‘The chaps following you.’

Cal threw his paper on the table. ‘You’re sure I was being followed?’

Peter turned and even in the gloom of the half-shuttered room Cal could see his enigmatic smile. ‘My dear fellow, if HMG suspects what you’re up to, then you can be damn sure the Frogs do too.’

‘What am I up to, Peter?’

‘Don’t jest with me, Cal.’ Peter jerked a thumb in the general direction of the sea. ‘Somewhere out yonder is a ship waiting for your cargo.’

‘There are lots of ships out there, Peter, it’s a bloody port.’

‘British-registered, foreign-crewed, coastal type, with the kind of shallow draught that will let you land your weapons on a beach or in some sheltered Galician cove.’

A lazy hand was waved to a chair and Cal sat down, Peter following suit and crossing his long legs to expose one highly polished brown shoe, posing the question as he took out his cigarette case and extracted what he always referred to as a ‘gasper’.

‘How am I doing, old boy?’

‘It always amazes me, Peter, that you seem to know more about what I am up to than I do myself. It’s like Hamburg all over again, especially you turning up like the proverbial bad penny to warn me of impending trouble, and the question this time is the same: how much of what you’re asking stems from knowledge and how much is deduction?’

‘Did I not save your bacon in Hamburg, Cal? If I had not turned up when I did the Gestapo would have stripped off your skin with hot pincers.’

‘I think I have already repaid that favour, but the question stands.’

‘Bit of both, given La Rochelle, while a charming spot to visit, is not your sort of town — too provincial and very short on the louche entertainments to which you are partial. But it does happen to share the Bay of Biscay with the northern coast of Spain where the Civil War still rages, though only God knows how, given they should have utterly exhausted each other by now.’