Much of what I came to know about Ignatius Donovan accrued incrementally over the months that were to come, so on this first meeting I knew nothing about him except what I saw standing in front of me and what he bothered to reveal. Of average height but broad in the shoulders and probably aged in his mid to late thirties, he looked like a man who could push open a shut door and the expression on his face created the impression that he was permanently willing to do so, and in fact would have preferred that means of gaining entry as opposed to merely turning the handle. He had a sandy-haired crew cut and, despite the paleness of the rest of his skin, was red-faced, splenetic as if he’d stood too long looking up at the sun. He had a habit, too, of sniffing and on that first encounter and in the absence of a handshake it felt as if he was evaluating me by scent.

‘Michael Miller?’ he asked and, when I nodded, requested my ID.

He inspected it longer than seemed necessary, even looking at me in a way that suggested he was verifying the photograph in case I was an impostor; then, without introducing himself, turned on his heels and silently beckoned me to follow him. Along the corridor he stopped to glance into various offices, but clearly none of them offered what he was looking for and, turning to me, he said, ‘We’ll take a stroll, Mr Miller, shoot the breeze as we walk.’

He subsequently told me none of this but in the months to come I learned that he was a senior CIA analyst, Boston Irish, third-generation police who wanted to expand on his traditional family pathway and who had graduated with some distinction from the Foreign Service to his present post. He assumed I too was an Irish Catholic and looked at me in seeming disbelief when later in conversation it came out that I was a Presbyterian and my family’s origins were from the north of Ireland rather than the south. I remember the moment clearly because for a second I thought he was going to throw me over and as he sniffed a couple of times it was if the smell of betrayal was in his nostrils. I almost apologised but instead made a joke about our ancestors both fleeing the Penal Laws. He didn’t laugh or even smile and for a couple of days it felt as if he was reassessing me, weighing up whether his unexpected discovery made any difference to things.

But on that morning we walked and eventually ended up in an almost empty café where we took a table in a shaded corner.

‘So you must have worn a good shine on the seat of your pants by now,’ he said in between sipping his coffee and still inspecting me in an undisguised way that was unsettling and left me nervously thinking of an appropriate answer. When I said nothing in reply, he paused a little before saying, ‘You’re going to be working for me, helping where and how you’re needed, and whatever that is doesn’t get shared with anyone else. You understand?’