“The stuff! Because the base, even if it isn’t Majendie’s house, will be owned by someone, and that someone could be traced, ultimately. You can’t tether a helicopter in a field as if it were a goat. And that someone wouldn’t want the stuff, as you elegantly put it, brought anywhere near his property. Therefore you find a place which is lonely, but reasonably near the base—in case unpropitious circumstances arise, and either end needs to warn off the other at the last minute—and near the coast, so that you flit off English soil as quickly as possible to your prospective market.”

“Then you do think Majendie’s house may be the base?”

“Not necessarily. Kent offers other spots.”

“And what about the radar at Manston? Still, they don’t chase everything that crosses it. And is Richborough on the coast?”

Brett sighed: prompted by the same heaviness as had moved him earlier, when Beddoes had mistakenly assumed him to mistrust Kent’s efficiency. “The trouble is that the name Richborough is loosely applied to a large area, apart from the castle. Here, let’s get the map out. In the drawer—good. You see, the castle’s on the land side of those river cuts, right behind the railway, in fact. Easily accessible by road, however—I’m thinking of cars—”

“Taking the stuff to meet the heli. Well, what am I supposed to call it? Praeda?”

“On the other side of the river and the road, though, you see, Richborough is written right across the point, headland, whatever you’d call it. The land’s all golf course so they’d find it difficult to take a car through in the dark. There’s the coast guard rather nearer than they’d find comfortable, possibly caretakers or late workers in the factories—”

“Christmas carousal in the club house—”

“—and less features to guide them down.”

“Headlights,” Beddoes suggested, “if they could get cars through.”

“That’s not much. Whereas by the castle they could get their bearing from the lights of Ramsgate behind them, the road, the railway line—I know it wouldn’t be lit, but they could hang right over it to make sure—and look, those big drainage cuts. Anyway, Pink specified the fort area. And the different lettering of Richborough on the point is surely to indicate the whole area once comprised the Roman port.”

“Well?” said Beddoes innocently. “Who’s said otherwise?”