The answer, surely, lay with Henry Pritchard. Akuji seemed to be expecting a message from the PM, but according to the official programme no visit to Biafra was planned. Unless his entire trip to Nigeria had secretly been about meeting Ojukwu? Pritchard had denied that there had been a negotiating element to it back in London, but why else would the Prime Minister fly out here? So he could report to Parliament that he’d seen the war with his own eyes? To deflect attention from a Nigerian attack, as Radio Biafra had alleged? A peace mission made much more sense. He had even come with HMS Fearless, which he had recently used, albeit without much success, to hold talks with Ian Smith over the Rhodesian problem. A peace mission, then, with Pritchard the go-between setting up the meeting with the Biafran leader? Perhaps Akuji was the deal-broker; or perhaps Ojukwu was scared of being assassinated himself.

‘You British have a most amusing attachment to conspiracies, ’ Akuji was saying, but I didn’t have time for that.

‘You read history at Lincoln, Colonel. I was there a few years before you, but I imagine they still had that marvellous portrait in Hall of - ah, who was it of again?’

He opened his mouth, and for a moment I thought he was going to try to bluff me, but then he dipped his head and sighed deeply. It hadn’t been the most sophisticated ruse, and I’d been at Wadham anyway, but it had been enough.

‘Is that why you’re not wearing a mask?’ I asked. ‘So I could see how similar you are to Ojukwu?’

He nodded slowly.

‘Quite a risk,’ I said. ‘If you lose your hearing, you know where to come.’

‘The doctor warned me of the dangers,’ he said, somewhat sniffily. Then, his pride hurt: ‘How did you realize?’

‘I’ll come to that,’ I said, though I had no intention of doing so. ‘What made you so sure I was the messenger?’

‘Who else would you be? The message told me to expect someone to turn up here on Wednesday, and here you are. Granted, you were waylaid for a couple of days, but I knew the reason for that - the men told me.’

‘Waylaid?’ I said. ‘What do you mean?’

He gestured at the walls. ‘You’re ill, unless you hadn’t noticed!’

‘Not that,’ I said. ‘Not that. You said I was waylaid by a couple of days. But I’m not. It’s still only Wednesday morning.’

He looked at me quizzically. ‘Does British intelligence now train its agents to bamboozle its allies? Today is Friday.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Just after ten a.m.’

The walls suddenly seemed to be melting towards me, and all I could think of was Anna, on a roof, looking down at a black car with the Prime Minister in the back seat.