‘Goodbye.’ Whalley got out of the car and walked back to his Cavalier. The man in the Capri did nothing until Whalley had driven back out through the gap. When he had gone, the man started the Capri; but instead of following Whalley’s tracks out through the gap, he turned the Capri in a large arc and, accelerating smartly, headed out across towards the far side of the field. I followed him with my binoculars. He went through an open gate and into a wood which dipped down into a valley. There was no point in my trying to sprint after him – he was driving much too fast. The cunning bastard! I don’t think he knew we were here, but he certainly wasn’t taking any chances. I spoke into the pencil. ‘Contact in Capri SFG 77R. Coming out backstage; send out a soft alert.’

A soft alert is an instruction to all police patrols to look out for the Capri, and to stop it for any traffic offence, however minor, that they can. The intention was, that by stopping the Capri and notifying our surveillance team where it was stopped, it would give them time to get back onto its tail. But there weren’t that many police around in this part of the world, and if the man was a professional, of which there seemed little doubt, then he was likely to stick to the quiet back-roads. It was also likely that by the time he emerged from the other side of those woods, the Capri would have yet another registration number.

I tried hard to remember where I had heard that voice before. It was recently, I knew that. Maybe I was mistaken, but I didn’t think so.

It was half past eleven, and I had a good three and a half hour’s drive back to London; for the moment, I had forgotten all about my birthday, and Gelignite’s treat, because right now there was one thought, and one thought only, racing around inside my skull: for the first time since I had begun this assignment, I felt I was in with a sporting chance of hitting the jackpot.

I rewound the tape a little, pressed the play button, and listened for long enough to be satisfied that the conversation had been safely recorded. So Whalley was being blackmailed. Interesting. Very interesting. The whole dialogue had been most interesting.