There had been talk of the cricket team from South Africa — with England, Australia and the West Indies, one of the Big Four of the sport — being banned in the way that South Africa had been banned from the Olympic Games in Mexico City. But after consulting with the Home Office, the cricket authorities had invited them. It was an all-white team, just as their Olympic athletes would have been all-white, and there had been much talk of demonstrations against them. But their ‘plane had arrived from Johannesburg in teeming rain, and the planned demonstration had fizzled out to a few shouts and raised fists and some sodden banners. Since then, there had been a handful of ‘End Apartheid’ protesters at the grounds where the touring team had played: nothing more.

Next week they were to meet England in a Test Match; the second in the series of five. The first had been drawn. There was a lot of interest in the promising young players on each side, and Lords was the home and the Mecca of cricket. Trouble there could damage not only the game but relations in the whole field of sport, between two nations and their peoples.

The more Gideon thought about it, the more he realised that he would have to pull out all stops. For it was the C.I.D.’s task to find out in advance if real trouble-makers were at work; to learn beyond doubt whether there was real danger of incitement to violence. With that accepted, he had to decide who was the best man to lead the inquiries.

“I’ll talk about it to Hobbs in the morning,” he decided. aloud. Then a call came in from the City Police about some currency smuggling, and he put sport and its problem’s out of his mind.

CHAPTER TWO