The incident merited a small mention in El Faro. In Abyla, the “Stymphalian birds”, as Senator Zamora called them, had been forgotten as Emilio’s boat had been forgotten and it was the Straits Tunnel which once more dominated conversation.

Work on the tunnel was said to be on schedule. The confirmatory signal of the rock-boring machine could be heard through the night, and each night the churning rose a fraction in volume. For so long had this noise been part of the landscape, people no longer thought what it concealed was worth discussing. But what had been hidden below ground was shortly to emerge. In the Café Ulises, in the Club de Pensiones, in the streets and in the squares and on the roofs where children played hopscotch with pieces of brick, there was talk of little else but what would happen in August when the sovereigns of Britain, Spain and Morocco converged on Abyla, and Gibraltar and Abyla became International Zones; when Abyla became indisputably el puerto de Africa, the EC’s exit to the continent, the Hong Kong as well as the pearl of the Mediterranean.

So ran the advertisements on television and in El Faro and on posters skirting the plinth below Leopoldo Zamora. Posters which also announced the timetable of celebrations, these culminating in a spectacular feria de toros at which Abylans could see performing for the first time their very own matador, Periclito Merimée Amaral – otherwise billed as The Earthquake.

Under the dust Abyla stirred to meet this fate. The scaffolding was removed from the Casa de Gobierno and Santa Maria de Africa. Fitted with gala uniforms, the conscripts now marched along the Marina Española with purpose. There was water in the fountain in the Plaza de los Reyes.

And in the Plaza de Africa, smoking a cigar and fitted artfully into a new white suit, Governor Menendez presided over rehearsals of the ceremony at which as her earthly plenipotentiary he would remove the cane from the Virgin’s arms and present it on a red cushion to his sovereign, who would offer it in turn to the British Queen, the Moroccan King and a delegate as yet unspecified from Brussels where details of the International Zone awaited ratification.

There had been protests. Abyla Independiente marched through the centre of the city in a spiritless manifestación and a small bomb exploded opposite the Fosu de San Felipe, injuring an ice-cream seller. There the matter ended.

In the same week screams were heard on the harbour front where Sandra the Rapist was discovered by Captain Panteco affixed to the Italian Consul General. She was returned to the asylum in Calle Silvestre, resuming her place in the painting class beside Emilio’s mother.

“I see a Medal of Africa in this, Panteco,” his chief said to Panteco, who had gone to watch the fishing boats come in. “Plus citation.”

Cooped up in the ibis city, the diplomatic community grew steadily. Across the pool Wavery recognised the hirsute shoulders of Gabriel Volta, Sandra’s ultimate victim. They had served together in Phnom Penh and there was excitement in his greeting. His last post had been Mogadishu where he was said to have been apprehended sending good-luck telegrams to all four sides in the civil war. Volta had taken a suite in the Hotel Zamora while looking for accommodation. Although shaken by his experience on the quayside he considered himself otherwise fortunate. The hotel was accepting no further bookings until the autumn.