Kate paid for her coffee and approached him. He had his back to her. ‘Hi, Stuart,’ she said easily.

He spun around. ‘Kate!’

‘Were you expecting someone else?’

‘No, no.’

They embraced. Kate hugged him tightly as she very carefully slipped the package she had received from Danny before she left London into his coat. ‘I’ve just put a burner phone in your pocket with a battery strapped to the back. If you ever get a message from or about one of the kids, saying they have a fever or are unwell, throw your old phone away, move some distance from it, put the battery into this one and switch it on. It has an encrypted app called Signal and I will communicate with you via that. Got it?’

She released him, stepped back. ‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Sure?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Are you all right? You seem nervous?’

‘That’s because I am. This spy business might be second nature to you, but I can assure you it isn’t my natural territory.’

‘It’ll be all right.’

‘Will it?’

She touched his arm. ‘Yes. Trust me.’

He hugged her again. ‘I love you. Do you know that?’

‘I do, yes.’ She gently separated herself from him.

He was staring at the ground, avoiding her gaze. ‘You never say you love me back, do you know that?’

‘I’m not really in that head space just now,’ she replied.

He looked at her, his gaze an agonizing clash of hope and despair. ‘What can I do to make things right?’

‘Nothing. We’re doing everything we can. I’m not saying that everything we talked of in France is null and void, I just mean that I’m about to engage with your new overlords and I need every wit I possess about me. That’s all.’

He seemed unsure as to whether to accept this reassurance, if that was indeed what it was. ‘I understand,’ he said, though his demeanour made it abundantly clear he did not.

‘It will be over soon,’ Kate said. ‘I promise you that.’

Stuart turned away reluctantly. ‘They said I wasn’t to be around for the meeting,’ he said. ‘But good luck.’

‘Thanks.’

She watched him go, feeling a vague and queasy sense of guilt as she recalled last night’s visceral sex with a man practically young enough to be their son.

She kept her gaze on Stuart’s hunched gait until he had turned out of the square, then swung back towards the astronomical clock as it struck the hour.

Now that she had a few moments to think about it, Kate was aware of a slight flutter of nerves in her stomach. She was playing with fire and she knew it. But the agent who approached her was about the last candidate she might have expected in the tourist throng: a homely woman in beige slacks and a blue cardigan, with a warm smile and a chunky gold bracelet adorning an outstretched arm. She looked like a wealthy American tourist, which was perhaps the point. ‘Mrs Henderson?’ They shook hands. ‘I am Nina.’ She gestured at the square around them. ‘Did you have somewhere in mind?’