He looked at me as if I were a toddler playing dress-up. Shook his head. ‘I rather think that the cinema will prove to be a backwards step for humanity in terms of the people’s satisfaction with their lives and their place in the world. The Americans have it so simple with their cowboy films. There is a hero and a villain and the hero wins, albeit with a little tragedy, a little suffering, along the way. We are not in the business of removing the villains from the earth. It is the duty of governments to sustain the status quo; to maintain a way of life, and where possible, not make things any worse. For forty years it has been our job to stop the spread of communism. We have had some successes and some failures, but our way of life has continued and I take comfort knowing that, the people like you and I, have played a small part in that. People like our mutual friend – they sieve the world looking for morality, for justice, for this naturally-occurring mineral of decency. They are all constructs, my dear. They are as much a fiction as compassion and decency. You and I serve the real world.’

I closed my eyes, bone-weary and sore all the way through. ‘He gave me the lighter,’ I said, sleepily. ‘Was he trying to save me or not?’

He finally popped a pistachio in his mouth. He grimaced and spat it discreetly into his palm. ‘He seemed to want to ensure you weren’t a victim to the fall-out of his actions. He wanted you to have plausible deniability. You weren’t involved – you even tried to alert your senior officers through the correct channels. He sent one of his zealots to stop you making it north. We’re all rather glad you did. The lighter had a tracker in it, I’m sure you’ve realized that. The man who came after you, the man from the train – he wasn’t entirely as loyal to our mutual friend as his other disciples. He feared that the so-called Angels were entirely committed to the operation – they really would have unleashed all manner of horrors. He was there to ensure it didn’t happen as our mutual friend intended.’

‘He’s with us?’

‘Us is a very nebulous concept.’ He smiled. ‘Suffice to say, you should be glad he’s a good shot, and a decent man.’

I watched him scoop up the shelled pistachios and tip them back into the paper bag. ‘These are yours, by the way,’ he said, chattily. ‘I brought them as a little gift – a source of sustenance to aid your recovery. I fancied that they might make a severance payment, a goodbye gift. But seeing you as I do, seeing the way you understand entirely what I am telling you – perhaps they are not the correct gift.’