‘I believe that’s the reason she got into danger. Someone found out that she knew, and they silenced her before she could tell anyone.’

The colour had drained from Michel Yassa’s cheeks. ‘How do you know all this? How are you involved?’

And so Ben told him everything.

Chapter 21

Michel listened in hushed silence as Ben laid it all out, from the beginning. How he’d bumped into Romy in the street, the way she’d appeared anxious and had been distracted enough not to notice that she’d dropped her phone. He described how he’d traced her address, and gone there to return her property. Everything except the history between himself and Nazim al-Kassar.

Then he took out her phone to show Michel, and let him see the video clip. Silent tears ran down Michel’s face as he handled the phone. He ran his fingers over it as though he thought he could touch her through it. Smelled it as though it might retain a trace of her scent. He said nothing as he watched the video, then reluctantly handed the phone back to Ben.

‘Does it mean anything to you?’

‘Nothing. I’m sorry. I never asked her a lot about her work.’

Ben said, ‘The call records show that you and she hadn’t spoken much by phone in the last few weeks. But they also show that she called you twice since she got back from her trip, two days ago and then again this morning. What did she say to you?’

‘I was surprised to hear from her. Like you say, we hadn’t spoken for a while. We’d split up, you know? All because of her mother. That evil racist old snake badmouthed me to Romy so much, she managed to convince her to break up the relationship. Can you believe that?’

‘I’ve met Madame Juneau,’ Ben said. ‘She is what she is.’

‘So when Romy called two days ago, at first I was so happy to hear her voice after all those weeks. But she sounded scared. I asked her what was wrong, but she wouldn’t tell me much over the phone. Just that she thought she was being followed. Said these guys had been tailing her in the street since she got back. Two or three of them, at different times.’

‘What kind of guys?’