‘Morning, Scobie.’

‘I was on my way to fetch you, Professor Wilde. Tried calling through, but the lines are down.’

‘Something up?’

‘Couple of visitors to see you, sir. Mr Eaton and an American gentleman named Cashbone. I’ve shown them through to the combination room.’

Eaton? He knew Philip Eaton well. He also knew that his arrival was never accompanied by good news. The urbane Mr Eaton was a senior MI6 officer. He never made social calls, which meant he wanted something.

The name Cashbone, however, rang no bells.

‘Thank you, Scobie. Perhaps you’d organise some coffee?’

‘Of course, professor.’

Wilde changed direction. The combination room was next to the Hall. What in God’s name, he wondered, did Eaton want with him this time?

As he opened the solid oak door he saw that the ancient panelled room had only two occupants. They were standing by the central table near some upturned sherry glasses and were inspecting the contents of the betting book with evident amusement. Both men turned his way as he entered. Eaton smiled.

‘Wilde.’

‘Hello, Eaton.’

He looked a great deal healthier than the last time they’d met, when Eaton was battling to recover from a dreadful incident in which he was hit by a speeding van, losing his left arm and badly injuring his left leg. A lot of the colour had come back to his cheeks. But as he moved towards Wilde his lameness was still painfully obvious.

‘Let me introduce Bodie Cashbone, a compatriot of yours,’ Eaton said. ‘New military attaché at the US embassy. Attached to the COI. I don’t believe you’ve met.’

No, Wilde, thought, looking Cashbone over. Standing a head above Eaton and with the girth of a shire horse, he was not the sort of man you could easily forget. Clearly, the American visitor liked his T-bones big, but despite a double chin, he was curiously handsome for such a large man. His thick hair was well cut and he had warm brown eyes. Wilde guessed his age at mid-thirties, but it was hard to tell. And here in Cambridge, England, in the chilly month of November, his glowing tan told the world he was newly arrived from warmer climes.

The newcomer’s meaty paw shot out.

‘Professor Wilde, it’s my pleasure, sir.’

They shook hands. ‘Likewise, Mr Cashbone.’

‘I believe we have a friend in common – Jim Vanderberg. We spent some time together in the State Department before his London posting.’

‘Ah, Jim? How is he? He said he’d write but the mail doesn’t seem to be getting through these days.’

Jim Vanderberg was his oldest and closest friend but, since late 1939, he had been working at the depleted United States embassy in Berlin. The ambassador had been called home three years earlier in protest at the Jewish pogrom that had come to be known as Kristallnacht – the night of broken glass. Since then, a chargé d’affaires had been left in control and Vanderberg was one of the few senior men left there.