Grazier was studying him with one of those looks Bish could never read.

‘Why are you really here, Grazier?’ he asked. ‘Now that we’ve got the easy part out of the way.’

Grazier removed a file from his backpack. ‘This is what we’ve got,’ he said. ‘French Intelligence are fixated on Ahmed Khateb as the main suspect. They want access to Noor LeBrac.’

‘No!’

‘Let me finish.’

‘What’s their strategy?’ Bish demanded. ‘Get into the head of a terrorist by interrogating a so-called terrorist? We’ll lose Noor and any chance of finding Violette and Eddie.’

‘A so-called terrorist?’ Grazier asked. ‘Is that how you’re seeing Noor these days?’

He ignored that.

‘Khateb is the French’s main suspect not only because he was seen arguing with the driver of the British bus on three occasions,’ Grazier said, ‘but because an Estonian kid on one of the buses in Bayeux posted a video. If you remember, the French and British tours were in the same campsites for three nights: Calais twice, and Bayeux mid-tour. So this Estonian kid has footage of Michael Stanley playing the trumpet and Astrid Copely dancing in the car park of the campground. It’s gone viral. Gut-wrenching to watch when you know those two kids will be dead four days later.’

Bish knew the video existed. He just hadn’t wanted to look at it. ‘I don’t understand where this is going, Grazier.’

‘Your friend Attal is watching this footage over and over again and he picks up something no one else has noticed. The driver of the French bus is in the background arguing with someone. Violette.’

‘What?’

‘So Attal passes this on to French Intelligence and they begin reinterviewing those on board the French bus. According to one of the kids, Violette mentioned Khateb in conversation on the night before the bombing.’

‘Then we’re back to Violette being a suspect?’

‘No. We’re back to Violette possibly being the target. Who knows why? Payback for Brackenham. A connection with the Zidane side of the family in Algeria. We’re all guessing. But we have evidence that she and Khateb spoke at Bayeux, and he’s been missing since the day of the bombing.’

‘How would he have learnt her identity? No one but Eddie was aware she was travelling to this side of the world.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Let’s just say that I worked out the Eddie connection, Grazier. You could have saved me a lot of time if you’d told me sooner. Why didn’t you?’

‘What makes you think I knew?’

‘You seem to know everything else.’

‘Yes, well, I don’t know where those kids are, so my omniscience is a bit flawed at the moment,’ Grazier said. ‘Let’s get back to Khateb. If he discovered Violette was a LeBrac, and she was the target, then he had a couple of days to plan this. So we need LeBrac . . . Noor to identify this guy.’ Grazier put up a hand to stop Bish interrupting. ‘We’ve said no to the French visiting Holloway because we’ve got you there to talk to her. At the moment, what both sides of the Channel have in common is that Khateb is our chief suspect.’