The living room, bathroom, kitchen and Baaz’s bedroom were all connected to an L-shaped hallway, at the long end of which a bolted, double-locked door led on to a landing that fell away down a steep twisting staircase to the main, intercom-operated street door one floor below. Rue du Texel was a narrow road in Montparnasse with no visible CCTV cameras, south-west of the graveyard, sandwiched between an imposing police station and the church of Notre-Dame-du-Travail – though as things stood, I doubted either of them would respond positively to a call to save our souls.

Downstairs there was a red-fronted café selling crêpes and sandwiches; opposite, half a city block had been levelled for development – affording a clear view from the living room of a swathe of dead ground. I’d rather have been higher – there were three floors above us – but otherwise it was as good a place to be holed up as any. Baaz wiped his fingers on the kitchen towel.

‘And you,’ he said, looking at me intently, as if making his mind up about something, ‘you’re the guy in the news, aren’t you? The one Interpol is after.’

‘I didn’t know they’d issued a Red Notice. But yes, I am.’

I sipped my tea. If he tried to run for it, he’d be on the floor before he crossed the room; if he went for the Grach, his arm would be broken before his fingers closed on the grip. I blinked and smiled.

‘You shot up that bar yesterday, too, didn’t you?’

‘No. I was the one being shot up. The bar got in the way.’

‘Well, the whole joint is messed up. There are pictures online.’

‘How many dead?’

‘Eight. Plus two more in intensive care.’

‘My photo in the papers, and the attack in the bar. Who’s connecting them? The press or the police?’

‘Neither,’ he said. ‘But I’m right, aren’t I, Max McLean?’

I nodded and put down my mug.

‘And the bike chase across town? I expect you looked that up, too. Has anyone released CCTV footage of that?’

‘I don’t think so. There’s some phone footage on the internet. Mostly rubbish. I didn’t know that was definitely you, though.’ He smiled, too. ‘You can’t see it clearly enough. Your face, I mean.’

I felt dangerously close to being played. But the truth was that, unlike Doctor Rose, in Ashford, Baaz didn’t need convincing of anything. He’d lived it. And he appeared, unaccountably, to be enjoying it – whatever it was.