Seating for visitors to Bouras’s office comes in the form of a buttoned-leather sofa said to have been imported from Italy. It looks expensive but is notoriously uncomfortable. The general belief is that the Director enjoys watching his underlings try to remain upright on its slippery upholstery. Taleb assumes an unabashed slump between two cushions that he knows from experience to be a secure perch.

It affords a good view of a white rectangle on the wall behind Bouras’s desk, marking the spot where for twenty years hung a framed photograph of President Bouteflika. Following Bouteflika’s forced resignation in the face of the Hirak protests last year, it has not been replaced, despite the election of a successor. Its absence suggests a certain lack of confidence in the new regime, which Taleb shares.

‘How old were you at independence, Taleb?’ Bouras asks, as if genuinely interested in the answer.

‘Seven, Director.’

‘Do you remember the day?’

‘I remember my father smiling. It was not a common sight.’

‘Did he smile more often after independence?’

‘Less, if anything.’

‘So, there we have it. The history of the republic encapsulated in the history of your father’s smile.’ Bouras broods on this thought for a moment, then says, ‘Do you believe in the existence of hizb fransa, Taleb?’

‘No, Director, I don’t.’ Unlike many of his countrymen, Taleb gives no credence to the conspiracy theory that the French left a fifth column of saboteurs behind them when they left in 1962 - hizb fransa, the ‘Party of France’ - dedicated to undermining the new republic in any way they could. He believes that if de Gaulle had been able to pull that off, the old fox would surely have found a way to prevent independence altogether.

‘But if it did exist,’ Bouras muses, ‘it would account for the damage done to the state by such people as Nadir Laloul and Wassim Zarbi, wouldn’t it?’

‘Have you asked to see me to discuss Laloul and Zarbi, Director? If so, let me be clear. They and their kind have always been motivated by personal greed, not the service of some higher cause.’

‘Didn’t they start out as zealots rather than criminals?’

‘Perhaps. But it didn’t take them long to make the transition.’

‘And in Zarbi’s case he paid for that with twenty years in prison.’

‘Yes. He paid the price. But Laloul did not.’

‘Which still rankles with you, I see.’

‘I would be happy to bring him to justice before I retire.’

‘Well, then … ’ Bouras beams at him. ‘I have good news for you, Taleb. You may be able to do just that.’