travel up the Nidd valley, or do we take the main road through Ripon? We are going through Wensleydale still?'

John said: 'What do you think, Roger?'

'Theoretically, the byways are safer. All the same, I don't like the look of that road over Masham Moor.'

He looked out into the swiftly dusking sky. 'Especially by night. If we can get through on the main road, it would be a good deal easier.'

'Pirrie?' John asked.

Pirrie shrugged. 'As you prefer.'

'We'll try the main road then. We'll go round Harro-gate. There's a road through Starbeck and Bilton. We'd better miss Ripon, too, to be on the safe side. I'll take the lead now, and you can bring up the rear, Roger.

Blast on your horn if you find yourself dropping behind for any reason.'

Roger grinned. 'I'll put a bullet through the back of Pirrie's tin Lizzy as well.'

Pirrie smiled gently. 'I shall endeavour not to set too hot a pace for you, Mr Buckley.'

The sky had remained cloudless, and as they drove to the north the stars appeared overhead. But the moon would not be up until after midnight; they drove through a landscape only briefly illuminated by the headlights of the cars. The roads were emptier than any they had met so far. The rumbling military convoys did not reappear; the earth, or tumultuous Leeds, had swallowed them up. Occasionally, in the distance, there were noises that might have been those of guns firing, but they were far away and indeterminate. John's eye strayed to the left, half expecting to see the sky burst into atomic flame, but nothing happened. Leeds lay there - Bradford, Halifax, Huddersfield, Dewsbury, Wakefield, and all the other manufacturing towns and cities of the north Midlands. It was unlikely that they