Trig post rendevous

Possibly, in the dim and distant past, Clair the Cape Queen was involved with adventurer/spy Modesty Blaise, whose continent-crossing crime-fighting set-up went under the name The Network. No pretence, no long-winded nonsense. The Network. End of.

Yes, there was plenty of international derring-do in the Modesty novels, a la James Bond, but also plenty of UK-set grittiness, the type more likely to be found in a Len Deighton work.

And who’s to say Clair the Cape Queen wasn’t once part of The Network? Wearing her late-’60s/early-‘70s Aquascutum cape she might very well have made a dash up the A1 in her Sunbeam Tiger (none of that Aston Martin nonsense here) from her London base on a Modesty mission.

Standing high up on the hills waiting to meet her contact there’s a proper 1960s spy air to the look. If it rained, Clair was protected against the elements, but she had an element of coolness that hints she’s a little more in charge than her contact might like to think…