"How much farther is it to the nearest village?" Baxter asked. He and Halls were in the middle of the countryside. The night was very dark and there was no traffic on the roads. They could not see a house or even a public phone box anywhere. "It must be on the other side of that hill" Halls answered. "I hope so! We've been walking for twenty minutes now! When we started, you said it was only ten minutes away'" Baxter said angrily. He was tired and his jaw hurt. He could already imagine the Chief Inspector's comments at their next interview. The Chief Inspector was a very sarcastic man. "Well, Baxter, perhaps you would explain all this to me. It seems you had a car when you saw Coke and that he had it after he saw you. Very interesting. How shall we explain all this to the papers? Shall we say something like 'The police are always ready to help'?"
Coke turned off the main road. He wanted to get rid of the police car as soon as possible. The army often used the area for manoeuvres and Coke remembered it from the days when he was a soldier. He knew there was a village down a side road. Just before he got to it, he stopped and left the car in a field. Then he walked into the village itself. He wanted something and he was sure he could find it here. In his apartment in London, a well-dressed man named Eric Masters turned on the radio and listened. The news was still bad. Coke was still free, the announcer said. Masters looked very frightened. He turned off the radio suddenly and picked up the phone.
In a village almost 200 miles away, Coke found what he wanted. "People in villages like this always trust their neighbours. How lucky!" he thought when he saw the motorbike. It was in a garage at the edge of the village. The garage was not even locked and there was a leather motorcycle suit on a nail. There were also a pair of gloves and a helmet. Everyone in the village was asleep. Coke worked silently. He pushed the bike down the road. When he was far enough away from the village he started the engine. It roared loudly. He got on the motorbike and raced towards London.



 

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