‘I have brought bread and sausage for our lunch, and Posip in a flask to keep it cool.’

‘Then we must eat it for our elevenses because I’m taking you out to lunch.’

This they ate in Dubrovnik after Racic had taken him to the island of Lokrum. Wexford listened with deepening interest to the boatman-professor’s stories. How the ease and wealth of the city merchants had led to a literary renascence, how Dubrovnik-built ships had taken part in the Spanish Armada, how an earthquake had devastated the city and almost destroyed the state. They set off again for Lopud, Sipan and Kolocep, returning across the broad calm waters as the sun began to dip towards the sea.

‘Does that little island have a name?’ Wexford asked.

‘It is called Vrapci, which is to say “sparrows”. There are thousands of sparrows, so they say, and only sparrows, for no one goes there. One cannot land a boat.’

‘You mean you can’t get off a boat because the rocks are too sheer? What about the other side?’

‘I will pull in close and you shall see. There is a beach but no one would wish to use it. Wait.’

The island was very small, perhaps no more than half a mile in circumference, and totally overgrown with stunted pines. At their roots the grey rock fell sheer to the water from a height of about ten feet. Racic brought the boat about and they came to the Adriatic side of Vrapci. No sparrows were to be seen, no life of any kind. Between ramparts of rock was a small and forbidding beach of shingle over which an overhanging pine cast deep shade. Looking up at the sky and then down at this dark and stony cove, Wexford could see that, no matter what its altitude, the sun would never penetrate to this beach. Where the shingle narrowed, at the apex, was a cleft in the rock just wide enough to allow the passage of a man’s body.

‘Not very attractive,’ he said. ‘Why should people want to come here?’

‘They don’t, as far as I know. Except perhaps – well, there is a new fashion, Gospodin Wexford, or Mister as I should call you.’

‘Call me Reg.’

Racic inclined his head. ‘Reg, yes, thank you. I like the name, though I have not previously encountered it. There is a fashion, as I mentioned, for nude bathing. Here in Yugoslavia we do not allow it, for it is not proper, not decorous. No doubt you have seen painted on some of the rocks the words – in, I fear, lamentable English – “No Nudist”. But there are some who would defy this rule, especially on the small islands. Vrapci might take their fancy if they could find a boat and a boatman to bring them.’

‘A boat could land on the beach and its occupants swim off the rocks on the other side in the sun.’

‘If they were good swimmers. But we will not try it, Reg, not at our age being inclined to strip ourselves naked and risk our necks, eh?’