‘And not just the sea air. On the transatlantic there was the dishiest doc you have ever seen in your life. Boy, do those sailor’s whites make a guy look good, especially the shorts.’

‘You should see me in a kilt.’

‘Do you mind, Cal, I’m eating,’ she replied, forking some goulash into her mouth, only speaking again when that had been consumed. ‘So when are you going to tell what game you are playing here in Prague?’

‘Who says I’m going to tell you?’

She threw back her head and laughed. ‘You better had, bud, ’cause I am a hot reporter these days.’

She had been something of a thorn in Cal’s side in Ethiopia, forcing diversions on his objectives in a search for her archaeologist mother, that not aided by a tongue that seemed, in his case, to be made of acid. Yet she could handle a gun, complained little of the discomfort of travelling and proved she was a woman by making moon eyes at an aristocratic, arrogant French flyer.

It was also true she had been stalwart when called upon, helping, without any experience at all, to run a field hospital in which it had been necessary to quickly overcome any natural squeamishness and deal with the horrendous wounds caused by modern weapons. In short, Corrie Littleton was quite tough.

‘So you’d best just open up.’

Recalling the way he had lost contact with Moravec, Cal was thinking right now there was nothing to say. Then Vince nudged him and he saw coming through the tables the bloke his boxing friend had nearly floored. The young man said nothing, just dropped a card onto the table by Cal’s side and carried on. Corrie Littleton tried to snatch it but failed; after a quick look it went into a pocket.

‘Whose side are you on?’ Cal asked as a way of diverting her. ‘The Germans or the Czechs?’

‘I’m supposed to be neutral.’

‘Hard to be that,’ Vince said.

‘I agree, and when it’s the little guy against Goliath there’s really only one side to be on.’

‘Is that the policy of your rag?’

‘It’s not a rag, Cal, it’s a magazine and they don’t have a view either way and nor do they want headlines. What they need is a set of features that sells copies. How the place is, under the threat of invasion – are the locals coping, what do they think of the democracies, not just here in Prague but in the Sudetenland as well? And to do that I need to go there and be free to operate openly.’

Cal did a good job of looking sorry for her; Vince did it better – he meant it.

‘With what’s happening in Nuremberg the Czechs have got kinda jumpy about journalists travelling around the border areas and they’re insisting they need police escorts. I’d need accreditation papers to do my job.’

‘You can go as a private citizen, I think.’

‘What would be the point of that? My request to go there is with the Interior Ministry but they seem to be taking their damn sweet time to process it.’

‘It must be crowded in those parts right now,’ Vince said.

‘Not so, Vince, the head honchos up there are not talking, so all the journos are stuck with the political shenanigans here in Prague, all writing the same copy. Quite a few will be lighting out for Nuremberg, where at least something’s happening.’

‘Mass hysteria is happening.’

‘Which I don’t want to cover anyway, because my stuff is supposed to be human interest. I don’t suppose you have any pull in this neck of the woods, do you?’

‘If I had, why would I use them on your behalf?’ Cal replied, avoiding the implications of that query, not that he could oblige.

That got him sight of a paprika-stained tongue. ‘If they take much longer I might just be obliged to shimmy over to the Nazi Party Rally. I’ve got accreditation for the Reich and it will be exciting on the last day when Hitler speaks, though that will be crowded.’

‘Take my word for it, the place will be heaving with lunatics.’

‘I was talking about journalists.’

‘What makes you think I wasn’t? What are the chaps in the bar saying about what’s happening here in Prague?’

‘To a man they’re saying it stinks. That Lord Runciman guy Chamberlain sent over is a patsy, going through the motions, judging by the speech he made today at his latest press conference. And where has he gone off for the weekend to find out how the Czechs feel? To spend time in the castle of some well-heeled German aristocrat up north near Carlsbad called Prince Hohenlohe, that’s where. The word in the bar of the Ambassador is it’s all a set-up to sell the victims down the river.’

‘Typical reporters’ talk.’

‘Don’t knock it, some of those guys have seen it all and are too long in the tooth to fall for any old line.’ Another mouthful of goulash later, Corrie added, with narrowed eyes and what Cal thought was her best effort at a winning smile, ‘But if I can’t do the Sudetenland my readers would sure like a tale of derring-do and gunrunning. I can do it off the record, no names or places.’

‘Pity I can’t oblige, I always wanted to see my name in print.’

‘You will one day, buster, but it will be on a charge sheet.’

They continued to spar throughout the main course, into the dessert and coffee, she probing, he fielding, watched by a mainly silent and amused Vince Castellano, who knew there was something between the pair other than the apparent mutual antagonism that peppered their conversation, until finally Cal indicated he and Vince had to go.

‘Anything to do with that card you pocketed?’

An index finger was used to tap the side of his nose before Cal asked, ‘You OK to get a cab on your own?’

‘I’m a big girl now, Cal,’ Corrie replied with a girlie lilt.

Having seen her into the aforesaid taxi he and Vince walked up the street till they saw their man emerge from a doorway several yards ahead – a gap he maintained, turning left then right into a backstreet so ill lit it had Vince on edge, eyes darting and fists clenched in case of trouble. The car Cal had been alerted to on that card was waiting, engine purring, and the two men got in, the lead fellow now in the front passenger seat.

‘Does he speak English?’

Cal could only mean the driver, who had engaged the gears and moved off without a word being spoken. ‘No.’

‘You do?’

‘Yes.’

‘How well?’

‘Three years at the London School of Economics.’ There was a mid-European accent, but not much of one. ‘Most of my fellow students went to the Sorbonne and are French-speaking.’

‘Why did you follow me?’

‘On the general’s orders, to see where you stayed.’

‘He must have known I was at the Meran as soon as he made the phone call I asked for.’

‘A clever man might book into more than one hotel to make sure he was not exposed.’

‘And the Meran is where you picked us up tonight?’

‘Yes.’

‘Inside or out?’ Cal saw the young man’s shoulders shrug as if it made no difference; it did to him and he asked again.

‘I was outside in Wenceslas Square.’

‘So you did not enquire about me at the Meran reception desk? Ask who was staying in room 47?’

The silence was the answer and that was not good; the last thing Cal wanted was people seeking information on him at a hotel reception desk, especially since this youngster would have had no name with which to enquire, which was bound to raise curiosity about him as a guest. Anonymity was a precious commodity to be preserved if possible, which was why he had not told Moravec the name he was travelling under at the cathedral.

Irritated as he was, there was no point in crying over spilt milk. ‘Where are we going?’

‘To the old Jewish cemetery.’

‘Why there?’

‘It’s safe.’

There was a temptation to probe about that, to ask if it was as bad as Moravec had made out, or was it just the paranoia of a man who spent his life in the spying business? But there was little point, so he just sat back and relaxed as the car weaved through the light night-time traffic, crossing the river, until they stopped by the long wall of the old cemetery, alighting to walk to the gate.