I took a roundabout route on foot. Now and again I stopped and lingered in a shop doorway, seemingly to examine some item of interest. But the only interest I had was in watching who or what was moving in the street. A woman weighted down by bulging hessian shopping bags. A waiter scurrying with a bottle of champagne in his hand. A black-robed priest and nun deep in conversation. A child who regarded my scar with interest. An old dog already too hot to growl at a stranger.

No one whose face I knew.

André was right. I was nervous. No reason to be. Was there? I was just delivering a letter, but my heart didn’t get that message. It was kicking against my ribs like a jackhammer, until the moment when I spilled out of the maze of cramped streets and emerged from the Rue des Arènes into the wide-open space where the ancient Roman amphitheatre reared up in all its monolithic glory. Every time – every single time – it had the power to reduce me to tears.

I strolled along the raised road opposite the arena and slid into a seat in one of the pavement cafés as if I had no particular aim and all the time in the world. A few tourists ambled past, popping in and out of the souvenir shops, but no one glanced my way. The amphitheatre was the main attraction.

I ordered a pastis, despite the early hour. I liked the milky soft yellow liquid and sipped it slowly while I inspected my surroundings. I had a good view from up here on the raised road. It ran alongside a section of the amphitheatre and I watched every person who strolled past or who stood gawping at the massive stone construction opposite. I studied them. Committed their details to memory. So I would know them again.

I was calm now. The jitters gone. This was the kind of work I’d done a hundred times for Clarisse in Paris. Observation. Patience. Timing. Action. Retreat. But when I worked for Clarisse a life was not at stake. It was the Roman amphitheatre that had brought a sense of perspective into my mind. Each time I came near it I felt the hairs on my arms rise, it was so awe-inspiring. It was a two-tiered gigantic stone construction 140 metres long, with seating for over twenty thousand screaming spectators, adorned by one hundred and twenty exquisite arches, plus three towers as a medieval add-on.

It was a place built for death. Death and chariot races. And now used for bull ‘games’. Was it all the dead souls within its arena that gave it its power? Was it sitting there in the sun, waiting for more?