‘I don’t know if they were his and I can’t see clearly enough here.’ He opened the internet browser on the laptop and typed ‘Royal Navy ranks’ into Google. He selected a picture that showed several pairs of insignias decorated with a variety of gold lines and loops. ‘See the loop on this,’ he said, showing them the set above the words sub-lieutenant. ‘It should be worn so that the braid starts at the front, loops over itself and points to the back. But if you put them on the wrong shoulders—’

‘The loop is reversed, starting at the back and pointing to the front?’ said Jameson.

Harry nodded. ‘Any self-respecting naval officer would know that. It’s not the sort of mistake you make.’ He looked back at the image of the grey-haired sub-lieutenant outside Devonport. ‘This picture’s at the wrong angle. I can’t see them.’

‘You think the guy who spoke to you at the ball had his epaulettes on back to front?’ said Karene.

Harry stared at her for a long moment then raised his hands. ‘I don’t know. How can I know if it’s a memory from this night? It’s impossible.’

‘I think that’s the point.’ When the other two looked at Jameson, he said, ‘That’s why they fucked up your memory. So you wouldn’t remember anything that happened at all.’

54

Isobel Roux replied within minutes to Bloom’s request to speak about Julian, saying that she was devastated and desperate to find out who could do such an atrocious thing to such a lovely man. Bloom headed straight to the airport and within hours they were sitting in a cafe on the main square in the town of Rennes.

Isobel was talking about how she had met Julian five years earlier in this very cafe, one afternoon when her husband was away with work. Victor Roux ran a successful import business specializing in artwork and antiques. Bloom guessed Isobel led something of a charmed existence and this sense of privilege was one of the reasons she had taken Julian as her lover. Her husband was aware, she said, and had been for a number of years now.

‘So you have no concern that your husband may have had a hand in what happened to Julian?’

Isobel swore in French. ‘No! Victor and I have a happy arrangement. He has a lady in Geneva, a French–Spanish interpreter. It is a situation that works well for us.’

Bloom felt no judgement. What people chose to do within their own marriages was their business so long as no one was getting hurt. She placed in front of her a printout of the photograph Julian had posted on his Facebook page. ‘You said on the phone that you could tell me who these people are.’