The wind was picking up. I pulled my jacket tighter across my shoulders. Out to sea the sun was slipping into the Med. On the terrace it was time for a potentially lethal dose of truth. When my beer arrived, I ordered a double Johnnie Walker Black chaser.

I was going to need it.

An hour later Baaz knew everything except my real, Irish, name. I’d been careful with my parents’ details, too. But apart from that he knew more about me than anyone alive, except Rachel herself and, just maybe, Commander Frank Knight.

‘This information,’ I concluded with the same warning I’d begun with, ‘is a death sentence. Best-case scenario when we get out of this – if we get out of it – you’ll be given a new identity, a new life. Money, sure … but no more trips to see your auntie in London. No visiting your dad doing time in Chandigarh. No more trips to Chandigarh, period. Worst-case scenario, and I’ve been burned, permanently disconnected by London? That doesn’t bear thinking about. You understand?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I understand.’ He wrinkled his nose and picked up my glass of Johnnie Walker and sniffed the whisky. ‘But what I don’t understand is how you can drink this rubbish.’ He grimaced. ‘It’s disgusting.’

‘You and Commander Knight might get on, after all,’ I said. ‘Which is a terrifying prospect.’

I sat back in the chair, drained from unburdening myself, exhausted at the scale of the investigation ahead. Baaz, by comparison, was giddy, enthused with his new-found responsibilities. His mind was working overtime. His eyes flitted left and right, but no longer settled on mine. His fingers drummed the air again.

‘There are,’ he said at last, staring out at the darkened sea, ‘three variables we need to assign values to.’

‘That sounds optimistic.’

‘Variables,’ he said, emphatically, ‘not unknowns. If we can assign a value to the variables, we can calculate the unknowns.’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘OK,’ he conceded, ‘probably calculate them.’

‘Go on, then.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘you need to know who released your passport photograph.’

‘First of all,’ I corrected him, ‘we need to know. We’re a team now, remember? And second – that’s not a variable. I already told you, no one but Frank Knight could have done that. So, the question isn’t who did it, but why Frank did it.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s not correct. You assume he did it, but you discount the possibility of unknown factors that might mean he didn’t.’

‘Baaz, if this is going to work – between us, I mean – you’re just going to have to accept that there are some things I know that you don’t. And one thing I know is that no one except Frank Knight could have connected that passport photograph to my name.’

‘Totally …’

‘Thank you,’ I said, cutting him off.