And it begins here, now, at this table outside this café on this street in the Marais, Paris, with a man dropping a tiny white pill into his espresso from a small but ornate sweetener box. He looks around, taking in the passing traffic and pedestrians – some hurrying, some flaneuring – and glances at the briskly handsome young Algerian waiter who is trying to flirt with a couple of warily smiling American girls, before his gaze settles briefly on an elegantly made-up and coiffured Parisienne of late middle age holding her tiny dog up to the table to let it lap some croissant flakes. Then he adds a gnarly lump of brown sugar from the bowl to his cup and stirs the coffee with a studied thoughtfulness as he slips the slim ormolu sweetener box back into a pocket inside his jacket.

He slides a five-euro note under the sugar bowl, replaces his wallet in his jacket, then drains the espresso cup in a couple of deep, appreciative sips. He settles back, one hand still holding the miniature handle of the cup, the other hanging by his side. He has now taken on the air of a man waiting for something.

It is an afternoon at the start of autumn in the year 2008 CE, the air is clear and warm beneath a milky, pastel sky, and everything is about to change.

1

Patient 8262

I think I have been very clever in doing what I have done, in landing myself where I am. However, a lot of us are prone, as I am now, to think we’ve been quite clever, are we not? And too often in my past that feeling of having been quite clever has preceded the uncomfortable revelation that I have not been quite clever enough. This time, though…