‘They don’t have the power of decision, Peter. Hitler does! Has anyone in London looked at a map and seen what possession of Czechoslovakia does to the defence of Poland?’

‘He’s after them too, I suppose?’

‘He wants to wipe out the Polish Corridor and take back Danzig, and the Poles won’t give them up without a fight.’

‘So, tell me how you managed to get them out with all that flap going on.’

‘The guns?’

‘What else?’

‘Would I not bore you?’

‘Cal, old boy, you often make me wonder what drives you to get into so many scrapes, but bore me, never!’

‘While I am wondering if you have just come to La Rochelle or were waiting for me to arrive.’ Peter Lanchester grinned and flicked off a bit of ash. ‘You were waiting for me, weren’t you? Not that you have tried very hard to hide the fact that you have this apartment for one day and possibly more.’

‘Was I?’

Cal pointed to the jar of French jam. ‘That was not opened this morning, was it, and if you only just booked into this place it would need to be.’

Peter pulled a face, the one an errant child might employ when caught in a fib, but Cal suspected he was only playing out a game. ‘It might have been left by the previous occupant.’

‘In a rented apartment it would have been pilfered by the owner, the agent or whoever cleans the place, a fact of which you too would have been aware. So that tells me you want me to know, because, Peter, if some of the people you are again working for are as thick as two short planks, you are not.’

‘I will take that as a backhanded compliment.’

‘So?’

‘Being the servant of two masters, though not at the same time I hasten to add, has certain advantages, but it turned out that prior to my recall to the Secret Intelligence Service, certain elements in the firm became aware you were active and where.’