‘No. I’ve memorized the numbers.’ Baaz raised his eyebrows as he pocketed the bill. ‘I’ll never work out what they mean, though – assuming there is anything to work out.’ We stood close, barely more than a foot apart. ‘You have my pistol, at the hotel. Leave it there. And don’t, under any circumstances, fuck with Talia.’ We both smiled.

‘Why are you giving me this? We’re a team, right?’

‘Right. And that’s why I’m trusting you. It’s why I told you everything. I doubt very much I’m going to make it up the steps to the hotel, which is why you’re going to turn around now and keep clear till dawn. Photograph both sides of the note, and then hide it. Send it to yourself encrypted, and then throw your phone in the sea. Once the Shabak has picked me up, Talia will find you and interrogate you. If you’re clean, she’ll probably just deport you.’

The alternatives to not being deported didn’t bear thinking about.

‘Well then, don’t walk up the bloody hotel steps. Problem solved.’

‘Trust me, Baaz. There’s no other way.’

I was expecting an argument. This time I held out my hand. He hesitated and then took it with a force that surprised me. His eyes had filled with tears.

‘How will I find you if I work out what the numbers mean? You don’t even have a phone.’

‘I’ll check in with our mutual friend in Sierra Leone. If you leave a message with him, I’ll get it. Eventually.’

‘Kushkismat,’ he said. ‘Good luck.’

I turned around to take a last look at him as he was walking away. After a few paces he stopped and turned, too.

‘Max,’ he said, cheeks wet, but with a strong voice, ‘I have to know. In the hotel … if you hadn’t, you know, seen the numbers. Would you have killed me?’

My shoulders slumped and I squinted at him through the gloom. I knew then that he’d be OK. He was a smart kid, canny. And though he had the frame of a boy, he was wiry and lean: a man, no mistake – however unlike me in the making. I’d trusted him with everything else. There was no point lying now.

‘Yes,’ I said, pulling my jacket tight to my chest. ‘I would have.’

He held my gaze for an instant and then set off, head down, towards the city. That was the trouble with the truth: once it starts, it’s hard to stop.