14.30 Arrive Enugu. Visits to the ICRC Rehabilitation Camp at Udi and to the British Child Medical Care Unit at Enugu Hospital.

19.00 Arrive Lagos by air.

20.30 Informal dinner with General Gowon at Dodan Barracks.

And so it continued, until he flew off to Addis Ababa on Monday morning. In four days, he would visit dozens of buildings and meet hundreds of people. Without anything more to go on, narrowing down the time and location of an attempt on his life would be impossible. But Pritchard was right: there must be a connection with Slavin’s move to defect, and as he had opened his negotiations by providing information about me, I wanted to know what it was.

‘Why is he bringing the Fearless?’ I asked Manning.

‘Show of strength,’ Pritchard answered, and Manning nodded vigorously.

‘Precisely. The Russians have been building up a presence in the harbour over the last few months, so this will put them in their place.’

I ruled it out as a possible target - it would be far too heavily guarded. From Pritchard’s dossier, I knew that Enugu and Udi were both former Biafran strongholds now in Federal hands. They also seemed unlikely; for propaganda purposes, Lagos seemed likely to be the Russians’ first choice. My instinct, for the moment, was that they would be keen to strike as soon after he arrived as possible - perhaps even at the airport.

‘Do either of you fancy telling me what this is all about?’ asked Manning.

‘Just stay here, Geoffrey,’ I said. ‘Look after the case, and if the police - or anyone else - arrive, come in and get us.’

‘Remind me,’ said Pritchard as we crossed the street. ‘What are you hoping to find?’

‘I’m not sure,’ I said. ‘I’m just worried I might have missed something.’ It was partly the truth - it had been niggling at me since I’d read the files Manning had brought me on the family - but it was partly because Pritchard was now going to follow me wherever I went, so I couldn’t go to the Soviet Embassy to wait for Anna. I wanted that meeting to occur alone. He hadn’t been that easy to persuade, but I had insisted that the security situation there would make us too conspicuous.

The boys stopped their game as we approached. The tallest of the group ambled over and stood between us and the front door, legs akimbo and arms folded.

‘We closed,’ he scowled.

‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘We’re looking for Mister Thompson-Bola. Is he in?’

He looked us up and down, and slowly shook his head.

‘It’s important,’ I said. ‘We want to talk to him about Daniel Talabi.’