What was different now? The figure had not changed much, though he suspected there were things needed to keep it tight. Was it the fine crow’s feet around the eyes, now too deep to be entirely hidden by make-up, or the small vertical lines rising from her upper lip?

He was not as entranced as he had been in the past and suddenly he knew why: Spain had cured him. There he had fallen deeply in love with a woman who was everything Lizzie was not and it had nearly cost him his life, that fight against a force as dark or perhaps darker than Fascism.

Whatever, if Communism had robbed him of the future he envisaged, the consequence of the affair was present now, for looking at Lizzie he felt none of the magnetic pull he had suffered from previously.

‘Well?’ she said, spinning slowly and sparkling as she did so.

‘The taxi is waiting,’ he replied, putting down his empty glass.

He helped her put on her short cloak, which exposed him to the smell of her perfume warmed by her flesh. Previously a cause of an immediate physical reaction, that was also absent and somehow she sensed it and the knowledge was in her eyes when they met his own, though as was her way it was selfishness that held sway.

‘I do hope you are not going to be beastly, Cal, you know how rude you can be to my friends – and me, when I check you. I don’t want my evening ruined.’

‘I promise not to be rude,’ he replied.

Moments later they exited the front door and descended the exterior steps to the pavement, where stood the throbbing taxicab. Opening the door he took her elbow to aid her to get inside but he did not follow, instead taking out his wallet and passing to the driver a five-pound note.

‘The lady will tell you where she wants to go. There is more than enough to cover the fare and keep the change for yourself.’ With that he went to the open door, his voice firm and his look steady as he shut it. ‘Goodbye, Lizzie.’

The delighted cabbie took off immediately he heard the door click shut and all Cal was left with was the vision of her perplexed and pixie face staring out of the back window – that and a feeling of release that lasted all the way as he meandered across Hyde Park. It was maintained down the back wall of Buckingham Palace, as he made his way back to the Goring Hotel, there to sleep like a lamb.

It took several days to sort out what was needed, not least the false documents from Snuffly Bower, but when he did pick them up they were, as usual, perfect and they were delivered to Hampstead so Monty could get him visas. At Cal’s request Peter provided a document signed by Sir Hugh Sinclair that would indemnify Monty Redfern for any expenses incurred in pursuance of the task he was undertaking.

He also had him withdraw various sums of money in different currencies – dollars, korunas and German marks – in mixed denominations that could be concealed in a money belt, funds for which he was obliged to sign. The longest wait was for the necessary visas, but they finally arrived along with Monty’s letters of introduction and – a nice touch – business cards for Redfern International Chemicals.

The other item, not actually asked for and sent to the Goring, was a briefing on the way the crisis had developed: newspaper cuttings in the main, plus comments from various Government officials, one of which was a note signed by Vansittart, in which he assessed the spokesman for the German Czech minority, Konrad Henlein.

The leader of the Sudeten German Party had visited London three years previously to present his case to the British people: in essence that he sought no union with Germany, just political rights for his people. Vansittart’s view, and he had met Henlein in the company of Winston Churchill, was that he was a reasonable fellow and no demagogue.

In later notes he had added that he thought he, like everyone else, might have been duped by the fellow’s unthreatening manner because of the overwhelming evidence that Henlein had moved further towards Hitler in the intervening years to become a spokesperson for the Nazi aims of conquest.

There was also a lengthy report from the Central European correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, who had done a sweep through the disputed areas of Bohemia and Moravia, and for once it was quite a balanced piece of reportage, which saw the Sudetenland question from both sides.

In his view the German minority had complaints but they were minor; the Czech nation was democratic, the Sudetenlanders had the right to vote and had several political outlets across the spectrum, from Nazis through social democrats to the Workers’ Party, the first two of which had sent strong groups of elected representatives to the Prague parliament where they were free to plead their cause.

If there were grievances these were caused more by Czech insensitivity rather than anything approaching oppression, though discrimination in official jobs was rampant. He had noticed a certain haughtiness about the Czechs, who saw themselves as both more gifted and upright than others and that would rub particularly hard up against those with a German background.

Quite apart from employment, there was also the fact that the German children were taught in their own language, not Czech, while added to that there was bound to be a certain amount of friction caused by the local bureaucracy, which was naturally staffed by the national majority and tended to favour Czechs over Germans in disputes.

But that did not disbar the aggrieved from a right of appeal to a higher court in Prague, where their sensitivities were accorded equal rights with their opponents. Reading it, Cal Jardine thought they might have a moan, but, rabid Nazis apart, the Sudetenlanders would regret it if they ever got Hitler and his kind of government.

The briefing absorbed, there was shopping to be done to replace what he had left in La Rochelle, the kind of sturdy footwear and hard-wearing clothes that would stand constant and possibly outdoor use, as well as a couple of books. A visit to Stanfords in Long Acre provided maps of Czechoslovakia as well as a guide book, and he also bought two canvas holdalls, one green, the other beige, then went to work to scuff them up a bit so they looked well used.

If folk taking a mid-morning stroll wondered at an individual playing football with such items in St James’s Park, before dropping them into the duck pond for a thorough soaking, they were too British to enquire.

The bags, once dried out, he had fitted with stiffener boards at the base in matching material, which, with a little glue, would serve as false bottoms. In these he and Vince could hide Snuffly Bower’s passports and papers; they would go in under their personal passports but carrying nothing that was not necessary.

Whatever they used to travel had to be light; the only quick way into Prague, and one which, unlike the Paris-to-Prague express train, did not cross German territory, was by aeroplane from Le Bourget, just outside the French capital, and the airlines were damned fussy about luggage weight.

After several unreturned phone calls from Lizzie he decided it was time to write to her and bring some kind of closure to their relationship and that was hard to get right. He had no desire to make her homeless but she was occupying a prime town house, far too spacious for one person and an abode he would certainly never live in again.

That he intended to sell, and give her enough to buy the lease on a flat in Mayfair or Belgravia, she could choose. There was no question that he would provide for her financially but that had to be both reasonable and agreed, which he would rather do amicably than through solicitors and she had time to think about everything as he was off on his travels again.

The letter signed, he left the envelope at the desk to be posted. Then it was off to the Savoy Grill, one of the two books he had bought in hand, to tie up any loose ends and buy Peter a lunch he certainly felt he owed him from La Rochelle.