Ben reached behind his hip and drew out one of the Glocks he’d appropriated from the Corsicans earlier, minus its cumbersome silencer. He pointed the muzzle in Michel Yassa’s face. ‘Are you going to lie to me, Michel? Because I don’t have a lot of time for liars. You’re going to tell me where I can find your associates, or I’m going to leave you here in the woods.’

‘If you’re here to kill me, then stop playing games and get on with it. I don’t care. But you didn’t have to hurt her, you bastard.’

Now it was Ben’s turn to be confused. He lowered the pistol. It had only been a bluff anyway, since he was all but certain that Michel had nothing whatsoever to do with Nazim al-Kassar. But that was the only certainty in his mind. ‘Why do you think I’m here to kill you?’

Michel Yassa stared up at him. His eyes were wide and crazed with fear and grief. ‘You work for them, don’t you? How much did they pay you to kill her?’

Ben stared back at him, then said, ‘Get out of the car, Michel.’

Michel slowly, warily climbed out of the boot and looked around him. Ben could tell that he was thinking of bolting off into the trees. ‘Go for it,’ he said. ‘I’ll only catch you and drag you back here, and I won’t be so gentle this time.’

‘Shoot me, then, you piece of merde.’

‘I’m not going to shoot you, Michel.’

‘Then what the fuck do you want from me?’

‘To talk. That’s all.’

‘You have a gun. You pointed it at me.’

‘It was a test. You passed.’

‘If you’re not here to kill me, then who the hell are you?’

‘I’m your friend,’ Ben said. ‘Maybe the best friend you’ve got right now. Everyone else seems to think you murdered her.’

Michel’s face twisted in pain. ‘I wouldn’t have hurt a hair on her head! I loved her!’

‘I know you didn’t kill her,’ Ben said. ‘I was there just moments after it happened. I saw the man who did it. His name is Nazim, and he’s not a very nice person. You don’t look surprised to hear that, Michel. Because you were expecting someone bad to come knocking, weren’t you? Why else did you think I’d come to kill you?’

Michel fell to his knees in the dirt and dead leaves, sobbing like a child. ‘Why’d it have to be her? Why couldn’t they have just killed me instead? She didn’t deserve to be punished for what I did.’

This wasn’t making sense. ‘Punished for what, Michel?’