What a night!” Werry reached a sleek-looking car which had a city crest on its side, opened its trunk and began loading the four cases, thus giving Hasson a moment in which to think. He had the vaguest memory of an occasion seven or eight years earlier when he had became involved with providing hospitality for a group of Canadian police officers, but every detail of the evening was lost to him. Now it was obvious that Werry had been one of the visitors and he felt both embarrassed and alarmed by the other man’s ability to recall an unimportant event with such clarity.

“Hop in there, Rob, and we’ll shake this place — I want to get you to Tripletree in time for lunch. May is cooking up moose steaks for us, and I’ll bet you never tasted moose.” While he was speaking Werry slipped out of his overcoat, folded it carefully and placed it on the car’s rear seat. His chocolate-brown uniform, which carried the insignia of a city reeve, was crisply immaculate and when he sat down he spent some time smoothing the cloth of the tunic behind him to prevent it being wrinkled by the driving seat. Hasson opened the passenger door and got in, taking equal care to ensure that his spine was straight and well supported in the lumbar region.

“Here’s what you need,” Werry said, taking a flat bottle from a dash compartment and handing it to Hasson. He smiled indulgently, showing square healthy teeth.

“Thanks.” Hasson dutifully accepted the bottle and took a swig from it, noticing as he tilted his head that there was a police style counter-gravity harness flying suit lying on the rear seat beside Werry’s coat. The neat spirit tasted warmish, flat and unnaturally strong, but he pretended to savour it, a task which became Herculean when it seared into one of the mouth ulcers which had been troubling him for weeks.

“You hold on to that — it’s more’n an hour’s run to Tripletree.” Werry spun up the car’s turbine as he spoke and a few seconds later they were surging into a northbound traffic stream.