It depresses Violette, that sort of thinking. The Sarraf family have paid enough. Too much. Sometimes she forgets what time it is in London and rings Bee’s dad when he’s asleep. He isn’t a cop anymore but he’s definitely working for the spooks, because he keeps saying he can’t talk about his job. Violette knows he visits her mum most weeks, and it’s good to talk to someone who sees her regularly. Some days he’ll say, ‘Tell me a story, Violette. I need a happy one today,’ but other times he makes her laugh. Bee says it’s the idiot savant in him, but whatever it is, Violette always feels better after speaking to ex-Chief Inspector Bish Ortley.

She can’t say the same about Manoshi and Lola. Pains in the arse of biblical proportions. They send the most ridiculous links and YouTube crap. A couple of months ago they mailed Violette a leather bracelet with instructions to add a bead every time something good happens, and when the bracelet is complete, they wrote, God would grant her a small wish. Violette tells them straight: Fuck off youse two and don’t send anymore of this crap.

Anyway, she doesn’t know whether she believes in God or not –he’s been a bit of a no-show in her family history.

Eddie tells her to try it, though, to see if the wish thing is true. So just to make him happy she gives it a go. The first bead is for when Layla’s Facebook profile says she’s in a relationship right after a weekend in France.

The second is when Bee wins the two hundred metres in the junior nationals.

The third is when Fionn gets his artificial leg fitted.

And there’s another when Manoshi’s and Lola’s mums get to meet Wills and Kate because of the foundation they’ve started to build a wing at the Boulogne-sur-Mer hospital for amputee kids from war-torn countries. Another bead because they name it after Lucia, Michael and Astrid.

She adds another two when Noor’s PhD is finally released, a result of Bee’s grandmother writing a letter a day to the powers that be.

But then, one bead short of making a bracelet, nothing good happens for a while.

Until a day in July, when Henna Nasrene gets a package in the mail from the UK. It’s addressed to the LeBracs, Coleambally, New South Wales, Australia. There’s no return address. And Violette knows. She knows what’s inside without opening it. When her grandfather holds the watch in his hands he cries, and they all trace their fingers on the writing at the back. Henna Nasrene reads it aloud in Arabic. Beloved son. I love you. I love you. I love you. Violette says it will be a good present for Eddie when he comes for Christmas again with his dad, but Henna Nasrene takes the watch and places it on Violette’s wrist. She says her father would have wanted her to have it, and that Eddie will agree.