It was a standard opening, but then Portmann got to the point. ‘Three million euros is a lot of money for a commander at the Company, n’est ce pas? Could you do with that kind of pay-day?’

De Payns shrugged.

‘You were offered three million euros for five French passports,’ said Portmann, holding up a printout of de Payns’ report on Operation Falcon. ‘And you declared them destroyed.’

‘I did destroy—’

‘They were real French passports, Alec,’ said Laval, his slab-sided face making him look like a farmer without a tan. ‘They had to be good enough to pass muster with Sayef Albar …’

‘… and to keep your head on your body,’ Portmann finished, with an unnecessary flourish.

‘I know what Falcon was all about, thanks, gentlemen,’ said de Payns.

‘Good to hear,’ said Portmann. ‘So when Falcon was a bust, what did you do?’

‘I destroyed the passports at the wharf adjacent to the Palermo ferry terminal.’

‘How?’ asked Portmann.

‘Tore the pages and the covers into thirty or forty pieces, ensured they went into different garbage bins.’

‘Who was with you?’

‘No one.’

‘Who saw you?’

‘No one.’

‘You can confirm that?’

‘No.’

‘You didn’t sell them to this Murad?’ asked Laval, blue eyes narrowing with suspicion as he looked down at de Payns’ report. ‘Three million euros. Pas dégueulasse!’

‘I don’t need three million euros,’ said de Payns, instantly realising the conversation had been herding him there.

‘Really?’ snapped Laval. ‘What about that apartment of yours?’

De Payns sighed. ‘What about it?’

Laval sneered. ‘You don’t have a Ministry-subsidised apartment.’

‘No, I don’t,’ said de Payns, suppressing his desire to say, Because cocktail-sipping cocksuckers like you spend your careers jockeying for the best government-owned Paris apartments.

‘Paris is expensive,’ Laval remarked. ‘Especially when your wife wants to live in the fourteenth.’

De Payns said nothing.

‘Three-quarters of your income goes on housing,’ Portmann said. ‘Your wife doesn’t work.’

‘And she spent the last year doing a doctorate at the Sorbonne,’ Laval added.

De Payns knew what they were saying. ‘My wife’s smarter than all the IQs in this room added together, and she’s got a piece of paper from the Sorbonne to prove it. So what’s your point?’

‘My point, Alec,’ said Laval, ‘is that you have one government income, you’re living in Montparnasse and your wife’s tuition fees must hurt.’

‘And then an Italian migration agent offers you three million euros for a packet of genuine French passports,’ said Portmann. ‘Passports that you conveniently have to throw away anyway because an operation went sour.’

De Payns levelled a flat, dangerous gaze at Portmann. ‘Two people died that night—“convenient” might be the wrong word to describe what happened.’

Portmann broke the eye contact and cleared his throat.

De Payns continued. ‘I know what Commodore offered and I declared it.’

‘Who pays for the Montparnasse apartment?’ asked Laval.

‘I have a living-in-Paris allowance,’ said de Payns.