‘The order I made was placed and the paperwork sorted before the crisis blew up, but the Czechs honoured the deal, which was pretty straight of them considering they had Adolf breathing fire. Not that they were surprised; they knew Hitler was bound to come after them once he’d swallowed up Austria. How did you know about the false End User Certificate, by the way?’

‘Our military attaché in Prague got wind of it and sent a standard report to London. That was where the Irish connection first raised questions, given how sensitive we are in Blighty about possible shipments to the IRA.’

Cal was thinking that such an explanation did not clarify why Peter was here.

‘We had to be sure, Cal, they were going to where the certificate said. I also have to admit it was a damn clever ploy, given our chaps are busy licensing the same weaponry for use by the British army and, of course, the Irish would follow suit, piggybacking on our research and approval. I hope it was worth whatever you forked out to get the Czechs to fall for it.’

If it was clever, the real reason that he had been successful in his purchase was more to do with the Czech factory having no desire to question him too closely about his bona fides: his papers were in order as far as they could see and the people he claimed to represent appeared sound.

In reality they were not looking too closely; they badly wanted his money, or to be more precise, the Spanish republican gold with which he was prepared to pay, as did a government under threat from a powerful neighbour, keen to amass foreign exchange, so extracting a false certificate from the relevant Czech ministry had been something of a formality in which no one had even demanded an illegal payment.

It was a good deal; the weapons he had bought were perfect for guerrilla warfare, a new pattern of easily portable light machine guns deadly in that kind of close combat. It was a ground and vehicle weapon, and added to that, so low was the recoil, they could be fired from the hip while on the move, all of which Peter listened to with polite interest; if he knew Cal was stalling, which he was, he gave no indication of it.

‘You can tell the staff wallahs from me they’ve bought a good infantry weapon.’

‘Sorry to disappoint you, Cal, but I doubt your estimation would carry much weight with the military brass and even less if I passed it on from MI6, given the army think we are all overeducated dolts. Anyway, to cut to the chase, we’re not interested in guns; what the firm is after is your opinion of the Czechs as a nation.’

‘Do you mean the Czech Czechs, the Slovaks, the Ruthenians, the Poles, the Hungarians or the Sudetenland Germans?’

Peter sighed. ‘Do you have to complicate things?’

Cal felt he needed to make the point even if the world was less ignorant now than it had been a few months before, because Czechoslovakia was very much in the news, with German newspapers ranting daily about the ‘plight’ of their racial brethren in the border regions called the Sudetenland.

Yet, even on the front pages of the world, few appreciated how much the nation was a construct nation of peoples hacked out of the dismembered Austro-Hungarian Empire, with a dozen languages and rivalries going back centuries. Like most of his fellow countrymen, and most unfortunately the people in power in London, Peter did not appreciate the problems that produced.

If the Sudeten German minority were the most vocal in the search for concessions to their racial background they were just one of half a dozen similar problems facing the Prague Government, given every ethnic group had, to varying degrees, jumped on the federalist bandwagon. Tempted to explain, Cal decided not to bother; the nub of the question was not about that.

‘Despite the bleating of their minorities, the Czechs are an honest bunch who run a democratic government that others of a similar ilk should support. How does that sound?’

That got an idly raised eyebrow. ‘Like a Daily Herald headline and easier said than done, old boy.’

‘But not impossible,’ Cal responded, his voice becoming more animated. ‘They have a reasonable military, good equipment and a fortified mountainous border with Germany that would take a serious commitment of manpower to get through, one perfect to aid an assault from the west by a combined French and British army.’

‘I’m not sure that’s actually answering the question I asked.’

‘I am, Peter, given it’s the only one that matters. They would have made a perfect partner before Hitler marched into Vienna, but sadly the border with Austria is a flat plain and difficult to defend. By being supine over the Anschluß, we have fatally weakened and are going to lose a useful potential ally unless we do something to stop it.’

‘That does assume Adolf wishes to go the whole hog, old boy, and swallow the country up.’

‘Something tells me you have not got round to reading Mein Kampf yet. I seem to recall telling you to do that with some force two years ago.’

‘Picked it up, of course, but it’s terribly turgid stuff, a perfect cure for insomnia, in fact. I have never got very far when I try. Nod off every time.’

‘Then let me precis it for you, once more. Adolf Hitler wants back all the bits of German-speaking Central Europe they and the Austrians were forced to give away at Versailles and if he can’t get them by threats he will go to war to recover them. He’s already remilitarised the Rhineland and swallowed Austria in a coup, two things he listed in his ever-so-turgid book, both of which should have been stopped. Not many politicians keep their written promises, but he is one who will.’

Peter sighed and lit another cigarette. ‘While our lot seem to have promised there will never be another pan-European war.’

‘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.’

‘How?’

‘Various whispers, some of which I picked up.’

‘You were listening?’

‘On behalf of those for whom I worked, Cal. I have to admit a particular interest in what you are up to, given what you choose to call my “previous employers” thought we might be required to ask for your services again after Ethiopia.’