‘Of course,’ I said. And then, raising my glass to him: ‘Well, sláinte. Here’s to you.’

‘Khush rho,’ he replied in Punjabi. ‘Stay happy.’

‘Sure,’ I said, ‘I’ll drink to that.’ I downed the whisky and breathed out hard. ‘So, Baaz …’ He looked at me, wide-eyed, expectant. ‘Partners work as a team. They look out for each other. Right?’

‘Right.’

‘And we talked about this, about you coming here. And you agreed not to. Right?’

‘Right.’

‘So, what changed?’ I took a long swallow of beer. ‘I need to understand this, Baaz, because I won’t be able to protect you at all if you don’t do as we agree.’ He nodded again. ‘And I am thankful,’ I said quickly, ‘for the money. I couldn’t have done this – got here, I mean – without you. But …’ The situation was so preposterous I didn’t even know what to say. I took another long hit on the Goldstar.

‘But you’re scared I’m going to mess things up?’

‘Yes. No. Fuck it, Baaz! I’m scared you’re going to get killed. Or worse.’

‘Worse?’ He laughed and drummed his fingers in the air, plugging away at his invisible keyboard. ‘There can’t be anything worse than being killed.’

I gave him a hard stare.

‘You have a family. You might not like them very much at the moment, but they’re as much at risk as you are. How would you like to open the mail and find your auntie’s head in a box? Or your little sister’s fingers?’ He looked away, ashamed. I pressed the point home. ‘Baaz, I have no idea who is fucking with me – with us – or why, exactly. But trust me, of all the options on the table, you should be praying to your God to get you as far away from me as possible, not booking a one-way ticket to hell on bloody easyJet.’ His hands were shaking. He looked resolutely at the table. ‘OK, I’m sorry. That was harsh.’ I didn’t want to lie to him, but there was no other choice. I couldn’t protect him from the Russians any more than I could protect him from myself. By following me, he’d given me an unenviable choice. ‘We’ll work it out. Don’t worry. It’ll be OK,’ I lied. ‘But you need to start doing as I say, as we agreed. As partners. All right?’ I bent my head low and to the side, forcing him to look at me. ‘Baaz?’

‘OK,’ he replied after a pause. ‘Agreed.’

‘Cool, now drink up. We’ve got a long day ahead of us tomorrow.’ He brightened up at the thought of going on some damned fool mission and took a sip of the tea. ‘Leave it,’ I said. ‘I’ll order you dinner on room service.’

‘Thank you.’

‘Don’t,’ I said. ‘You’re paying, anyway.’