In any case, I liked Lourenço Marques. It had a kind of baroque charm and, in those days at least, a complete absence of the kind of racial tensions I’d noticed elsewhere in Africa.

The man who ran the “Lights of Lisbon” was named Coimbra, a thin, cadaverous Portuguese with one interest in life – money. He had a hand in most things as far as I could judge and didn’t have a scruple in the world. Whatever you wanted, Coimbra could get it for you at a price. We boasted the finest selection of girls on the coast.

I noticed Burke the moment he came in, although his enormous physique would have made him stand out anywhere. I think that was the thing which struck one most about him – the air of sheer physical competence and controlled power that made men move out of his way, even in a place like that.

He was dressed for the bush in felt hat, shooting jacket, khaki pants and sand boots. One of the girls made a pass at him, a quadroon with skin like honey and the kind of body that would have had a bishop on his knees. Burke looked through her, not over her, as if she simply didn’t exist, and ordered a drink.

The girl was called Lola and as we’d been more than good friends I felt like telling him he was missing out on a damn good thing, but maybe that was just the whisky talking. In those days I wasn’t too used to it and it was dangerously cheap. When I looked up, he was standing watching, a glass of beer in one hand.

“You want to lay off that stuff,” he said as I poured another. “It won’t do you any good, not in this climate.”

“My funeral.”

I suppose that was the right kind of reply for the tough, footloose adventurer I fondly imagined myself to be at that time and I toasted him. He challenged me calmly, his face quite expressionless, and when I raised the glass to my lips it took a real physical effort. The whisky tasted foul. I gagged and put the glass down hurriedly, a hand to my mouth.