As the seconds passed, Ben became acutely aware of his predicament. All he knew was that he had to do what Paxton wanted. There was no choice. Paxton was no ordinary kidnapper. He was an ex-SAS colonel, and he knew Ben’s mind. He’d trained him, educated him, watched him grow into the soldier he’d become. There was no way to outwit him. The colonel had Ben sewn up tight.

Seven days to find something that had been lost for thousands of years, and he didn’t even know where to start. He picked up the tiny memory stick, held it in the palm of his hand and slipped it into his pocket, feeling his car keys still in there. He hefted up the drawstring bag full of money, slung it over his shoulder and left the house.

The street was empty outside. Ben walked over to the Mini, bleeped the locks and dumped the money on the back seat next to his overnight bag. Right away, he could see that someone had gone through his things. He checked. The Browning was no longer there.

He drove slowly, mechanically, back to his flat, parked the car in his usual spot in the underground lot, killed the engine and sat there at the wheel for a long time, staring blankly through the windscreen at the bare concrete wall in front of him. He knew he couldn’t bring himself to go up to the flat. Everything in there would remind him too much of Zara. The imprint of her head on the pillow. The rumpled sheets. Her damp towel in the bathroom. The lingering scent of her perfume. Her note, still lying there on the kitchen table.

He blamed himself. Why did you let her go?

He got out of the car and walked. He didn’t know where he was going. Up the ramp to street level, and he took a right and wandered up the alley. In a few minutes he was ambling numbly along Boulevard Haussmann, only vaguely aware of the people around him and the traffic streaming by. He kept walking. Crossed the boulevard and almost got mown down by a bus. He barely noticed it as it lurched to a halt a metre from him, horn blaring. He made it to the other side of the street and kept putting one foot aimlessly in front of the other.

As he walked, he put his hand in his pocket and held the memory stick tight in his fist. Somewhere inside the tiny electronic device, locked away behind an impenetrable curtain of secret codes and passwords and God knew what kind of techno-gimmickry, might be everything he needed to know. But there was no way in, no way to access it. He’d already tried. It was a dead end.

Unless…

He suddenly remembered. The slip of paper he’d found in Morgan’s blazer pocket. The grocery store receipt with the scribbled phone number. He’d completely forgotten about it, thinking it was unimportant. And maybe it was, but right now it seemed like the only scrap he had to go on.

But what had the number been? He struggled to bring it back. Forced his visual memory to cough it up. Nothing.

It was only when someone bumped into the back of him that he realised he’d stopped dead in the middle of the street. He stepped aside, muttering an apology.

He leaned against a railing. He felt sick, and it wasn’t just the after-effects of the tranquilliser drug. He watched as some pigeons strutted about the pavement, pecking in the dirt around a roadside tree.

Damn, the number wouldn’t come. It had been a British landline number-that much he could remember. But when he tried to focus on it, all he could see was Zara’s face in his mind. The knife at her throat. Berg’s impassive gaze. Paxton’s little smile.

The roar of traffic seemed to fill his head, making it feel as though his thoughts were being dissolved in a swirling mess of confusion. He felt feverish with it. His mouth was dry, his heart rate was accelerated, his hands were shaking. He was falling apart.

Damn you, Hope. Get it together.

He walked on, eyes to the ground, fighting to bring the number back.

Nothing.

Then his feet reached the edge of the pavement. He looked up, and suddenly he knew where he was. He’d walked all the way up to the Place de la Trinité. Ahead of him across the busy square, nestling behind trees, was the dome of the Trinity church. It somehow seemed to beckon to him.

He crossed the square, walked up the steps to the entrance and went in. The inside of the church was cool and dark and rich with the pungent smell of incense. His footsteps echoed off the time-smoothed flagstones and carried up to the vaulted ceiling as he made his way up the aisle and settled in a pew. The traffic rumble was far away. Diaphanous light filtered in through the stained glass windows. He bowed his head, closed his eyes, felt the serene atmosphere penetrate his senses, purge away the confusion and shine clarity into his thoughts.

He visualised himself in that stinking tenement building back in Cairo.

Finding Morgan’s blazer on the stoned-out girl with the angel tattoo.

Searching through the pockets back at Morgan’s flat.

Finding the crumpled piece of paper.

Reading the number.

Come on.

Reading the number.

Suddenly, it came to him. His heart jumped. He opened his eyes, grabbed a pen from his pocket and scribbled the number on the back of his hand.

He stared at it. Yes, it was right. He was sure of it. The area code was 01334, but he’d no idea where in the UK that was. Then there was the main body of the number, and then the three-digit extension, 345. That part had been easy to remember.

He stood up. Stronger now, somehow. More focused. Clearer.

He walked out of the church, leaving its cool serenity behind. The building was surrounded by pretty, well-tended gardens railed off from the street. The trees rustled lightly in the breeze, and little sparrows hopped across the lawns. Ben headed for an old wooden bench under a gnarly oak. He sat down on the edge of it, took out his phone, glanced again at the number on his hand and punched it out on the keys.

After four rings his heart was already sinking. Maybe this wasn’t going to lead anywhere. Maybe the number meant nothing. If the junkie girl had been wearing the blazer for a few days, the piece of paper might have been hers. Doubts gripped him.

On the sixth ring, an answerphone cut in.

‘University of St Andrews. Faculty of History,’ said the female voice on the recorded message. She spoke with a lilting Scottish accent. ‘If you know the extension number you require, please enter it now. Otherwise, please hold for an operator.’

This didn’t sound like a contact a Cairo dopehead would have. Ben entered the extension and waited. Then swore under his breath as another answerphone kicked in after a couple of rings.

‘Hi, you’ve reached the voicemail of Dr Lawrence Kirby. I’m not around right now, so please leave your message-’

Ben killed the call before he got to the beep. So now he knew whose number he had. This was suddenly looking more promising. Maybe not much, but better than nothing.

Leaning back on the bench, he did an Internet search on ‘Dr Lawrence Kirby, St Andrews University’. His phone’s search engine took him straight to the Faculty of History website, where he found Kirby listed in the directory of staff members. He clicked on the name, and a thumbnail photo appeared with a two-line bio. The picture showed a somewhat bemused-looking, pasty-faced individual who hadn’t shaved that morning. He had a wild shock of black hair, a tuft of it hanging down across his brow.

Ben gazed at it. Is this fucker going to be any use to me? he wondered.

He laid the phone down next to him and took out his cigarettes and lighter. Lit up, watched the smoke curl away on the wind and tried hard not to think of Zara. It didn’t work. He finished the cigarette and went straight into another. After a few minutes he snatched up the phone and dialled Kirby’s number again.

This time, there was no answerphone, and it kept ringing and ringing. Just as he was about to hang up, a man’s voice answered breathlessly, as though he’d been running to get the call.