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country.
    'As I went away with my apples and cigarettes I was feeling disappointed, thinking that I was even further from getting Smales. Even if he had returned from Dunkirk then I had no more leave to find him. If he had stayed in France then he would soon be in a nice cosy prison camp for the rest of the war, doing fretwork and body-building. He wasn't the type to escape and certainly being inside was no change for him.
    'I had to go back to everyday police work, checking up on stolen ration books, questioning people who were reckoned to be signalling to enemy aircraft by opening their blackout curtains. Thrilling stuff like that. And there was, of course, the unending excitement of checking little old ladies and vicars to make sure they didn't have concealed guns or bombs.
    'In July I managed to get permission, after a lot of trying, to go back to Preston to interview Smales' family again. This time the journey took the best part of three days there and back and I was only in their house for twenty minutes. But I got something for my trouble. His mother, who wasn't too sure what was going on in the world, being a touch simple, let
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    it out that they had received word from the Red Cross that their Albert was a prisoner-of-war and in a military hospital somewhere in France, but she did not know where.
    'After that there did not seem very much I could do. I mooched around the army camp at Richmond Park and in the pubs in Kingston but it seemed that everybody was getting fed up with me and Lorna Smith. We were being a nuisance. Nobody seemed to care but me. My superiors even told me straight out to drop the case until after the war. And, in addition, it was very difficult to go asking questions around anywhere that particular summer, especially at military establishments. Twice I was arrested by the army police on suspicion of espionage.
    'Then came one of those twists of fate which change people's lives. In July 1940 there was a conference being held at the Military Staff College at Camberley in Surrey and all sorts of high-ups were there. Every day we expected the Germans to invade, although I personally did not, and this conference was to discuss resistance operations to be carried out if the enemy occupied Southern England. It seemed funny to think of the Germans taking over Kent and Surrey, although in the odd way I was thinking about things just then, it did cross my mind that if they did occupy this country then at least France and Britain would be under the same umbrella, so to speak, and it might well be easier to get Smales. I know it seems amazing now that I should have thought like that, but I certainly did, I remember clearly. Naturally I kept it to myself. If I'd have mentioned it to anybody I'm sure they would have put me in the Tower of London for treason.
    'Anyway, at this Staff College conference there was naturally a lot of security and I was given the job of keeping an eye on a man called Brigadier Elvin Clark during the off-duty time. He stayed at the Staff College but he went out to Virginia Water to dinner in a hotel a couple of times and once he got off early in the afternoon to have a game of golf. I can't say I was looking forward to this a lot because it was my job to stay with him all the time and I didn't fancy traipsing around a golf course. But there was nothing for it so I set out with him and the caddy. There was nobody else playing and he said he
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    did not mind because he quite enjoyed going around by himself. I made a bit of a joke about it, I remember, telling him that at least in that way you didn't get beaten. He asked me if I had played golf and I said I hadn't although I had played football for the Metropolitan Police team before the war.
    'It was a warm July evening and it was strange out there on the green fairways to think that the Germans had been sending over bombers all day and the sky had been full of dog fights. Even now the vapour trails of the Spitfires and Hurricanes