He'd taken a khaki shirt from the locker and was putting it on. As he buttoned it up, he continued talking.

Tour years back Tankie were getting close to discharge. Then some silly twat of a sergeant spoke to him insensitively. Naturally Tankie nutted him. Then he helped himself to a Champ and took off home. That's where I found him, waving an axe and demanding to know where his mam and Judith was. I told him his mam had taken badly and was down at the infirmary and I said if he gave me the axe, I'd make sure he got in to see her. He saw sense and gave me the axe and I drove him down the infirmary. Only when he got out of the car, the MPs were waiting for him. He seemed to think it were my fault. I still think I could have sorted things out and got him in to see his mam, only by the time I could make myself heard, Tankie had cracked one bugger's head open, broken another's arm and was marking time on a corporal's goolies. There weren't much scope for reasonable debate after that. They dragged him off, and a couple of hours later, his mam died. Christ, these are a bit tight. Long time since anyone thought I was thinner than I am!'

He'd pulled on a pair of grey denim fatigue trousers and was having difficulty fastening them up. Next he squeezed his feet into one of the two pairs of boots in the bottom of the locker. The laces tied, he now began to lay all the remaining clothes on the bed and fold them into neat geometric shapes. Pascoe recalled seeing Sean Connery do this in The Hill.

'You're getting ready for a kit inspection,' he said incredulously. 'This is what Trotter meant when he said you were going to be the Last National Service Man.'

'Glad they taught you to think at yon kindergarten,' said Dalziel. 'Pity they didn't teach you to think fast.'

'They taught me to think logically,' said Pascoe grimly. 'And logic tells me we should be looking for ways of getting out of here, not wasting time going along with this madman's fantasies.'