Peter paused to tap the end of his cigarette several times on the table, but it remained unlit. ‘There are guerrillas operating in the mountains of Cantabria and they need weapons and ammo to keep up the fight, while you, who make your way in the world by the supply of same, have, thanks to your previous exploits, good contacts with both the folk who will provide them and those with the money to pay for the purchase.’

‘Anything else?’

The reply had to wait till his cigarette was alight and the first welcome drag was exhaled, to form a cloud of smoke around Peter’s head.

‘Yes, old chap, when you forge an End User Certificate saying the light machine guns you are buying from Czechoslovakia are for the Irish Republic it tickles the old hackles.’

‘Your hackles?’

‘Not only mine, but it does not make life any easier when it transpires they are in fact for Spain.’

‘You’re sure that’s their destination?’

‘If you are involved, yes.’

‘I thought you would have been pleased given what we have done in the past, though I am curious at your earlier mention of His Majesty’s Government.’

Peter was handsome in a sharp-faced way, with his black hair slicked back to leave a widow’s peak, but it ceased to be as attractive when he frowned, as he was doing now, making him look like a peevish schoolmaster.

‘I have to tell you, Cal, I am back with the old firm and the powers that be in the Government insist on Blighty being neutral. They want nothing to do with Spain and their national bloodletting.’

‘A fact that has been made perfectly plain these last two years,’ Cal snapped; the indifference of Britain to the plight of the Spanish republicans tended to get under his skin. ‘As neutrality it’s a farce, given the arms embargo is being, and has been since the outbreak, routinely broken by the Germans and Italians.’