His beer arrived and he acted like any other customer, looking at his phone and sipping at his drink. He was too well trained to look for his team. Even a quick glance of recognition would be picked up by an experienced watcher. He waited and he drank in a painful charade of waiting for a dead man—a man he’d liked—but no one showed. This wasn’t unexpected. The Pakistanis had probably never intended for someone to meet de Payns in person; what the ISI wanted was his face on camera.

The earpiece crackled briefly. ‘For Y from Jéjé,’ came Jéjé’s voice. ‘I have two guys at the north corner dressed in blue jeans, cheap leather shoes, dark jackets. Looks like they’re waiting.’

‘Copy from Danny,’ came Danny’s voice. ‘One grey Peugeot in front of the cafe, dark windows, rego 648 RGU 75. One guy waiting inside and looking. Nothing else.’

De Payns didn’t respond or change his demeanour. He’d spent half his adult life being followed.

At 5.21 p.m., with no one approaching him in the cafe, he left and walked to the Saint-Jacques Metro. He took two lines, emerging in the middle of Paris. He found a seat in a cafe on the edge of the Place de la République and waited there for ten minutes, then started to walk north-east, counting in his head. When he reached two hundred and sixty, he climbed the stairs with the tourists, turned right at the top and jumped on the back of a motorbike which started immediately and sped off into the traffic.