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'The crew of Mars Probe 13. Alexander Christian, Albert Fitzwil iam and Madeline Goodfellow. Christian shared quarters with Fitzwilliam, he was the sometime lover of Goodfellow. They had been friends for nearly five years.

This is what he did to them.'

The inside of a space capsule, in full colour. Blood smeared over the chrome and plastic, two bodies in the centre of the picture, their chests split open exposing glistening organs, their eyes missing. Behind them a bank of monitors had been smashed, the computer panels had been smashed apart.

'As he left Mars, thirty-two weeks into the Mars 13 mission he was commanding, Alexander Christian, hero of the British space programme, took a fire axe and did that to his best friends. For eight months, he sat among the blood and filth and smashed equipment. Every day, at nine o'clock GMT precisely, he would send messages to mission control. These were little more than rants, littered with swear words and Biblical allusions.

'The messages were never released, of course, but one of the American networks managed to intercept one. This is what they broadcast of it.' She pressed the tape recorder button.

'Had to die. Had to -bleep-die. World -bleep-. -bleep-.' She pressed the 'stop' button.

'Well, you get the gist. At no point did he offer explanations, at no point did he talk to the psychologists or negotiators on the ground. After eight months, his capsule automatically splashed down in the North Atlantic. The HMS Sheffield was waiting for him, and he was arrested by armed sailors. At a court martial held in camera, Alexander Christian was committed to a top security mental institution, with the unanimous recommendation being that he should never be released. The thirteen Mars missions cost the British taxpayer nearly five billion pounds.

That was a lot of money back in those days - over a year's worth of North Sea Oil revenue. Alexander Christian had been a national hero, now he was an insane killer, and the whole affair was very embarrassing for a lot of people. So, it was hushed up, the evidence was destroyed, the tabloids were told to go easy on Christian, and everyone but everyone involved was sworn to silence. The victims had no living relatives: Fitzwilliam's aunt died while he was en route to Mars. There were no pictures of Christian al owed when he returned to Earth. Starved of any new information or photographs, the story died. Mars 13 was the last mission to Mars for twenty years. Until today, in fact.'

'Excuse me, Director, but what drove him mad?'

Veronica Halliwell shrugged. 'Claustrophobia, a fear of the unknown. He was trapped in that steel box for the best part of a year, with only those two as company. The day before, he'd radioed in as normal.'

Halliwell paused, sipped from her water and put up another slide, showing a map of Kent. The crash-site was ringed in red.

'An hour and a half ago, Alexander Christian escaped. As you know, over the years the Mars astronauts have been unlucky - they've had more than their fair share of car crashes, boating accidents and nervous breakdowns.

Alexander Christian was always the most experienced Mars astronaut - he'd been there twice before Mars Probe 13. They wanted him at Space Centre in Devesham to provide his expertise in the event of problems with the mission. En route from Fortress Island, his helicopter crashed in Kent, just south of Canterbury. Everyone with him died, not all of them in the crash. He is now on the loose, he is possibly armed, and he is most definitely dangerous. We're bringing in army helicopters, and there's an SAS squad on its way. Your men are not to approach Christian when they find him.'

'Is that the only photo of him?' the Chief Constable asked. Hal iwel pressed the projector control again.

'There are no more recent photographs of him, but prison staff have helped us come up with this computer-enhanced picture of what he looks like now. They say that he's resourceful, daring