‘But I’m not going to.’ Now Bish was truly suspicious. ‘I’m presuming there’s a 99.9 percent chance you’re not pregnant.’

She was slightly amused, so he figured it couldn’t be that bad. ‘People trust you,’ she said, leaning forward and moving his cup out of the way. ‘Parents. The government. Now even the French trust you, and they think everyone’s beneath them. Violette’s mum trusts you, and according to Violette she trusts no one.’ Bee looked hard at him. ‘So if anyone rings with what may appear to be alarming news, tell them to trust you. Because you’ll take care of things.’

As if on cue, his phone rang. He looked at the screen. Grazier. They had already touched base that morning but Bish picked up the call anyway.

‘What’s happened?’ he asked.

‘Manoshi, Fionn and Lola have gone missing from the fucking hospital.’

Bish stared in alarm at Bee, who was looking over his shoulder – to avoid eye contact, he presumed.

He covered the phone so Grazier couldn’t hear. ‘Bee, what’s going on?’

Before she could answer, someone pulled up a chair and sat beside him.

‘I’ll get back to you, Grazier,’ Bish said, looking from Bee to Violette. ‘Trust me.’

Violette was thinner in the face and the dark circles under her eyes were prominent. But she seemed less fierce. Even relaxed.

‘I need you to come with us, Chief Inspector Ortley,’ she said. ‘We mightn’t be terror suspects anymore, but we’ve got a better chance of getting up to Yorkshire with you. I want to show Eddie where our father died. It’s part of why I came over here, and I’m not going back without doing that.’

Driving a bus with explosives through a French convent school seemed so simple compared to dealing with Violette LeBrac Zidane.

‘Where’s Eddie? And the others?’ He wanted a response that didn’t involve a felony.

Violette and Bee seemed to have taken a vow of silence.

‘They’re injured,’ he said. ‘They can’t be out of the hospital.’

‘It’s not as if they’re still on the critical list,’ Bee scoffed. ‘They’re off drips and eating solids and bored to death.’

‘Look,’ Violette said, ‘it was only supposed to be Fionn, but Lola and Manoshi caught on and decided they were coming along or it would be hashtag we-know-where-Fionn’s-gone.’

Bee shook her head in disgust. ‘Whose stupid idea was it to put those two together again?’

It was Bish’s turn to stay silent.

‘And the thing with Fionn is his mother,’ Violette said. ‘He needs to see her.’

‘We thought we’d kill two birds with one stone.’

He stared from one to the other. He didn’t like all this bird death with little promise of success.

‘We’ll be back down south by nine tonight,’ Bee said. ‘Win-win.’

‘And all you have to do is tell anyone who rings that they can trust you,’ Violette said.

‘Noor’s not going to like your plan, Violette.’

‘Noor?’ she said, hostility suddenly in her voice. ‘We’re on first-name terms, are we?’