He didn’t have anything very comforting to tell her. The English newspapers had also reported a mysterious fire at a house in Surrey, the home of Janet Radcliffe, former wife of the Italian garment manufacturing giant, Massimo Rivelli. Ms Radcliffe, who was unhurt, said that her son had been trying to cook chips in the kitchen in the middle of the night, and the pan had burst into flames. Both mother and son had been discharged from hospital and were recovering with friends. The fire had caused hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of damage.

‘Where is he?’ asked Christine. ‘Surely they’ve got to arrest him now.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said John. ‘They’ll find him. Just . . . look after yourself, Christine, and hurry home.’

‘I didn’t know you cared,’ said Christine.

‘Ah, but I do.’

Isabelle looked through the one-way mirror. Joel was sitting in a bucket chair, wearing what looked like a surgical dressing gown. His face was bruised, but it was recognisably him.

‘That’s Joel.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘As sure as I can be. I don’t know him that well, but . . .’ She thought back to the first time she’d seen him, in her mother’s kitchen. ‘Yeah. That’s him.

‘Thank you, Miss Cissé. Now we can get this show on the road.’

‘Would you be willing to testify against him?’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. I can’t prove anything.’

‘You would be an invaluable witness.’

‘I’m sorry, Christine. I can’t.’

‘You must.’

Victoria was sitting in a chair now, and could walk again; the baby seemed to be fine.

‘Tell me about Joel Warner.’

‘You know as much about him as I do,’ said Victoria. ‘You got there first, after all.’

‘Well then, we’re equal. We both had each other’s cast-offs.’

‘Massimo was not a cast-off.’

‘How did Rivelli meet Joel? Did you introduce them?’

‘No I did not.’

‘Did you talk about him?’

‘No. Not really.’

‘Did you know that he was working for him?’

‘No. I told you no. We had a brief affair. He was a very popular boy. I’m sure you know why. After I finished with him, he took up with Will. That’s all I know.’

‘Victoria,’ said Christine, ‘we’ve got three crimes in three countries. Three different jurisdictions. It’s going to be very difficult to get Rivelli in the dock unless someone is prepared to stand up in court and testify. Janet won’t do it; she says the fire was an accident.’

‘Perhaps it was.’

‘And the police in LA are treating the attack on Will as some kind of kinky sex game that went wrong.’

‘Perhaps it was.’

‘And I suppose you still think that lorry just happened to be speeding along that particular stretch of road just after you and Leanne were taking a jolly little spin out to Fréjus.’

‘Why not?’