It was a sight that was to interrupt my sleep, a finale to nightmares that awoke me sweating in the middle of so many dark nights. For Erich Stinnes spurted blood like a fountain, high in the air. And with blood spurting – hands to his throat – he stumbled backwards with a gasping noise and went slipping and sliding along in the mud until he hit the barrier around the excavation. There he stayed for a moment and then slowly he toppled and went head-first down into the waterlogged trench with a loud splash.

Fiona, frozen in fear, and spattered with fresh blood stayed where she was. I waited. There was no sound from anywhere. There was a pause in the passing traffic and the forest absorbed the sounds of the wind and rain.

Then Fiona ran back to the Wart burg. As she did so the heel of her shoe broke and she twisted her ankle, stumbling so that as she reached the car she was down on one knee and sobbing with the pain of it. From the assumed security that the darkness gave her – and unaware of how close I was – she called, 'Who is it? Who is there?'

I didn't reply, make a sound or even move. There was someone with a silenced gun somewhere out there, and until I settled with him it wasn't safe to climb down to the mud.

I waited a long time. Then Fiona hobbled to the Wartburg, leaned in and doused the headlight beam. Now the site was entirely in darkness except for the occasional lights from passing traffic as it swept round the bend and started down the hill.

Fiona tried to start the car but the bullet that had smashed the headlight must have done some other damage, for the starter motor screamed but didn't turn the engine over. In the silence of the forest I heard her curse to herself, gently and softly. There was desperation in her voice.

It was then that I saw the other one. He was creeping very slowly along the line of the barrier. I caught only a glimpse of him but I could see he was wearing a trenchcoat and the sort of waterproof hat that Americans wear when golfing. I guessed who it was: Thurkettle.

For a long long time I saw and heard nothing except the sounds and light of the passing traffic. Then I heard a man's voice call, 'Are we going to wait here all night, Samson?'

It was Thurkettle's voice. I remained silent.

Thurkettle called again, 'You can take the woman and take the Ford and go. Take your gorilla too. I don't want any of you.'

I didn't respond.

'Do you hear me?' he said. 'I'm working your side of the street. Get going. I've got work to do.'

I called, 'Fiona! Do you hear me?'

She looked around but couldn't spot me.

'Get to the Ford, start up the engine and roll forward a yard or two. Then keep it ticking over.'

Fiona stepped forward and then kicked both shoes off and went squelching through the mud. Nervously, and pained by her twisted ankle, she made her way slowly to the van. She got into it and started up the engine. After a moment finding the controls she drove forward a little way and cut the engine to idling softly.

'Now you owe me one, Bernie,' called Thurkettle.

'Give my regards to Count Zeppelin,' I said. I still had the edge on him. I knew where he was but he hadn't located me. I clambered down to the ground and estimated how many paces I would need to get to the other side of the van. If Thurkettle started shooting I'd have the van as cover.

I waited for a few minutes so that Thurkettle would start looking round to see if I'd got away. Then I ran across to the van. A heavy truck came crawling round the curve and caught me in its headlight beams. I kept running and threw myself down into the mud just as I reached the rear of the van. I stayed there for a moment to catch my breath. No shots came. I moved to the front and put a hand to the glass to get Fiona's attention. 'Can you see him?' I whispered.

'He's behind the Wartburg.'

'Is he one of yours?'

'I know nothing about him.'

'Didn't he come with you?' I asked her.

'No. He's on a motorcycle.'

'Are you fit to drive?'

'Yes, of course,' she said; her voice was firm and determined.

'We'll get out of here and leave him to it. Slide down low in the seat, in case he shoots. I'm going to climb in. When I say "Go" start driving. Not too fast in case you stall.'

I slid my hand around the door seating until I found the light switch and then I pushed it to keep the light off. I opened the door and scrambled inside. 'Go!' I said softly. Fiona revved the engine and.we went bumping forward over the rough ground. There were no shots.

In the darkness the van bumped over some planks of wood and then we rolled up over a high ledge and on to the Autobahn. It was very dark: no traffic in sight either way. We started westwards. We were about half a mile down the road when there was a great red ball of light behind us.

'My God!' said Fiona. 'Whatever's that?'

'Your Wartburg going up in flames, unless I miss my guess.'

'In flames?'

'Someone is destroying the evidence.'

'Evidence of what?' she said.

'Let's not go back and ask.'

The flames were fierce. We could still see them from miles away. Then as we went over the brow of a hill the light on the horizon vanished suddenly. Very little forensic evidence would be salvaged from such a blaze.

I asked Fiona if she wanted me to drive. She shook her head without answering. I tried in other ways to start a conversation but her replies were monosyllabic. Driving along the Autobahn that night gave her something to concentrate upon. She was determined not to think about what she'd done, and in no mood to talk about what we'd have to do.

My arm began to throb. I touched it and found my sleeve was sticky with blood. One of the bullets had come closer than I'd realized. It was not a real wound, just a bad extended graze and an enormous bruise, of the sort that bullets make when they brush the flesh. I wadded a handkerchief and held it pressed against my arm to stanch the dribbling blood. It was nothing that would put me in hospital, but more than enough to ruin my suit.

'Are you all right?' There was no tenderness in her voice. It was as much admonitory as concerned, the voice of a schoolteacher herding a class of kids across a busy street.

'I'm all right.' We should have been talking and embracing and laughing and loving. We were together again and she was coming home to me and the children. But it wasn't like that. We weren't the same carefree couple who'd honeymooned on a bank overdraft and got hysterically drunk in the registry office on one half bottle of champagne shared amongst four people. We sat silent in the darkness. We watched the traffic crawling to Berlin, and saw the Porsches scream past us. And I dribbled blood and the unspoken dreams that keep marriages going bled away too.

The rain stopped or perhaps we drove out of it. I switched on the car radio. There was a babble of Arabic, Radio Moscow's news in German and then that powerful German transmitter that during the night effectively overwhelms all opposition throughout Central Europe. A big schmaltzy band: Only make-believe I love you. Only make-believe that you love me. Others find peace of mind in pretending, couldn't you, couldn't I, couldn't we?

Behind us a strip of sky gradually lightened and coloured to become a contused mass of mauves and purples.

'All right, darling?' I asked. Still she didn't respond to my overtures. She just concentrated on the road, her lips pressed together and her knuckles white.

The unbearable uncertainties that gave me severe stomach pains as we got nearer and nearer to the frontier proved unfounded. When we stopped she looked in the driving mirror and wiped some spots of blood from her face with a handkerchief moistened with spittle. Her expression was unchanging.

'All all right?'

'Yes,' I replied.