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Now Bond paid attention. ‘Male, slim, blue jacket? Gold earring?’

‘Well, now, didn’t see the earring, did I? Eyes aren’t what they used to be. But you’ve got the general kit right. Hovered about for a while, then vanished like the Tablecloth when the sun comes out. You know what I mean: the fog on Table Mountain.’

Bond was in no mood for travelogues. Dammit, the man who killed Yusuf Nasad and who had nearly done the same to Felix Leiter had learned he was here. He was probably the man Jordaan had told him about, the one who’d slipped into the country that morning from Abu Dhabi on a fake British passport.

Who the hell was he?

‘Did you get a picture?’ Bond asked.

‘Drat no. The man was fast as a waterbug.’

‘Spot anything else about him, type of mobile, possible weapons, vehicle?’

‘None. Gone. Waterbug.’ A shrug of the broad shoulders, which Bond supposed were as freckled and red as the face.

Bond said, ‘You were at the airport when I landed. Why did you turn away?’

‘I saw Captain Jordaan. She never took to me, for some reason. Maybe she thinks I’m the great white hunter colonist here to steal back her country. She gave me a bloody tongue lashing a few months ago, didn’t she?’

‘My chief of staff said you were in Eritrea,’ Bond said.

‘I was indeed – there and across the border in Sudan for the past week. Looks like their hearts’re set on war so I tooled on up to make sure my covers would survive the gunplay. I got that sorted and heard about an ODG operation.’ His eyes dimmed. ‘Surprised nobody gave me a bell about it.’

‘The thinking was that you were involved in a rather serious op. Delicate,’ Bond said judiciously.

‘Ah.’ Lamb seemed to believe this. ‘Well, anyway, I thought I’d better race here to help out. You see, the Cape’s tricky. It looks neat and clean and touristy but there’s a lot more to it. I hate to blow my own trumpet, my friend, but you need somebody like me to weasel under the surface, tell you what’s really going on. I’m connected. You know any other Six agent who’s finagled local-government-development-fund money to finance his covers? I made the Crown a tidy profit last year.’

‘All went to Treasury coffers, did it?’

Lamb shrugged. ‘I’ve got a role to play, haven’t I? To the world I’m a successful businessman. If you don’t live your cover for all it’s worth, well, a bit of sand gets into the works and the next thing you know there’s a big pearl yelling, “I’m a spy!” . . . Say, you mind if we hit that minibar of yours?’

Bond waved at it. ‘Go ahead.’ Lamb helped himself to a miniature of Bombay Sapphire gin, then another. He poured them into a glass. ‘No ice? Pity. Well, never mind.’ He sloshed in a bit of tonic.

‘What is your cover?’

‘Mostly I arrange cargo ship charters. Brilliant idea, if I say so myself. Gives me a chance to hobnob with the bad boys on the docks. I also do a spot of gold and aluminium exploration and road and infrastructure construction.’

‘And you still have time to spy?’

‘Good one, my friend!’ For some reason Lamb started telling Bond his life story. He was a British citizen, as was his mother, and his father was South African. He’d come down here with his parents and decided he liked it better than life in Manchester. After training at Fort Monckton he’d asked to be sent back. Station Z was the only one he’d ever worked for . . . and the only one he’d ever cared to. He spent most of his time in the Western Cape but travelled frequently around Africa, attending to his NOC operations.

When he noticed Bond was not listening, he swigged at his drink and said, ‘So what exactly are you working on? Something about this Severan Hydt? Now there’s a name to conjure with. And Incident Twenty. Love it. Sounds rather like something from DI Fifty-five – you know, the characters looking into UFOs over the Midlands.’

Exasperated, Bond said, ‘I was attached to Defence Intelligence. Division Fifty-five was about missiles or planes breaching British airspace, not UFOs.’

‘Ah, yes, yes, I’m sure it was . . . Of course,