He had only been seated for a few minutes when a man of Middle Eastern appearance walked up to his table and asked, in good English, what Kite was reading. He had short, curly black hair and was clean-shaven. A slight hare lip gave his face an undertow of menace, but he was not physically imposing. He was wearing stonewashed denim jeans, Reebok trainers and a pale green shirt from Benetton.
‘Papillon,’ Kite replied quietly. He did not want to get into a long conversation with a stranger who was probably interested only in selling him counterfeit tapes or sunglasses.
‘You are English?’
‘Scottish.’
‘Ah! Scottish!’ Kite sensed that it would be some time before the man left him in peace. ‘Sean Connery! Robert Burns! You wear kilts, yes?’
‘Every day.’
The man laughed uproariously, repeating the words ‘Every day’ several times until he had calmed down.
‘And you are on holiday here in Cannes? You have come to France before?’
Kite’s antennae twitched. Who was this guy? What did he want? On closer inspection, he didn’t look like a salesman. He wasn’t carrying a suitcase full of shades or videos. His eyes were sharp and intelligent, his hands and clothes clean. There was about him a kind of fanatical intensity which Kite was wary of.
‘My first time. I’m here with friends.’
‘What friends, my friend? Where they from? Scotland too?’
Kite suspected that the man knew who he was and had followed him from the beach. He pulled his café au lait towards him and said: ‘Tell you what. What can I do for you? I just came in here for a quiet cup of coffee.’
‘You are friends with Ali Eskandarian, yes?’
The blood must have drained from Kite’s face because the man smiled reassuringly and offered to shake his hand.
‘It is OK, my friend. I am not here to harm you. My name is Bijan. I am an Iranian. I live here in Cannes. France is my home.’
‘How do you know Ali?’ Kite looked around the café to see if anyone was watching them. It’s always the person you least expect, Peele had told him.
‘I recognised him. Let us just say that. And I wonder what a nice Scottish man like yourself is doing with this person. He is a friend of yours, you say? Of your family?’
Was this a game? Was Strawson orchestrating another test of Kite’s nerve? Kite again scanned the café. A young family were eating ice creams two tables away. A workman was drinking a balloon of cognac at the bar. An elderly man and woman were playing cards in the corner. Out on the street, pedestrians were walking past carrying beach towels and bags of groceries, a drop-kick terrier yapping on the end of a leash. Kite tried to assess if anyone was standing around, someone who looked edgy or out of place. There didn’t appear to be anybody. Peele had taught him how to remember repeating faces, how to recognise unusual behaviour on the street, but Kite hadn’t taken much notice of the lessons because he had been reassured that his work in France wouldn’t involve anti-surveillance of any kind.
‘Ali is a friend of the family I’m staying with,’ he replied, wondering if he had already admitted too much. ‘I don’t really know him. We only met two days ago.’
Without being invited to do so, the Iranian drew up a chair and sat opposite him. He squinted slightly against a beam of bright afternoon sun flooding in through the window and moved his head into a patch of shade. Only when he was satisfied with his position did he say: ‘May I join you, please? This is permitted?’ and signalled to the waiter to bring him a coffee. Kite was now too intrigued to object. He wanted to know why the man had cornered him and what he knew about Eskandarian.
‘That’s fine,’ he said.
‘You really do not know him,’ Bijan replied, touching the scar on his lip.
‘Excuse me?’
‘If you did …’ He reached for the copy of Papillon and turned it in his soft, unmarked hands. ‘If you did know who he was, you would not spend time with him. You would not eat with him or allow your sisters to be in such a man’s company.’
Kite was going to say: ‘They’re not my sisters’ but thought better of it. Instead he took out a cigarette, offered one to the Iranian, and for reasons which he afterwards could not properly explain, gave Bijan a false name.
‘I’m Adam.’
‘Adam who?’
‘Let’s just leave it at Adam. What do you want from me?’
‘How much do you know of life in Iran today, Adam?’
‘Not much.’
‘Don’t you think that an intelligent young man like yourself should know more about my country when you are spending so much time with one of its most influential citizens?’
Kite wondered what he meant by the term ‘influential citizen’, but said: ‘I’m not spending all that much time with him. I’m just on holiday.’
Bijan shook his head, thanked the waiter as he put an espresso in front of him and said: ‘So you would like to know more?’
It sounded like a sales pitch, though there was a sudden emptying out of Bijan’s eyes, the appearance of a profound disquiet. Kite felt that he had no alternative other than to say: ‘Sure. Why not?’
‘Do you know what kinds of corruption your friend Mr Ali Eskandarian presides over? The nature of the government in Tehran? The 1979 Revolution, in which your friend played a willing part, promised
