‘Cost you?’ replied de Payns. ‘Are we talking about those passports?’

Across the road a bakery van pulled up at the Odessa and a person emerged from the cafe.

‘You sold me out for three million euros?’ asked de Payns.

‘You weren’t supposed to be on that ferry,’ snapped Manerie. ‘As soon as you looked at our friend, it became a clean-up exercise. A person like that doesn’t like eye contact.’

De Payns’ brain roared. ‘I was supposed to die that night?’

‘Not my doing,’ said Manerie. ‘I told him there were five genuine French passports waiting in Palermo, and the handover meeting was set. Our friend decided to have a chat with Commodore on the ferry and instead finds himself being stared at by the DGSE. Not happy!’

‘Cagliari was a last-minute thing,’ said de Payns. ‘Commodore wanted me at a meeting. I joined him from Marseille.’

‘Well, he didn’t tell his handlers, and I guess he paid the price.’

‘But the money was going to Commodore …’

Manerie laughed, genuinely amused. ‘Three million euros, to a knucklehead like Michael Lambardi? Commodore was never getting that money.’

Manerie checked his watch and pulled out into the street, did a U-turn and headed back to where they’d started. De Payns wasn’t convinced. ‘I don’t see why you’d leave me or my family alive right now. What’s in it for you?’

Manerie’s smile was more to himself than for his passenger’s benefit. ‘You went and put a wrinkle in things with your little trip, and so for the next fourteen hours you’re not going to poke the wasp’s nest. That’s good for me, and good for you. I’m sure we understand one another?’

‘My little trip?’ de Payns remembered how Manerie had tried to work out where he was going, unsuccessfully. ‘You betrayed me in Islamabad?’

Manerie’s face changed into a rictus of hate. ‘Betrayed? Don’t you use that word with me, de Payns,’ he snarled. ‘I fought for France just as much as you and your glorious family, and I kept Mike Moran under my hat for years. Is that a betrayal?’

‘I never sold operational secrets.’

‘Fuck you, de Payns,’ snarled Manerie. ‘Moran is SIS. He’s a sworn officer of a foreign intelligence organisation.’

‘I declared the Morans when I first joined the air force and when I joined the Company. They’re friends of the family.’

‘You didn’t declare that you go drinking with Mike Moran four times a year,’ said Manerie. ‘Rule number one: Don’t get drunk with foreign spies.’

They pulled up outside de Payns’ apartment. ‘Five o’clock,’ said Manerie. ‘I’m still running security at the DGS, so I’ll know if you’re frightening the horses.’

De Payns opened the door, then stepped onto the road. Before he could say anything more, Manerie accelerated away.