The other seven seats were empty. It took a day and a night of reasoning and bargaining, but in the end Baaz saw sense. Or at least he said he saw sense. At first I reminded him that Indians couldn’t travel to Israel without a visa: a plausible argument, until he produced a British passport. Then I put the frighteners on: to which his only response was to make more tea. In the end I tried the oldest trick in the espionage handbook: flattery. I convinced him that he was more use to ‘the operation’ in Paris than he was in Tel Aviv – a secret, secure comms base that I could call on if the going got rough. What he got from me was the promise of teamwork – in spirit, if not in person. He sulked for a while, and then grudgingly accepted the wisdom of it. I knew the sting of disappointment would fade faster than that of a 9mm round.

What he didn’t get was a guaranteed repayment plan. But like he said himself, while I waited for Ezra to send the car to the Best Western hotel at the southern end of Rue du Texel, ‘It’s all just Monopoly money, anyway.’ He converted his ‘winnings’ – as he called them – into fiat: actual dollars, in an actual, numbered Swiss account, which he could spend as he liked. I asked him if a withdrawal could give away his identity to anyone inclined to investigate. He drummed the fingertips of his left and right hands together, frenetically. It wasn’t where you banked that compromised your anonymity, he said, so much as where you were from.

‘If you’re American and you bank in Zurich,’ he summed up, ‘you’re fucked. If you’re Indian, you’re sound.’

I was banking on a long shot: that when I found Rachel, she would believe me; believe in me. The thread that connected us as kids had unravelled across a lifetime of secrets and lies. I hoped it had not yet snapped. When I stripped away the uncertainties of the lethal money-go-round, all my mission amounted to was convincing Rachel that I hadn’t killed Doc – and that whoever had might be after her next. At best, I was one day ahead of an enemy as tangible as a ghost.