‘I’m Layla Bayat,’ she tells the guard at the inquiry desk on Monday morning. ‘My name should be down there to see Noor LeBrac. I’m her new representation.’

That gets a reaction.

‘What happened to last week’s new representation?’ the woman asks.

Layla’s not prepared to be the inferior in this exchange.

‘Is my name there or not?’

The last time she saw Noor was the day the family were arrested, when they still believed that Louis was an innocent victim of the bombing. Noor was frantic. Etienne was flying back from Australia and she was trying to keep everyone focused. Uncle Joseph was visiting from Manchester and had calmly reassured them. But Jimmy was inconsolable. No one ever imagined the nightmare of Louis Sarraf being the main suspect.

Today she’ll be facing a harder version of Noor, but when she’s taken into the room it’s still so recognisably the woman Layla had always looked up to alongside Jocelyn.

Noor kisses Layla’s left cheek, right cheek, then left again, and they sit down in silence. Layla thinks she’ll just go straight into talking about an appeal. But then she doesn’t.

‘I never came to see you.’

Noor seems to be processing and after a moment she nods. ‘True. But you were the only one there for Jimmy when he got out of jail. And you used to drive your mother to the hospice to look after mine. I think the Bayat women have done enough for my family.’

‘We could have done more.’

‘Is this about Etienne’s death?’ Noor asks. ‘Violette said you’re looking into it.’

‘Not yet,’ she says. ‘Because we start with you, Noor. If we can get you into a courtroom and win an appeal then everything else falls into place. Etienne’s death. Jimmy’s and your uncle’s citizenship. We start with you and blow the rest out of the water.’

She ignores Noor’s headshaking. ‘Yes,’ she says firmly. ‘Most decent people are upset about the way Violette has been treated. I hear it on the streets, in my neighbourhood. That means they’re talking about Brackenham. They’re talking about you.’

She removes a file from her briefcase and places it in front of Noor. ‘From a blog created by two of the mothers whose daughters were badly injured by the Calais bomb.’

‘I’ve heard of it,’ Noor says, picking it up.

‘A piece went online this morning written by Chief Inspector Pain-in-the-Arse Ortley. He ends it by saying he believes Louis Sarraf acted on his own. He said the same thing to me.’

She hears the intake of Noor’s breath.

‘Katherine Barrett-Parker and Sadia Bagchi have as big an online readership at the moment as some of the tabloids,’ Layla says. ‘The comments in response to Ortley are polarising. For every person who thinks he should shut his mouth in respect for the dead, there’s another who supports him.’

‘Every attempt at an appeal ends the same way, Layla. It runs out of steam, it never makes it to court. It’s always the wrong timing —’