The boxes are heavy and the piles are unsteady, and for a second he thinks they might overturn, but the bookseller steadies the boxes.

They’ve shifted the stack enough that the bookseller can reach the knob and turn the lock. The door springs open into a dark and silent alley.

‘Hurry now,’ he hisses, pushing Jacob out of the doorway.

Jacob steps out into the shaded, dirty alley and turns back towards the door, looking at the bookseller’s face, sees him holding something through the gap. A thick, white envelope.

‘Take this,’ he says, shaking the envelope urgently towards him.

Before Jacob can say more, the owner has closed the door, and he’s alone in the tiny alley.

He thinks he hears the boxes being pushed back in place on the other side of the door, then he runs off towards the alley’s entrance. He hears traffic again, and that feels like his only salvation. A taxi. Somewhere to disappear.

He exits on to the street, turns back, and sees the alleyway door bursting open and one of the men in black storming out, followed closely by another.

They scream something and he sees their hands at their waistbands, sees them stop and pull out black steel and hold their arms up in front of them. Aiming for him.

‘Stop! Get down!’ they scream in what sounds like American English.

They’re twenty feet away from him now, and he holds up his hands to show he’s unarmed, still with the thick, white envelope in one hand. He should lie down on the ground, should admit to himself he’s not made for this. He should give up. But something inside him hardens. He feels a core now that wasn’t there before.

And then it’s as if time is standing still again. Like in the garden, as if the entire universe freezes. He turns his head, and sees an empty taxi right behind him.

‘Wait!’ he shouts at the men further down the street and takes a short step towards them.

They seem surprised that he says anything at all, that he’s making the first move and they answer something that he can’t hear. He turns around and tears open the door of the taxi that has just pulled up behind him and throws himself into the back seat.

‘Just drive,’ he screams in English. ‘As fast as you can.’

The driver turns around and looks at him, sees it’s serious and nods as if he understands. There’s a gap in traffic ahead of them, and he steps on the gas and the twenty-year-old Mercedes roars in protest, but finds some kind of power and speeds eastward as if it were brand new.