‘On Monday Whalley left his office and drove to a pub ten miles this side of Porthmadog in Wales. Moments after he arrived, a Ford Capri drove out. I had the Capri tailed, and whether or not the Capri knew he was being tailed, I don’t know, but he shook our men off after about fifteen minutes. From the description of the way he did it, my guess is he’s a professional, but didn’t know whether he was being followed and just went through a standard routine – a security procedure. What is interesting is that he had false plates on his car – he certainly wasn’t taking any chances. The plates bore the registration number of a Datsun that was written off in a smash four years ago. Now there might not be any connection between him and Whalley, but I watched Whalley most of the time he was in the pub and he didn’t communicate with anybody, yet when he came out he had a package on him, which contained the videotape he delivered to the BBC, a copy of which is ready to roll on your machine.’

Fifeshire nodded. ‘As you don’t have any information about this man in the Capri and, by the sound of it, little chance of finding out any more unless he shows himself again, it’s not of much help is it?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘Would you recognize him if you saw him again?’

‘No, I might recognize the car. I’m having all possible leads followed up – anyone that might have sold the fake plates, all the usual.’

The intercom buzzed and Fifeshire pushed a button on the machine on his desk. The voice of his secretary, the Honourable Violet-Elizabeth Trepp, came out. ‘Mr Wardle and Captain Coleman are here to see you, Sir Charles.’

‘Send them in please, Miss Trepp.’

To call the Honourable V.-E. Trepp a battleaxe would be to do a cruel injustice to battleaxes. She was to gorgons what a neutron bomb is to a pea-shooter. The whole of MI5, Fifeshire included, were terrified of her. If one didn’t know the personnel department better, one might have thought she was a joke perpetrated by them; but personnel didn’t have a sense of humour.