His lips moved silently, subconsciously mouthing the instructions he’d been given. His face looked unhealthily drawn in the light from the instrument panel, and he shook his head periodically to counter the deadly, hypnotic beat of the wipers. Not that falling asleep at the wheel would be his worst problem; if he missed his mark, the reaction waiting for him when he didn’t make the delivery would make hurtling off this godforsaken stretch of tarmac the least of his worries.

He checked the time. Gone three. He was on schedule. There should have been a clear sky, according to the weather reports, heralding a mild frost and a clear day to follow. Good driving weather. A trucker’s weather if you didn’t mind concentrating for long stretches. But if there were any stars out there, they were hidden behind a dense layer of low cloud. He might as well have been in a dead landscape, with only the occasional farmhouse light showing through the gloom to indicate any signs of life beyond his cab.

He shivered and hit the demister switch. Thoughts of life or death served no purpose right now, and reminders of his own mortality were the last thing he needed. Welcome as the cash was, he knew he was ultimately playing with fire. The kind of people he was dealing with, if anything happened beyond his control, shit would follow as surely as Sundays.

He turned his head and spat the soggy remains of a Disque Bleu through a gap in the side window and longed for a raw marc — brandy — to wet his throat. A nice Calvados would be even better, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.

The road dipped again past a narrow turning on his right. The sign said Vailly, a tiny hamlet too small to appear on his road maps, but one he’d been told to watch out for. Not long now. He began to ease off the accelerator, the engine noise diminishing from its clattering roar to a more subdued rumble, like it had sounded when he’d first bought it three years ago. A lot of oil had gone into it since then, and a lot of kilometres on the clock.