In the kitchen at the back of the dining room, Bish unlocked the storage cupboard. It was dark and smelt of damp. He felt the wall for a light switch. Nothing there. Finally he found it outside the door and the storeroom was illuminated. Violette LeBrac Zidane sat on the ground before him, in the only space available to sit, her arms wrapped around her legs. Surrounding her were shelves of tinned food, paper plates, stacked chairs. When she looked up he saw a flash of fear, but it was quickly gone. She had what appeared to be a broken nose from old. She’d inherited her mother’s olive skin and dark eyes, which contrasted strangely with the woolly fair hair that covered a scalp of a darker shade. It could have been something that came out of a bottle, but Bish remembered four-year-old Violette with the same dark-rooted fair hair.

He wasn’t sure how long she had been in the cupboard but she was perspiring. Half a minute in there and so was he. She got to her feet, looking past him, and a quick emotion crossed her face.

‘Go away, Eddie,’ she said.

The Australian accent surprised Bish, despite knowing that she had lived there most of her life.

‘I’m staying,’ Eddie said from behind Bish’s shoulder.

‘Go away!’ she ordered.

She might have been small but she was tough. She had struck a taller Bee in the face and come out the winner.

‘It’s Violette, isn’t it?’ Bish said to her. But her stare was still directed beyond him to Eddie. She said something brief to the boy in Arabic. Bish recognised ‘love’ but not much more. He made an effort to commit the rest to memory.

Without another word, Eddie walked away.

‘Do you have legal representation, Violette?’ Bish asked. He knew she’d need it. Regardless of whether she was guilty or not, Violette was seventeen years old and a long way from home.

‘Violette, did you hear me? Does your family have a UK lawyer?’

The look she sent him was contemptuous. ‘My uncle’s not allowed to set foot on UK soil and my mother’s serving a life sentence. How good a lawyer do you think my family has there, dickhead?’

Bish had been called a dickhead before, but never with so much conviction. The comment introduced a slight lisp. Nothing about her seemed predictable. He heard a sound behind him and turned to see a cluster of students and parents at the entrance of the kitchen, staring.

‘When you get interviewed by the French, try not to say a word until someone from your family arrives,’ Bish advised.

She was staring past him at the others. ‘It’s not the French I’m worried about.’

How would Eddie best describe Violette, the two men in suits ask him.

‘She’s very fierce and has no time for rubbish.’ Eddie is lying by omission. That’s what his mum would have said. Because Violette is a whole lot more than fierce. Ferocious, more like it. The fact is that Eddie can hardly find words to describe her.