team of wreckage-analysts over there since the tenth pattern crash. They've got bits at Farnborough and they've rebuilt most of one Striker from a few thousand fragments. The aviation physiologists are trying to be busy but they haven't got much to work on — you saw that crash so you can imagine what the pilot looks like afterwards. So far no one's turned anything up. Everyone's miserable. West Germany's worried because it's their plane and the U.K's worried because we built it and NATO's worried because the Luftwaffe squadrons are part of their striking-force. You want some more of that?' He edged his dish of French beans on to my tray. He'd let the girl give him a tray in case I needed seconds.

'When do I eat next?'

'It depends how busy you get.'

'What's a «pattern» crash?'

The ones that go straight in, like the one you saw. They've been getting normal accidents as well — control-locking, power-failure, bird-strikes — but they've only lost four planes and one pilot from those. Without the pattern crashes the SK-6 would have a comfortably low accident rate. Of course they've had a few cases of the pilot baling out in a muck-sweat from sheer panic. The Striker's a rogue aircraft and they've only got to notice the clock's a minute slow and they're hitting the ejection tit'

'Are these things crashing anywhere else?'

'Not on that scale. The U.K. and French accident rates are normal-low.'

'It's particular to Germany.'

That's why they say someone must be getting at the planes.'

It was Peach Melba again. I took his as well.

'Why are we interested?'

'We're not.'

He was trying to be cagey again so I said: 'Then what the bloody hell are we doing in this aeroplane?'

'We're not interested in helping Devon Aviation or the Luftwaffe or NATO. It only happens to be Strikers crashing: it could be cruisers sinking or reactors blowing up.'