Grabbing a takeaway coffee, he headed for a side entrance where he could have a smoke, drink his coffee and see who was around. He walked to an alcove at the side of the main entrance and stood under a large analogue clock watching the taxis and the buses leaving and arriving. Two women in cafe-worker shirts were also in the alcove, and as de Payns lit up they crushed their smokes and headed back to work.

De Payns sipped at the coffee and thought about his family. Romy couldn’t call him when he was operational because he didn’t carry his personal phone when he worked. Six months after they were married, he’d explained this to Romy—separating himself totally from his family while he was in the field was a mandatory sanitation exercise to preserve her and, later, the kids. When he took on a fictive ID, he was someone else during the mission, and this fictitious person would not know Romy de Payns. She could call as much as she wanted but his cell phone would be in a cupboard in the DGSE safe house, with its battery next to it. They’d talked it through over a few wines, and he’d explained that if the temptation ever arose to send an email to her from a cyber cafe, it would be a huge mistake—one he would never commit. If he was under surveillance when he sent such an email from the field, it would give the bad guys the real ID of the operative and reveal the fact he had a family. And in de Payns’ world, family was leverage. Family was a vulnerability.

Romy was solid, like him. And like him, she’d spent her teenage years in a boarding school developing independence and discipline that matched her husband’s. With two children to protect, there was now no greater advocate of secrecy in France’s national security apparatus than Romy de Payns. In many respects she was more solid than her husband, especially when combining parenting with the demands of the DGSE.

There was a catch. Romy had gone back to university when their youngest, Oliver, started day care. Her PhD was going to be awarded in ten days’ time, on a Saturday night—the date had been seared in his brain because Romy’s parents were coming to Paris and they were all going out for a boozy dinner after the graduation ceremony.

De Payns nodded to himself as he exhaled a plume of smoke. The marital trade-off had always fallen in his favour. In the de Payns household, the Company came first. But this was one date that had to be honoured for Romy. This was her night. He took another sip of coffee and a man paused in front of him, pulling out a cigarette.