And then, as the traffic momentarily clogged preventing our progress, I wanted to ask him about Tuyen and what penance could be done for what to me seemed like a very real sin, but I wasn’t brave enough.

‘Have you even experienced what’s on offer in Saigon?’ he suddenly asked, glancing at me. ‘Maybe that’s a sin would be good for you. We could go to the Miramar or even Mimi’s, get you fixed up for the night. An old hand or an innocent fresh up from the country – your choice. What do you say? Get some of that starch out of your shirt. Help you lighten up, give you a clear head for what’s about to come.’

I declined, frightened of what penance I would have to pay permanently, and he simply shrugged, making no further effort to persuade me. Outside my apartment block he stopped without turning off the engine and as I was getting out he said, ‘Change your mind and I’ll take care of things for you. Discretion part of the service.’ Then he was gone, and for a few seconds I stood watching as black pulses of bats swooped into the emptiness of his wake.

I didn’t get to leave Saigon without meeting my designated enemy face to face and in ways I had never anticipated. The first time was when I was summoned via Greenberg to meet Donovan close to our office.

‘So he’s found work for you,’ Greenberg said as he told me about Donovan’s phone call.

‘Mostly just bag-holding,’ I said, trying to look nonchalant. ‘Nothing very spectacular.’

‘And nothing dangerous, I hope,’ he said, the final word a susurration that was almost part of his breathing.

‘No, nothing dangerous,’ I told him, anxious to be gone and increasingly conscious of my previous intrusions into the space we now shared.

‘Danger follows men like Donovan. They attract it,’ Greenberg said, looking intently at me. ‘Sometimes I think they enjoy it because it allows them to be who they are. They need wars to thrive – it’s their perfect environment. Don’t you think?’

I didn’t know what to say so gave a non-committal nod and when he said nothing more I turned to go.

‘Michael, I told you once to be careful and I’m telling you again. I can’t claim to know you well but I know enough to see that, like me, you’re in the wrong place. And I don’t know where your right place is, or whether like Meaulnes you’ll struggle to find it, but it isn’t here or with people like Donovan.’

‘I know that,’ I said and I thanked him, conscious even as I did of my betrayal.

Yet, as I walked out of the building that morning, I wondered if we were both wrong and whatever it was that existed in people like Donovan was a necessary force and its absence in us was the deficiency that would prevent us inheriting the earth, imposing on it any of the things we clung to and told ourselves were right. And as I headed to the corner where he stood smoking a cigarette, with his back leaning against his car like a bored taxi driver, I tried to focus on the things I hated about him and so bury the embarrassed awareness that at least part of me wanted his approval, wanted to be seen to stand up in whatever ways were straight and true.