The call to Nazzar had achieved its single objective: to persuade Rose to assist me by proving I was on the side that deserved her help. She’d stayed at the hospital overnight, eventually distracting the policeman and the nurses on my ward with a dropped cup of coffee just long enough for me to bolt. The wires weren’t, it turned out, linked to a central bank: the room monitor bleeped feebly as Rose said it would when I peeled the pads off and then stopped abruptly as the unit’s machine-brain realized it was no longer hooked up to a human.

As I stood on the platform, the ward sister would have been cursing my accomplice for having ordered my transfer to another ward without filling out the proper paperwork. She could fret about finding me as the irate policeman jabbered into his radio; or, more likely, she would throw her hands up and tell him she had better things to do than unpick a consultant’s cock-up. But whatever she chose to do next, I would be lost in the system for a precious hour: a man who didn’t exist, nowhere to be found, in a bed that hadn’t been assigned.

When the police finally discovered that I’d flown the coop, they would issue a missing persons report. But with no photo, and limited manpower for migrant-hunting, the chances of them sweeping the station before departure were minimal. By the time they’d pulled my image from the hospital’s CCTV – if they even bothered to do that – I’d be in Paris.

What Nazzar chose to do next was anyone’s guess. The call would have been logged and recorded but not monitored – so there was no reason why any wires would have been tripped at his end unless he chose to raise the alarm himself. It could take days – weeks, even – for the call to be reviewed. Nazzar had taken chances on me before. Whether I made it on to the train or not would tell me whether he had again. I guessed he’d hold off until I’d fired a flare. As much as he was a an ally forged from the furnace of old times’ sake, he was a friend out of necessity, too. His necessity. If there was a problem with UKN, there was a problem for the Wing. And Jack Nazzar didn’t like problems. I knew he’d always vote for the most effective solution to deal with them – sanctioned or otherwise. He didn’t like politicians either.