‘All right, Darren. If you wait here, we’ll get someone to show you some photos, and we’ll see if you can identify the make and model of the car you saw.’

‘What? Can’t I go yet?’

‘Not yet.’

‘I had no connection with that woman at all, you know,’ said Turnbull. ‘Except that I was in the village when she died.’

Having given this information, Turnbull suddenly regained confidence and turned belligerent.

‘I could put in a complaint about the foreign bloke,’ he said. ‘He hurt my arm in Matlock. And I’ve got a scratch on my face. He’s not supposed to do that, is he? I wasn’t even under arrest – you said so.’

‘We could soon change that, Darren.’

‘It’s not right.’

‘If you want to make a formal complaint about the conduct of any police officers, speak to the custody sergeant and he’ll give you a form to fill in.’

When they were alone in the corridor, Hitchens looked at Fry quizzically. ‘Foreign bloke? Sergeant Kotsev?’

‘He isn’t quite used to our procedures yet,’ said Fry.

‘Kotsev is only here as an observer, Diane. You’re responsible for him. If Turnbull does put in a complaint –’

‘I don’t think he will,’ said Fry. ‘Do you? Too much chance of publicity.’

‘No, you’re right. But be careful.’

When she was alone, Fry spent some time browsing the Europol website again, checking the location of the organization’s headquarters and how to get there. It was just idle curiosity, of course. No more than that.

But now she had formed a picture in her mind. She could see herself catching the number 9 tram in the direction of Scheveningen, getting off at Riouwstraat and crossing the footbridge over the canal to reach the Europol building. If she worked there, she would find a little apartment somewhere fashionable, but central for the city. Overlooking another canal, probably. Or maybe the same canal.

Actually, she wasn’t sure how many canals there were in The Hague. She might be getting it mixed up with Amsterdam in her mind. That was easy to do, when she’d never visited either city. She didn’t even know the country. Put that way, it sounded a mad thing to do, to contemplate working in a totally foreign country. But then, why would anyone want to live in a place that they knew every little bit of?

Finally, Hitchens appeared and gestured to her, and she followed him into the DCI’s office.

‘We got Darren Turnbull to look at the motors file for us,’ said Hitchens. ‘He’s not a happy man, but looking at pictures of cars seemed to calm him down a bit.’

‘And?’

‘He thinks it was probably a Mitsubishi Shogun that he saw in Foxlow that night.’

‘Excellent,’ said Kessen.