And then I was shoved roughly aside as two men dropped to their knees and fell upon him. At first I thought they were his grieving friends.

But then they began to go through his pockets.

I joined them. They shoved me. I shoved them back. They were rifling through his wallet, examining a wad of what looked like euros, British pounds and Turkish lira.

One of them pushed me in the chest and shouted something in Arabic.

I pushed him in the chest and cursed him in English.

The dead man was wearing the Hugo Boss coat we had brought from London but the impact of the lorry had ripped it from shoulder to hem. One of the pockets was torn wide open and I could see two mobile phones. I picked them up and put them both in my jacket. The man who had pushed me shouted something in Arabic, and then grunted and dropped as a CRS cop hit him on the back of the head with his sidearm.

There were three CRS men. They were mean, scared and angry, cops who knew that the situation was running away from them. In every direction you could hear the lorry horns blasting and the curses of the drivers and the men declaring the greatness of Allah.

The CRS cops were screaming at us in French and pointing their SIFG Pro revolvers. The man who had been struck on the back of the head was face down on the tarmac, out cold, inches from what was left of Mr Click-Click. The other man was still on his knees, protesting his innocence in pidgin French.

I held up my hands and got slowly to my feet, my face a mask of docile compliance, nodding obediently at the cop pointing a pistol in my face.

‘I am a detective with the Metropolitan Police and I am following your instructions,’ I said. I indicated the dead man between us. ‘I was attempting to apprehend this man for—’

The CRS man swiped the butt of his gun across my face.

Not hard. Croissants at ten paces. Not as hard as he could have, but hard enough to shut me up. He wasn’t interested in anything I had to say. He wasn’t open to debate. The polymer frame caught my cheekbone and whipped my face sideways.

I felt a warm trickle of blood ooze down the broken skin but I resisted the urge to move my hands. The cop screamed in my face.

‘Allons-y! Allons-y! Allons-y!’

The man who was still conscious was dragging his friend away, who was semi-conscious now and groaning and rubbing the back of his skull, euros and Turkish lira spilling all around them. I looked at the CRS men. They did not want to arrest us because they already had their hands full. But they would do so if we gave them no choice.

‘Allons-y, connard!’

I glanced down at the remains of Mr Click-Click.