then slapping, and he hurried, as if afraid to be rebuked, filling the plastic bucket from beneath the sink with ice-cold water. He slopped it back from the kitchen, along the bare corridor to the main room, where Waterford snatched it from him, and flung the contents over the dazed, bleeding Russian in the armchair where he had been pushed. The man was naked, except for his boots and long socks. His torn trousers were in a stiff, degrading pool around his ankles. The check splash of the shirt was beside the armchair.

The body jerked as if from electricity as the water cascaded, shocked, froze. There was a strangled cry, and then Waterford was on him, knee on his chest, gun beneath the point of the jaw, forcing the flopping head with the lolling black hair up, to look into the grey, flat eyes.

'Where are the others ?' he barked, shouting almost, jerking the gun in his hand so that the Russian's jaw grated, and the head snapped up and down. Puppet, thought Davenhill, with appalled fascination.

There was no sound from the Russian.

'Where is the Englishman ? Where is he ?' Again the pressure of the gun - then he saw Waterford lean away, and the Parabellum exploded. Davenhill found his hands about his face, plucking at his lips, wanting to cover his ears. There was nothing he could do; the Russian was dead. He heard Water-ford's voice, distantly: 'Where is the Englishman?' Why ask a dead man ? 'Where is he - you're not dead yet!' The command in the voice was - terrible.

And then Davenhill saw the head flop, as if alive, and Water-ford said again. 'Where is he? Did you bastards kill him? Answer me!' There was a choking sound, as if the young man was still swallowing the water thrown over him, and the head moved again, and over the hunched shoulder of Waterford he saw the eyes roll in the head, whites rather than pupils, and another groan.

Only then did he realise that Waterford had not killed the Russian.

'Speak! Now! When did you kill him? When?

A silence. Then:

'No - not kill . . .' the voice was awful, something already dead trying to get back from somewhere impossibly far. 'He -was taken back.'

'I don't believe you, you little Russian shit! He's dead!'

'No, no!'

'Yes!'

'Beg you . . .' Davenhill heard, and braced himself, hands fluttering at his sides, uncertain.

'You killed him!' Each syllable broken, precise with menace.

'No! They took him back over the border with them!'

'Who!'

The voice was easier now, lubricated by some whiff of possible life.

'The tank regiment - when they went back.'

'When?'

'Two - days.'

'Why are they here?'

'I don't know. Invasion !' The last word was shrieked as the gun drew back from the jaw, then pressed against the temple. Davenhill saw the terrible eyes swivel in the head, following the gun. All whites.

Then Waterford, as if some conjuror or magician releasing a spell, stepped back, slipped the gun into its holster. Then, his back to the Russian, he put on his gloves.

'Right,' he said. 'Let's get this young man outside and back to the jeep, shall we, Alex ?'

Davenhill was immobile with shock, disorientation.

'Come on, Alex,' he heard Waterford say, almost cringing as the bigger man came towards him. But his voice was kindly. 'We haven't got any time to waste. Get him dressed.'

He left the room abruptly, exuding a confidence more appropriate to a Ministry corridor, an officers' mess, than to their present situation.

Then he realised that the peculiar sound in the room was the Russian's teeth as they chattered uncontrollably. The young man was hunched in the armchair, arms wrapped across his chest, moaning through the noise of his teeth. He moved to him, helping him slowly to his feet. The young man flinched from him, and his body began quivering as soon as it abandoned the mould of the chair. The eyes were still now, receded.