‘Yes, do.’ The door opened wider. ‘Ah, Frank. Come in. We were just finishing up, weren’t we, McLean?’ We both stood. I rolled my shoulders and braced myself, though for what, exactly, I wasn’t sure. Frank Knight stepped into the room. ‘I’ll leave you two Irishmen to it,’ he continued. ‘But before I do, and seeing as we’re all here together, there was just one thing I wanted to double-check.’ He looked at Frank, and then at me, working out, perhaps, which one of us would lie least effectively. I was both flattered and appalled that he settled on me. ‘This Punjabi chap, the one who turned up in Tel Aviv.’

‘Baaz,’ I said. ‘Bhavneet Singh. What about him?’

‘Are you sure,’ he turned his attention to Frank, ‘are you both sure, that was his name?’

‘Yes,’ I said, also turning to Frank. ‘I’ve already been through this with Jack Nazzar on the evac from Tallinn.’

‘I see,’ said King, shooting his cuffs and adjusting his tie. ‘Or rather, I don’t see. See him, that is.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘Neither does anyone else, McLean. The address in Paris you gave for him? On Rue du Texel.’ I nodded. ‘It’s leased in the name of one “Pierre Shor”.’ I went to speak but he cut me off with a raised hand. ‘And there is no one – of either name – enrolled in Saclay University.’

‘I …’

‘And the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs,’ he continued forcefully, ‘could neither locate anyone in jail in Chandigarh who might be his father nor find any academic who might plausibly have been his professor.’

My mind raced. Sweat broke across my back. The centre of my chest throbbed with pain as my heart rate climbed.

‘An auntie. He said he had an auntie in London. I told Nazzar about her, too.’

‘I’m sure you will forgive our colleagues in the Security Service if it takes them a little longer than twenty-four hours to pinpoint that particular Mrs Kaur.’

In my mind’s eye I saw Baaz walking away from me in Tel Aviv and the scales fell from my eyes. Frank shook his head at me like a dissatisfied schoolmaster.

‘Fortunately, if somewhat embarrassingly,’ King continued, ‘the Israelis have found him for us.’

From a pocket inside his uniform jacket he produced a folded piece of paper. He smoothed it out and handed it to Frank, who passed it to me. He wasn’t wearing a turban, but it was Baaz all right, caught in three-quarter profile from above by a security camera – rucksack over his right shoulder, ball cap and upturned collar hiding his hair.

‘Haifa?’ Frank asked.