‘Why Attal?’

‘I’m not one for sticking up for coppers, but Benoix’s son was holding a girl and her baby hostage. Attal had no choice.’

Bish’s heart thumped hard in his chest.

‘Attal shot Benoix’s son?’

‘Yeah. Why?’

Bish moved away from the window. In an instant he was tapping into Lola’s Instagram feed. She wasn’t much of a photographer, just the type to take snaps of everything. Bish remembered photos taken of the kids inside the French bus. One dated the first day of the tour, one from Bayeux on the fourth day, one from Calais on the last day. The three times the British and French buses were at the same camping ground. Marianne Attal was pictured inside her bus, staring out the window. Behind Marianne was the object of Lola’s affections, the French boy who did magic tricks. Bish had looked at these photos ad nauseum. In some of them Lola had managed to frame the young magician well, but in most, Marianne’s head was in the way.

‘What?’ Sarraf asked over his shoulder, staring at the three almost identical photos on the screen.

The French bus, unlike Bee’s, had been full and everyone stuck to their assigned seats. Three different days, same seating. Marianne Attal had been one of the junior coaches on hers, so there was no sitting in the back, Charlie Crombie-style, for her. What had Khateb and Serge argued about? Assigned parking spots.

‘What if it was the wrong bus?’ Bish said softly.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Benoix’s man got the wrong bus. Marianne Attal’s assigned seat was first from the front.’

‘Fuck. Fuck! ’ Bish could see Sarraf’s reaction wasn’t just about the wrong bus.

‘What?’ he asked. ‘Anything. Say whatever’s in your head, Jimmy. Even if it sounds like bollocks!’

‘It’s the first day back at school,’ Sarraf said. ‘Last bell rings at four pm. What if the fucker’s put a bomb on her school bus and Fréthun is a hoax? Or a diversion?’

They were back in Bish’s Renault inside a minute, with absolutely no idea which direction to drive.

‘How many schools in town?’ Bish asked.

‘Too many for guesswork.’

‘Fuck!’

They tried Attal’s mobile number again and this time when it went to message bank, Sarraf repeated what he knew. He spoke slowly with an element of calm before hanging up.

‘What about your daughter?’ Sarraf said. ‘These kids know more about each other than you’d think.’

Bish looked at his watch: 2.53 in Kent. Bee could be anywhere. She didn’t start school until Wednesday.

‘It’ll be quicker to text,’ Sarraf said. ‘They ignore phone calls but can’t resist a text.’

‘Please tell me you’re not dating teenage girls.’

‘One teenage girl in my life is enough and she’s giving me grey hair.’

Bish figured that if they had been in a stolen car together, Bee and Marianne might have exchanged details about their lives.

Urgent. Where does Marianne Attal go to school?

They had stopped at an intersection on the Boulevard la Fayette. Cars honked their horns behind them as Sarraf debated which way to go. ‘Quai Gustave Lamarle, Quai du Commerce, or Boulevard Victor Hugo. Take a guess.’