As they left, a card was pressed into Cal’s hand with a guttural smiling invitation from the proprietor to return soon. Then it was a slow walk for Cal, Baedeker guide in hand, like a sightseer, through the old town and across the Charles Bridge, admiring the statues that lined it at intervals, flicking through the book to get the names of the various saints, with Vince his usual several dozen paces behind.

As Vince pointed out with a chuckle as they reunited in the cathedral entrance, if anyone was trying to tail Cal they must be going mad with the stopping and starting he had been doing. The upriver breeze had been welcome on what was a hot Central European day but the effect had faded by the time they had progressed uphill to Hradčany castle and the massive cathedral that lay within its walls.

Like all great churches St Vitus’s imposed a degree of silence on all those who entered; no one spoke above a whisper as they examined the plaques in the walls as well as the statuary, most of which were in the high arched nave.

As Cal made his way to the rear of the high altar Vince had already dropped back, seeking to look inconspicuous, but both suspected that Moravec, if he was going to all this trouble, would have some of his people watching and that in itself provided what security was required to cover the meeting. Cal stopped when the voice spoke from behind a stone pillar.

‘Mr Moncrief.’

Addressed by the name he had been using previously to buy those Spanish weapons, Cal responded in the affirmative.

‘Or should I say Mr Jardine?’

‘Either will do, General,’ Cal replied.

But he did not add the name he was using on the passport he had acquired from Snuffly Bower, just as he had not vouchsafed it to Janek, on the very good grounds that he had no idea what this meeting would produce.

He had taken to Moravec on that first meeting earlier in the year but the man was the head of Czech Foreign Intelligence and he had fish to fry that Cal knew nothing about. Just as Moravec would not vouchsafe to him things he did not need to know, neither would Cal be entirely open in return.

‘I never expect you to meet again.’

Moravec had chosen to speak in English, when they would have both been more comfortable in German; Cal felt he had no choice but to do likewise.

‘Nor I.’

‘Our contact me tells, you are this time not in Prague on behalf of Spanish Republicans.’

‘No.’

‘If as he me tells, you are British Government representing, why not through the embassy work?’

‘I only said that to get to you. I am not representing the British Government and have nothing to do with the embassy. I doubt the need to explain that to someone in your position, and besides, I am here for a quite different purpose to anything they might be acting on.’

‘Only thing they acting on is seeking number of Jews to process, many out of the country trying to get. You would think they would London advise best way to deal with exodus is to tell to keep within own borders the Germans.’

‘On pain of another war.’

‘Exact!’ Moravec responded, so loudly it produced a slight echo, showing a natural frustration at the lack of open support from the democracies. ‘Instead in the London newspapers we read is we who in not give Hitler what he wants are unreasonable being.’

Justified as it was, Cal did not want to listen to condemnation of his own government or the stories Downing Street was feeding to the press to soften up opinion. ‘The last time we spoke, you made mention of doubts in certain German minds regarding Hitler’s intentions.’

‘I did.’

‘I wondered if you had any more intelligence on that.’

‘Is that why you here?’

‘The only way certain parties can see to aid Czechoslovakia is to bring to the attention of the British Government just how strong that opposition is, perhaps with enough power to alter the course of German ambitions.’

‘Depose Hitler the only way that to do.’

‘If it could be established that by standing up to him such an outcome could be achieved it might alter the nature of those press reports you have just mentioned. It might stiffen the resolve of those in power to oppose him.’

‘Who you represent real, Mr Moncrief?’ Again Cal found the use of that name slightly jarring, but he was left with no time to consider it. ‘You have made plain it not truly the British Government by your own words.’

‘Are there people in Prague, General Moravec, who think it would be best to let Hitler have the Sudetenland for the sake of peace?’

‘Few only, but yes.’

‘Then accept there are those in London who disagree with the way things are being carried out by our government and want to do something to stop it.’

‘Names.’

‘Some you will know, General, for they have the capacity to be open, and those you don’t I will not divulge because they do not.’

Moravec did not reply and Cal supposed he needed time to think on what had just been said. He was leaning against one of the long stone pillars that supported the high arched roof, and even if he was not a churchgoer, he had often wondered at the effort and artistry that had gone into such constructions as these great cathedrals, many of which he had stood in with something approaching awe: Notre Dame, Canterbury, Chartres, Bourges.

Masons had chipped away at stone for decades to produce these smooth blocks that lay on each other and seemed to be bereft of mortar, had carved the gargoyles and decor, exactly reproducing the same design again and again, and then had come along men with lead, glass and vision to create the great stained glass window which now dimly lit the place where he stood.

It was not too fanciful to see that shattered, to see the great pillars break and tumble. In Spain, Cal had seen the effect of aerial bombardment. If the Luftwaffe was let loose over this jewel of a city then they would do to Prague what the Condor Legion had done to Guernica and tried to do to Madrid – destroy it – and that thought was in the mind of everyone who lived in the city.

‘You suggesting,’ Moravec said, eventually, ‘we can something get with my help?’

Amazing though this wonderful building was, Cal had to again ask himself: why here? Why all the subterfuge? And then he recalled what Janek had said that morning. ‘Why are we meeting in such secrecy, General?’

The sigh was audible and seemed to fit the surroundings in which they had met. ‘Even in my own city, safe from the eyes of my enemies I am not.’

‘German agents?’

‘Those, yes, and traitors, like those you ask about.’

That induced an unpleasant thought: if there were forty thousand Jews in Prague there had to be, in what until twenty years ago had been part of a German-speaking empire, at least that number of Germans who had made their homes here during the rule of Vienna.

There might well be Czech traitors, but it also meant that spies, particularly those of an Austrian background, bilingual in Czech from having lived in the city all their lives, and prepared to back the Nazis, could operate in the city almost with impunity.

‘Few, you said.’

‘Too many if who are they we not know. Most nationals German do not Hitler want, not even all in the borderlands. They from their contacts over border know what he brings, but some are seeing for themselves a good chance to rise.’

‘Do you have agents inside Germany?’ Moravec just laughed softly; the answer was too obvious to require a reply. ‘And perhaps contacts with those who oppose Hitler?’

‘You want I should you tell, I think.’

‘Yes.’

That brought a laugh that was loud enough to create another slight echo. ‘Not safe for them, not safe for me.’

There was a definite truth in that; if the head of counter-intelligence felt he had to be cautious in his own bailiwick, how much more must he show that quality in dealing with his contacts inside the Reich, where the slightest suspicion of disloyalty was paid out with a bullet to the skull – and that was if you were lucky. To this man he was an unknown quantity in what he was up to at present and hardly worth immediate trust.