‘I’m asking you now.’

‘You’ve got to guess.’

I thought hard for some moments, and memories of a short while ago came flooding back. ‘I’ve got it,’ I said.

‘What is it?’

‘Gelignite.’

That had been four months ago. Since then she had all but moved into the house, and the normal far too few hours of sleep I usually snatched had been reduced by a good seventy-five per cent. She couldn’t understand why the job I did required me to arrive home late some nights, extremely late other nights, and quite frequently not at all.

After a while the explanations began to wear a bit thin. It was a problem that wasn’t new to me; after all, there is a limit to the amount of times any intelligent girl will accept the excuse that one’s car has broken down, her feminine logic will cut across the problem with one clear solution: ‘Why don’t you scrap that old banger and get yourself a sensible car?’

To have my Jaguar XK120 referred to as an ‘old banger’ was hardly music to my ears, but for four months I’d been heaping the blame, quite unfairly, on the car’s shoulders, so Gelignite’s comment, in the circumstances, was perhaps not entirely unreasonable. At least, from her point of view.

It was clear from the message on the mirror that last night, my birthday, had seen the end of her patience. She had said she was going to cook me a special birthday dinner, and I had promised to be back by seven. After Whalley had left the Atomic Energy Authority as usual at five o’clock, I had gone over to Carlton House Terrace to check through a list of owners of dark-coloured Ford Capris with police or Intelligence files on them for whatever reason.

At twenty-five to seven, I got up from my desk. I had timed it so that if I left now, I should be home on the dot of seven. The phone rang. I was tempted not to answer it, but like a lot of people I know, I just can’t leave a telephone ringing.

‘Hallo?’ I said.

‘Daphne’s not going home. She’s heading down the M40.’

‘Shit.’ Why did Whalley have to pick tonight? Stupid miserable bastard! If he didn’t one day swing from the gallows for what he was doing to my country, he was damned well going to swing from his testicles for what he was doing to my sex life. ‘All three of you there?’

‘Yes, sir. Don’t worry.’