A message had appeared under the door sometime on the Tuesday – quite late in the day, just after dusk – telling them that they’d be moving that night, and sure enough, the two young Germans had turned up again. When they left the warehouse, there was definitely no one watching them: no suspiciously parked vans, no one strolling past, no sudden movement in the shadows. They made their way safely to where they were now: an accountant’s office on what she was told was the Viale Miramare, which was close to where the South African ship would sail from on Friday.

The office was actually quite comfortable, and at the back of it she and Palmer found a sofa and an easy chair where they could avoid the Germans for much of the time. The latest message had come this evening: an Italian man would arrive early the following morning saying he had a parcel for a Signor Giordano, which to her sounded like a line from one of those dreadful cheap novels her mother used to read. He would be there to make arrangements to take them to the ship later that day.

And now Myrtle realised she had decisions to make. She knew full well the Admiral expected her to return to England: her task had been to distribute the money to the Kestrel Line, to escort Edward Palmer to Trieste and to ensure he and Friedrich Steiner got on the ship and out of harm’s way.

‘I want them to disappear,’ the Admiral had insisted, more than once.

But Myrtle had begun to wonder whether she wanted to go back to England after all. It no longer felt like her country: she detested the place after its victory in such an unjust war. She hated the way people gloated about their triumph, and to cap it all, there was now a socialist government to make life even more intolerable. South Africa, she understood, was at least somewhere white Christians could still lead a decent life. And Palmer would be an agreeable companion. He was an intelligent man and an accomplished lover, even if he didn’t seem aware of that himself.

She’d withheld some of the funds for the Kestrel Line and had brought a couple of pieces of valuable jewellery with her. They’d get by in South Africa, and by the time the Admiral realised she wasn’t coming back, she and Palmer would have disappeared.

But before that, there was a further consideration, an unpleasant matter but an unavoidable one: what would happen if they were caught? The Admiral had been very clear about this: under no circumstances was Palmer to be captured alive. You know what to do, Myrtle.

But would she be able to go through with that? And what about herself – could she bear to be taken alive?

When it was over, it took Bartholomew a good while to make any sense of what had happened.

He was woken up by the Field Security Section duty officer to be told that something was happening on the railway line by Porto Vittorio Emanuele. By the time he appeared in the FSS office, it turned out that whatever was going on wasn’t on the railway line but on the road running parallel to it – Viale Miramare. Over the next few minutes, confusing reports came in from the British patrols on the scene. There’d been shooting in a building on Viale Miramare: a number of people were dead and some Slovenians had been arrested. He was putting on his coat and preparing to go to see for himself when another report came in: at least one British person had been arrested – and one more, possibly, was dead. It was then that Bartholomew muttered the word ‘Prince’.