By the time we’d climbed – carefully – into the taxi at The Lemon Tree he was so slick that, if I hadn’t known, I’d never have guessed he was carrying. In the security line outside the bar he was quiet and concentrated – a dignified ramrod trying and failing to make small talk.

‘This,’ he said, still unsmiling, ‘is absurd.’ His voice wavered with nerves. His fingers drummed the air by his sides.

‘It’s OK,’ I tried to reassure him.

‘I can’t do it,’ he blurted out. ‘Max, really …’

I put my hand on his shoulder, and gripped him tight. The couple in front of us turned to stare at him. I smiled and they looked the other way.

‘Five minutes,’ I hissed in his ear, ‘and we’re in. And then it’s off. It’s done.’

‘But …’

‘Baaz?’ I stepped back a fraction and looked him straight in the eye. He stared at the pavement. ‘Be cool, OK? You can do it. It’s all good. Everything’s going to be fine.’

He breathed out slowly. When his fingers stopped drumming, I saw that his hands were shaking.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘It’s OK. I’m OK.’ Then he turned around and his fingers resumed their silent dance.

The entrance was on the ground floor of an uninspiring modern block, fringed by a line of evergreens. The faint thumping of electronic bass trickled out into the street. Above the door a black 7 was embossed on to a bright yellow flame; in front of the door a thickset bouncer with an earpiece and a bulging suit waved down would-be punters with a handheld metal detector. The crowd was well-heeled and had a few years on the bright young party things we’d seen queuing up elsewhere from the taxi windows. The security check was so second nature it didn’t even interrupt conversation.

Baaz went first.

‘Ma kore,’ he greeted the doorman in Hebrew. Good evening. His nervousness manifested as arrogance. He fitted right in.

The bouncer’s reply was inaudible, but within another couple of minutes we were both inside the building.

‘Since when could you speak Hebrew?’

‘The waitress at the hotel. She’s been teaching me. Easier than French.’ He winked. ‘Good accent, eh?’