Previously occupied by the Phoenicians, the Romans and the Vandals, Abyla enjoys a place in history as the site from which the Arabs launched their invasion of Europe in 711. Invited by Abyla’s governor to avenge his daughter’s rape at the hands of the King Rodrigo, the Arabs remained in Spain seven hundred years.

The enclave, a former Spanish penal colony, is nineteen and a half square miles, with a population of 60,000, one quarter consisting of immigrants from Morocco. The city remains the Headquarters of the Tercio (the Spanish Legion) and is consecrated to the Virgin of Africa who also acts as the community’s perpetual mayoress.

The port is one of the principal thoroughfares into Africa. Because of its duty-free status it is popular with day-trippers. Last year there were 2.3 million visitors, staying an average of three hours. The British Consulate was closed in 1980. No records exist for British resident passport-holders.

The yellow folder also provided background material on the tunnel, and a summary of the meeting held six years before in Marrakesh at which the original decision had been taken to construct a fixed link between Europe and Africa. Four hundred delegates had attended from thirty countries and several options were discussed. In a plan favoured by his King, the Moroccan Minister of Public Works proposed a bridge across the Straits. The Spanish delegate, in a proposal endorsed by the British contingent, argued for a modified version of the Anglo-French Channel Tunnel. A representative of Cuticle USA proposed the laying of a pipeline, eighteen miles in length and wide enough for the transit of two electric trains. The pipeline would be constructed of optic fibre, a material tried and approved by NASA and ten times cheaper than a tunnel, with no risk to navigation.

The Japanese delegation followed the debate with close attention. They wished to know who would bear overall responsibility and who would finance the project. The Chairman of SNED (Société Nationale des Études du Détroit) explained the project would be the joint responsibility of the respective British and Spanish authorities under the authority of the EC, but the finance would be raised from private sources. Here the Moroccan delegate made a formal protest. He reminded the conference that Abyla was regarded as part of Morocco and he requested them to confirm that any project would require the endorsement of his government which was known to welcome closer links with Europe (as was evinced by His Majesty’s repeated application for membership of the EC).

On 18 May 1988, the decision was taken to implement the fixed tunnel link, and for a feasibility study to be made with immediate effect into all technical, judicial and ecological aspects of the project, to be known henceforth as the Straits Tunnel.

5

The breeze flapped his shirt, blowing a strand of grey hair into his eyes and thinning the fog into mist. Wavery searched again for Africa. This time he found what he was looking for. It began as a solitary speck of white, suspended above the sea-line. More specks appeared, the whitewash of walls on a hill, and then the darker, higher watermark of a mountain. Above the mountain a thick black pall of smoke darkened the afternoon sun.