‘Don’t tell me, he’s here too.’

‘As far as I know he’s in Berlin, though he might turn up in Prague to slam your guy Runciman when he’s finished pussyfooting around.’ Her raised crooked two fingers, on both hands, implied parentheses; the look in her eye was implicitly one of scepticism. ‘He’s supposed to be assessing the situation, as if we don’t know what it really means. Damn bastard’s been here for weeks and all he’s done is play footsie with the Germans.’

‘He might not have done, the situation’s complex.’

Cal replied in that positive manner, even though he did not believe his own words. He had really only said them to give himself time to think, because Corrie Littleton’s presence might present a complication. A reporter, she would be bound to want to know what he was up to, as would Tyler Alverson if he showed up.

‘You staying here?’ She nodded. ‘Room number?’

‘One of the best, 48.’ Seeing that the praise did not register, she added. ‘Overlooks Wenceslas Square.’

‘OK. I am going to leave, but I will call you.’

‘How about you give me your contact number and I’ll call you.’

‘No.’

‘I could yell out your name, let the whole world know you are here.’

‘You could, but if you want to guarantee I clam up, that would be the best way to do it. I will call – and tell Tyler if he shows up that I will talk to him too, but not to shout out if he sees me, and that goes for Vince Castellano.’

‘He’s here too?’ Her eyes narrowed in a face that was attractive, if not conventionally beautiful. ‘Sounds as if you and Vince are involved in something juicy.’

‘Or maybe nothing at all, Corrie.’

‘The Doc Savage I recall was not that kind of guy.’

For once, that nickname did not annoy him; it would allow him to communicate without the use of his name. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

‘Give Vince my regards.’

His cockney friend was pleased with the message – he and Corrie had always got on – though Cal was less enamoured with what Vince had to tell him about what the fellow tailing them had done, in fact he was mystified.

‘Sod went straight to the phone after you went up in the lift and I sidled over to see if I could cop the number he dialled. Missed that, but the bugger was loud enough to overhear his voice, not what he was saying, though. The thing is, guv, whoever the sod was talking to, he was doin’ it in English.’

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The telegram Cal Jardine composed and sent off to London was gobbledegook to anyone but Peter Lanchester; sent to his home address to avoid complications it was delivered before six in the evening. It told him he had made contact with those who could help and asked if anyone from the embassy might be tailing the head of Czech Intelligence and how many operatives were in place.

Unbeknown to both, such was the nervousness of the British state regarding events in Czechoslovakia that the sister service to the SIS had people in place to monitor that kind of traffic between the two capital cities. If MI5 did not know the contents of Cal’s message or whom it was from, they knew to whom it was addressed.

Part of their job was to compile a list that kept the SIS Central European Desk informed. The register of the day’s traffic was thus passed on to Broadway where the recipient’s name set off the bells with the man who ran it; normally he was above that sort of thing unless it was deemed important.

Following on from Peter’s previous trip to Brno and the subsequent trail that led to La Rochelle it smacked of conspiracy and produced in Noel McKevitt the kind of expletive-filled apoplexy he reserved for times when he was alone and unobserved, the kind that turned the air blue and had those outside his office exchanging looks and shrugs.

They were messing about in his patch again without telling him and there could only be one reason for such behaviour – they were acting to achieve something he could not support and the only thing he could think of was some kind of attempt to embroil the country in Central Europe that went against Government policy.

It also, after a period of thinking, occurred to him that unravelling that might give him some leverage to demand answers to any number of questions, and that had him send off a message to the station chief in Prague, basically asking him to check on new arrivals of British nationality in the capital or Brno, journalists and diplomats excluded, as a Code One priority – there should not be too many with the continuing crisis.

Then he turned to flicking through his address book for the number of an old colleague, asking for an outside line; this was not a call to risk being overheard by the switchboard.

‘Barney, it’s Noel,’ he said into the telephone, having forced himself to calm down. ‘Sure, I was thinking it’s a long time since we shared a jar and a chat an’ it being Friday and all …’

The recipient of the call, Barney Foxton, had been in his job long enough to know what that meant: I want to ask you questions I dare not pose over the telephone; and that led him to speculate what it might be about – not for long – given he knew the post McKevitt held.

‘Both been snowed under, Noel,’ he replied.

That was followed by a short pause that allowed time for speculation. The Ulsterman must want something and Foxton was speculating about his own needs in these troubled times; what could MI6 have that might be of use to him, something for which he could trade?

‘I was thinking,’ McKevitt continued, ‘that we might have a pint. How about that nice little snug bar at the Salisbury in St Martin’s Lane?’

Good choice, Foxton thought: a busy pub and homosexual haunt on the corner of an alley that joined two main thoroughfares, a tiny bar with two doors, one to the street and another to the main saloon, a load of mirrors so you could keep an eye on everyone who came and went without actually looking at them and a clientele that would be too busy with their own concerns to care about anyone else’s.

‘Why not?’

‘This lunchtime, say one o’clock?’

He’s keen, Foxton thought, having failed to drag up anything he could ask for; still, a favour in the bank usually paid off in time so, provided what McKevitt was after did not pose too many problems, he would help if he could.

‘See you there, Noel.’

Peter Lanchester had looked at his deciphered message and wondered what he could do about the major part of it. He had no idea why the Prague station might be following the head of Czech Intelligence to find out who it was he was meeting, while added to that was the certain knowledge that probably the only man in London who had any clue about the answer was Noel McKevitt.

Asking would get him nowhere, in fact it would only alert the Irish bugger to the fact that he was messing about in his pond again, so it was with some surprise that he got a mid-morning telephone invitation to come over to Broadway for a chat, that accompanied by an explanation that left him unconvinced.

‘You know, Peter, I think I let my annoyance get to me the other day. It will not come as a surprise to you that people like me are a bit unsure what Quex is up to with your new set-up.’

Now I am suddenly ‘Peter’. ‘Perfectly natural, Noel, but I can tell you without a shred of doubt any worries you might have are misplaced.’

‘An assumption that it would be best to operate on, would you not say? So why don’t you pop over and we can talk about what you picked up in Brno and beyond.’

‘I’m not sure I picked up any more than you will already know and what we have already discussed.’

‘Only one way to nail that, given I don’t know to the last T what you found any more than you are aware what I am familiar with …’ The rest was left up in the air.