Since coronavirus made its impact on the country in March, HQ has been more thinly staffed and there has been markedly less crime to investigate for those officers still putting in an appearance. The Hirak protests have been stutteringly revived, but they lie well outside Taleb’s area of responsibility. Though he could not afford to say so at the time, he heartily approved of the organizers’ demands for a root and branch reform of the government and silently rejoiced when President Bouteflika gave way to pressure and resigned. Alas, many of Bouteflika’s apparatchiks remain in place and Taleb is surprised they have not yet concluded that the time really has come for him to retire. It’s hardly their fault he has very little to retire to, although that is in a sense an arguable point. Like so many of his fellow citizens, Taleb is as much a victim of history as a survivor of it.

Much the same could be said of his relationship with Nassim cigarettes, one of which he lights to relieve his boredom. He rises and moves idly to the window, where he gazes down into the street and discovers that very little appears to be happening in the outside world.

Glancing at a ghostly reflection of himself in the dust-filmed glass, he sees a lean, heavy-browed man with thinning curly grey hair, dressed in a crumpled brown suit and a faded yellow shirt, open at the neck. He should be wearing his tie, in case anyone calls in to see him. But no-one is going to call in to see him. Friends made in earlier days in the service are all either dead or long retired. He’s a forgotten man.

But not by all, apparently, since at that moment his telephone starts to ring.

With an eagerness he feels ashamed of, Taleb springs to the desk and picks up the receiver.

‘Taleb?’ The voice sounds unaccountably but unmistakably like that of his boss, Director Bouras, who should surely at this hour be in the arms of the mistress he’s reliably rumoured to keep in an apartment in the Oliviers district. But then maybe he is in her arms. Taleb amuses himself for a fraction of a second by wondering if he will hear some purring endearment in the background.

‘Yes, Director?’

‘Are you busy?’

‘Not if you need me.’

‘Amazingly, Taleb, it seems I do.’

‘Are you in your office, Director?’

‘Where else do you think I’d be?’

‘Well, since you rang in person … ’

‘My secretary is not in today.’

‘Of course. Well then … ’

‘You’ll be here just as quickly as your emphysemic lungs will allow, yes?’

‘Yes, Director. Exactly.’