‘I like the bins,’ Vince said, when Cal tried on the pair of rimless spectacles he’d bought. ‘You’ll look a bit like Himmler now you’ve got your barnet cut short.’

Cal ran a hand across his now-short red-gold hair, then nodded to the telegram he had compiled for Peter Lanchester, lying by the open book of short stories.

‘I don’t know why I bother with coding messages. I could get you to telephone Peter and talk to him in cockney.’

‘Only one problem, guv, he wouldn’t understand a bleeding word I was saying to him.’

‘True, I struggle enough.’

Cal had begun splitting the notes in his money belt; half he would leave with Vince and the rest he would take. His friend had a simple way of keeping the currencies separate: they went into different pockets.

‘You say you’re going to get tooled up when you get to this place.’

‘That’s the deal, I’ve asked for a Mauser.’

‘A bloke doing the job you’re supposed to be at would not carry a shooter.’

‘He’s about to become a reformed character.’

‘One who’s out on a very long limb, guv, and as for involving Corrie, well …’ The undertone of what Vince was saying came down to the fact that he was unhappy about being left behind. ‘She’s a game bird, but this might be pushing it a bit.’

‘She will have instructions to dump me if I’m exposed, say that I used her.’

‘Corrie won’t do that, guv.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because,’ Vince replied with slow deliberation, ‘she fancies you.’

‘Rubbish. I’ve got to send that telegram to London,’ Cal responded, ducking the implications of that statement. ‘I’ll get dressed, then let’s get my own bag packed and into the car.’

‘You taking all the documents?’

Vince was referring to those hidden in the Tatra.

‘No point, and if they were found they would only get the noses sniffing for more. You sure of what to do if the balloon goes up?’

‘How many times do you want me to tell you?’

Vince had instructions, if the emergency was so dire as to be irresolvable, to think only of himself, to go to the Jewish Emigration Centre and find Elsa Ephraim, using Cal’s name and that of Monty Redfern – she would know how to get him out to safety if he could not use either of his own passports, and given the money he was holding there was always bribery.

‘Just as long as you remember not to try and come and get me.’

Leaving his backup man in Prague was essential to maintaining that vital link with London, and the temptation to move him closer to the place where Cal would be operating had to be put to one side. There was still a deep nervousness about leaks or even active disruption from the offices of MI6 and nothing Peter Lanchester had sent so far indicated such a threat had been either positively identified or neutralised.

There would have been more alarm had it been known that a man from the Prague station, one of those brought in from Bucharest, was trawling the hotels with a Czech interpreter for a list of guests from the United Kingdom, with an emphasis on those newly arrived; an attempt to save time by checking the flight manifests of the Czech airline, the quickest way in, had been rudely rebuffed.

Having been at it for two days and starting with the luxury places, it was Saturday before he got to the Meran, and he and his man entered just as Cal and Vince exited carrying the canvas bag.

The Czech made for the desk, the MI6 man standing back, where he went through the routine of being jolly with the man at reception, agreeing that times were bad for everybody except those with rooms to let, before asking if there were any people staying who might need his services as an English interpreter.

That was not an absurd thing to ask; Czech was a Slavic language that only the locals spoke and even then it broke down into several dialects and that was before you got to Slovak, Ruthenian and Hungarian.

It had no international presence, so that any visitor from any country, especially Britain and those with Latin-derived tongues, struggled to get the bus or tram, never mind do business; even fellow Slavs from neighbouring countries would have to strive hard to be understood.

The reply he got, that of the only two British guests staying, one, a Mr Barrowman, certainly spoke fluent German, was responded to with initial disappointment, though he did ask about the other, only to be told the receptionist had never exchanged a word with him, but he could if he had to – thankfully he spoke a bit of English and French.

‘Been here long, have they, ’cause they might have picked up a bit of Czech?’

‘A week … or was it Tuesday they checked in? Not sure.’

‘Been here before?’

‘No, they made the reservation from London, though by telegram, so they must know Prague well.’

‘Still, friend,’ the interpreter said, pacing out his questions so that it did not seem like an interrogation. ‘Even German might not be enough if they are here to do business, eh? Are they businessmen? Would you give them my card if I left one?’

The receptionist shrugged and accepted the proffered card; there was no harm in it and his interpreter visitor bade him a hearty farewell, then walked out onto the street followed by his MI6 employer, who listened to what the Czech had been told.

He reckoned this pair fitted the bill more than any of the other names he had turned up, not that he knew, apart from finding British passport holders with no known reasons for being here, precisely what the bill was. Still, it was not his job to decide that – such a task fell to the station chief – and he had many more places to check.

‘OK, Miklos, on with the motley, what!’

Miklos had studied hard and reckoned himself a good English speaker, but as he watched his employer head off he wondered what the hell he had just said.

There was one thing Cal had forgotten to cover and that was because he was not in the same profession as Corrie Littleton. A good journalist never goes anywhere, and especially to somewhere dangerous, without telling the person who employs them, in her case her editor in New York, and nor would she go off without leaving a forwarding address.

That was a telegram she composed on her account at the hotel because the first thing a journalist learns is never to spend their own money and never be entirely truthful about your expense account either, because spare cash is not only handy, it can be essential for both work and pleasure; you cannot, for instance, submit a chit for sexual gratification in some foreign whorehouse.

Some of those males she drank with sparingly in the bar of the Ambassador were given to visiting such places and were not deterred by a female presence from mentioning it. They were also, to a man, experienced reporters, who knew that a good way to keep ahead of your competition was to know what they were up to.

Thus, on arrival at their hotel in the location of a story, and even before they made friends with the bar staff, they would approach the concierge and slip him a decent sum to keep them informed and their competitors in the dark about what they themselves were up to.

Where Corrie, in her lack of practical experience, fell down was in not doing first that; then what she should have done when she gave him the telegram was to slip him something to stay quiet because of the name and destination that would leap out even if he struggled with English.

It was doubly unfortunate that a very experienced English correspondent called Vernon Bartlett spotted her on the way out of the hotel after Cal had called for her to come down.

‘Where are you off to, young lady, and by the side entrance?’ he asked, coming in from a late-morning constitutional walk.

‘Nothing doing in Prague, is there, Vernon, so I thought I’d go down to the border and see how many Jews the Rumanians are letting in.’