‘It looks like a warehouse.’ She paused, watched for a few seconds longer, then said, ‘Now I’m seeing two men.’

‘The older, shorter one is Julien Segal, whom you might recognise since you know about ICS. You won’t know the other, but you’ve heard of the people he works for. They go by the Arabic name al-Dawla al-Islamiya fi al-Iraq al-Sham, Daesh for short. Most people know them by the quaint little acronym “ISIL”.’

Françoise Schell narrowed her eyes at the mention of the name. Just then the waiter scooted back over with Ben’s coffee. She paused the video playback and waited for the waiter to be gone again. Glancing about her as though to check nobody was listening in on their conversation, she said in a lowered voice, ‘Are you serious? Segal is one of Europe’s most respected archaeology experts. His name came up again and again during my research for the article I wrote. You’re suggesting he’s in contact with terrorists?’

Ben tried the coffee. Excellent. ‘I’m not suggesting it. The only possible way to avoid that conclusion would be that Segal didn’t know who he was talking to. Which is beyond improbable. Plus, it gets better. The second man is Romy Juneau’s killer.’

She was looking at him intently. ‘And you know that for a fact.’

Ben nodded. ‘I saw him at the scene. No question. I’d recognise him anywhere.’

‘Which suggests you know him.’

‘Knew him. A long time ago.’

She frowned, arching a suspicious eyebrow. ‘This is where we get to the insider information part. You’re not just some friend of Romy Juneau. Who are you, really? What were you doing at the scene of the murder?’

Ben pointed at the phone in her hands and said, ‘Go on watching.’

Françoise Schell was visibly simmering with questions as she resumed the playback. ‘What are they talking about?’ She held the phone close to her ear, and shook her head. ‘The sound is terrible.’

‘We’re working on it.’

‘We? You’re part of a team?’

‘I wouldn’t call it that, exactly.’

She let the clip play through to the end, then turned off the phone and laid it back on the table. ‘Okay, you have my attention. Am I to assume that Romy Juneau filmed this?’

‘She was in Tripoli with Segal when she witnessed this conversation. I’m pretty sure this is Segal’s own warehouse, used to store artifacts for export back to Europe or elsewhere. As you can see, they didn’t know she was in there. She must have sneaked in after them.’

‘The other man, did she know who he was?’

‘The fact that she was hiding suggests that maybe she had a pretty good idea of the kind of people her employer is mixed up with. Once the audio is cleaned up, it might tell us what she overheard them talking about.’