July 1944

For nearly a fortnight now he had been watching his quarry, unseen. Tucked away behind cars and letter-boxes, mingling unobtrusively with passersby, peering round the curtains of The King's Head across the street from the station. He had observed silently, always careful to avoid detection, the only clue to his intentions the icy malevolence in his small, watery blue eyes.

Staking his prey had been easy enough. Countless times now he'd watched the older man come and go from the station, chauffeured in comfort by a personal driver at a time when petrol rationing had made automobile travel a distant memory for lesser folk. Whenever possible he'd followed him as he went about his business, either by bus or by making use of his brother's battered old bicycle. He'd observed him paying visits to the court house, to the Town Hall, to offices, military posts and wherever else his duties took him. At the weekend he'd shadowed him as he queued at the butcher and the greengrocer, called in at his barber, stopped in for a pint at his local, attended church. Through it all he had watched, observing his haunts and his habits, patiently awaiting his chance.

Rage had been his constant companion through the long hours of surveillance, a cold, implacable hatred which demanded satisfaction. To see this short, balding man striding purposefully about with that quiet air of authority was enough to set his vitals burning. He had always been this way, the watching man remembered. He'd commanded the Hastings police station as though he owned the place, and the inhabitants of that dingy building had bowed and scraped before him as though they believed his exalted rank on the force marked him out as their better.

Such deference was undeserved, as the watching man had learnt only too well. He knew his quarry, the picture of respectability in his trilby and his crisply pressed suits, to be deceitful, disloyal, the worst sort of sneak. Hadn't he paid for the other man's treachery with four years' hellish incarceration in Lewes Prison, enduring filthy conditions, appalling food and back-breaking labour? But now at last he was free – free to carry out one of the schemes he'd fantasised about each night before falling asleep in his dank, smelly cell. One way or another, he would have his revenge on Detective Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle.

But how best to go about it? Not an easy question, after all, as his need for vengeance would not be satisfied with a stealthy blow to the back of his head or quick, anonymous pistol shot. No, he wanted Foyle to know who his attacker was, to be fully aware of the price he was about to pay for his betrayal. At the same time, he had no desire to return to prison. He had to find a way of getting the older man alone, beyond the reach of help, so he could savour his triumph without fear of retribution.

It took him some time to work out the best way to arrange matters. His initial plan had been to break into his home, catching him whilst his guard was down, but a careful examination of the house had given him pause. While Foyle seemed to live alone, with no wife or children to inconvenience him, his doors were nonetheless solid, his locks sound and the close proximity of his Steep Lane neighbours would make breaking in difficult. Next he'd considered ambushing him on one of his frequent journeys, perhaps by hiding in the back seat of his car; but this, too, seemed impractical. For one thing, everywhere he went seemed to be crammed with people, mostly troops headed for action across the Channel. For another, he was invariably accompanied by that little chit in uniform who would no doubt scream her ginger head off at the first sign of trouble. No, there had to be another way.

Inspiration had struck at last near the end of the second week of his vigil. Emboldened by the way his surveillance had gone undetected, he'd been astonished by the ease with which he sneaked into the police station itself. The lone mechanic, a grizzled Welshman well past the usual retirement age, was far too deaf to notice him slipping through the poorly lit garage into the basement. From there it was plain sailing, as he remembered the layout of the building only too well. The basement's back section, which housed several disused cells and a dark, antiquated interview room, had gone largely neglected since the construction of a more modern cellblock in the front two decades before. The two areas were separated by a bolted steel door which, he reckoned, would render the old section nearly soundproof. It suited his purposes exactly. What could be more satisfying than to settle scores within the very walls of the police station itself? Better still, to take his revenge in the very room – the old, abandoned interrogation room – in which the DCS had tricked and betrayed him four years before?

There remained only the problem of how to lure Foyle down there. From the look of things, the back section of the basement had been abandoned since the start of the war. The single tiny window, high in the wall, had been painted black to avoid the bother of doing the blackout; even the scarred wooden table and chairs had been removed. There seemed little chance that he might catch the Chief Super wandering round down there, especially on his own. He needed some sort of bait for the trap he was setting. But what?

He found the answer the next afternoon as he watched Foyle and his driver walking out to the Wolseley. The girl made some remark which caused her superior's eyebrows to shoot up in mild reproof. She responded by flashing him a slightly cheeky grin before tucking herself neatly behind the wheel. Still on the pavement, beyond her vision, Christopher Foyle's face relaxed briefly into a reluctant smile, an expression of fondness that his stalker couldn't miss even through the dirty pub window.

Aha, he thought, as the constant hatred burning within him was momentarily suffused by a glow of satisfaction. Slipping a hand inside his jacket, he fingered the sharpness of the hunting knife concealed there. He had found the way at last.