‘Regardless of what stage he is at?’

‘Regardless,’ Sir Hugh replied, very forcibly, as the required letter was placed in front of him for signature; rather suddenly his eyes misted over and this took on the appearance of a letter of resignation. ‘Termination, Peter, nothing else will do.’

Peter just had time to send a telegram to the Meran Hotel for Vince to get out and he employed the same tactics of colloquial English, there being no time to code it. It read: Gaff Blown, Scarper.

Upstairs Sir Hugh Sinclair was composing another signal telling Major Gibson to stand down and do nothing; the last thing he needed was a bunch of SIS men running around Czecho trying to apprehend one of their own. Keeping that quiet might prove impossible.

Driving out of Prague, Noel McKevitt was excited; given the mundane nature of what he had been doing for many years – the life of an SIS man on station was not one of much adventure and being desk bound was even worse – he was shedding nearly two decades, going back to the days when he and men like Barney Foxton, young then and ruthless, had fought the IRA to keep Ireland under the aegis of the British Crown.

That was the last time he had carried a gun in anger, the same as that which lay beside him on the car bench seat. There was too, at the back of his mind, the knowledge that, while he could rise further in the service, to a man of his background – grammar school and front-line service in a common or garden regiment – positions like that held by Sir Hugh Sinclair were outside his natural reach; he did not come from the right part of the establishment.

Long-held instincts now crystallised into a powerful spur to what he was doing, for it thus followed, and always would even if he had been reluctant to acknowledge it in the past, that elevation to the kind of position he craved would only come from some bold stroke which would elevate his prospects.

Luck played a major part in advancement, that and birth, for, from what he had observed, ability was not a prerequisite if you went to the right schools and saw service in the Royal Navy or the Brigade of Guards. How many senior positions had he seen filled by eejits who had nothing but one of those as their only qualification?

At the first checkpoint he was waved through without trouble; the boys manning it had been educated to recognise the plates of diplomatic vehicles, with which they were neither allowed to interfere or search, and it would be the same at the ones he had yet to face. McKevitt could look forward to being in Cheb in under four hours, the kind of time that had only been possible before Czech mobilisation.

He had reckoned without the car, which on the open road and being pushed a bit hard – normally it was used in town and on short journeys – revealed a radiator prone to overheating, evidenced by the pall of steam that began to issue from the bonnet at the second checkpoint, forcing him to pull over.

Once the steam had dispersed, one of the soldiers keen to assist him identified the problem as a split hose and a very junior conscript was sent off to find a garage where a replacement might be located. So frustrated was McKevitt that he wanted to retrieve the Webley from under the seat where he had hidden it and shoot someone.

Up ahead Vince Castellano was having a miserable time; every checkpoint was taking over an hour to get through, the traffic backed up for at least a mile and everyone’s papers being checked. Being foreign, he was pulled over for a more serious questioning every time which further delayed his progress and the nearer he got to his destination the jumpier seemed the soldiers.

It was well into the afternoon that he was obliged to pull over to the side to let past a stream of army lorries, some pulling artillery, and he wondered if the balloon had gone up, the only thing that reassured him the lack of a stream of refugees coming the other way. Then, on what this map told him was the border with the province called Karlovy Vary, he was halted altogether, the only consolation being that everyone else was too.

Peter Lanchester was back on the train at Calais wondering whether his stomach would ever settle down after a most appalling crossing in which he had been tossed around like a cork; would he be able to eat the food he had ordered?

The waves in the English Channel were notorious, made more disturbing by the narrowness of the sea and the way the gap between each rise and fall was so small. The whole thing had been accompanied by the sound of breaking glass and crashing crockery as the things normally used to feed and water people – no one was eating or drinking – were chucked off the shelves supposed to contain them by the peculiar corkscrew motion of the ferry.

Worse, the crossing had taken longer than normal, not aided by the difficulty of getting into Calais harbour, and he was in some danger of missing his connection to the Paris-to-Prague Express. The steward in the first-class dining room had assured him that the driver would seek to make up time, so he would just have to hope – and it seemed a forlorn one – that he could get to Cheb before McKevitt.

‘And so, Fräulein Littleton, I hope you have everything you have come for,’ said Henlein, once more taking her hand to kiss it while Cal translated. ‘You will, of course, let me see what you intend to submit.’

‘Before you leave,’ added the Ice Maiden.

‘Plenty of time,’ Cal responded, his remark no longer met with warmth.

‘Wessely told me he had invited you to our local rally tonight,’ Henlein said. ‘I too will be attending. It is good that we come together to hear the German Führer speak, for I am certain he will refer to us and our difficulties and what aid he intends to give us.’

That was said with such confidence that Cal wondered if Henlein knew what Hitler was going to say – not the words, for he was very much an instinctive orator, but the gist. It was not a thought he held long, for the time had come for him and Corrie to depart, and as soon as they were out of the door she could not resist a jibe.

‘How does it feel to be frozen in ice like a woolly mammoth?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he replied, but he did.

‘How long have we got before we are taken to the bullring?’

‘A couple of hours.’

‘We could …’ she said kittenishly, taking his arm.

‘Haven’t you got typing to do?’

If it sounded like resistance it was only a formality.

Her nails dug into his arm. ‘I’ve got nimble fingers.’

‘My place or yours?’

Jimmy Garvin was bored stiff; he had actually called the Bayerischer Hof to inform Bartlett there was nothing happening, only to be told there was bugger all happening anywhere, certainly not in Prague, and what about him, surrounded by fanatical Nazis who kept trying to knock his eye out with their damn salute? It seemed churlish for Jimmy to point out that he was in much the same boat.

‘She must have interviewed Henlein, Jimmy, if she is staying in the same bloody hotel. What about breaking into her room and seeing if there’s anything worth pinching?’

‘You’re not serious, Vernon?’

‘No, joking really, but you never know what a young and ambitious fellow will do to get on, what?’

‘Meaning if I’d said I would do it you would not have restrained me?’

‘Laddie, I’m a hundred or more miles away, how could I? Best thing to do is to make yourself known to Corrie—’

‘I’ve met her, remember.’

‘Don’t be obtuse, Jimmy, there’s a good chap. Let her know you’re in Cheb, chat her up and use that devastating charm of yours to wheedle something out of her.’

Jimmy was about to say ‘What devastating charm?’ when he realised Bartlett was being sarcastic. ‘She’ll probably tell me to bugger off.’

‘Not a word our American chums employ, dear boy, but nothing ventured. Now, I’ve got to dash, the car is waiting to take me and dump me amongst several thousand sweaty oiks in that damned Congress Hall so that I can listen to Hitler tell the world what a genius he is for the umpteenth time.’