My shoulders sagged. He was exasperating. And I was a fool for imagining his night-time scrawling amounted to anything more than a distraction. There was no silver bullet. All he’d done was to buy himself more time. I breathed out hard and clenched my jaw, trying my best to smile through my disappointment.

‘So, you came here why, exactly?’ I asked.

‘Because your friend told me to.’

‘My friend? What friend?’

‘The friend you spoke to from my flat in Paris.’

‘What, Ezra? He called back?’

‘No, I called him.’

‘You called Ezra?’ He was nothing if not unpredictable. ‘Why did you do that, Baaz?’

I tried and failed to imagine how that conversation had played out. Ezra’s promised ‘surprise’ had suddenly been realized.

‘Because I needed to talk to you and you don’t have a phone.’

‘Right. And you needed to tell me what? That you really like that number, but you don’t know what it means?’

He nodded.

‘And you told that to Ezra and he spoke to, uh, Talia, and that’s how you got here?’

‘No, I got here on easyJet.’ I stood up and slid open his wardrobe door. He looked at me warily. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Raiding your minibar.’

‘What for?’

‘A drink.’

I inspected the cabinet. Chivas Regal. Shit. I emptied one of the miniatures into his empty water glass, added some Evian from the fridge and swilled it across my teeth. It would do. I poured in a second miniature and pulled from my jeans the packet of Marlboros and book of matches that the Shabak agent had given me and shook out a smoke.

‘Get up,’ I said. ‘We’re going outside.’

I needed some air. And besides, I thought, most likely the Talias can hear every word we say in here.

‘OK then, clever clogs. If you don’t know what the number means, why bust a gut to find me? I need clear, simple answers. No “rhythms”. No “hymns of the gurus”. Just facts, all right?’

Three o’clock on a Wednesday morning and Tel Aviv was finally asleep. We were back on the terrace, sitting this time at a low table by the pool. The underwater lights had been switched off and the surface was inky black. It felt like we were at the edge of an abyss. Baaz had wound his hair up in a simple turban and looked more relaxed. I shifted on the cushions and felt the SIG dig into my spine. He’d come back unscathed from a journey he didn’t even know he’d undertaken. Perhaps we’d both been saved. I tore a match out of the booklet and struck it and lit a cigarette. Baaz moved away from me slightly and cleared his throat. I exhaled and waited.

‘The serial number,’ he said, ‘is 73939133. That’s obviously a prime number.’