‘How about we stick to legalities?’ Bish said. ‘She’s a minor. She doesn’t get questioned without a chaperone or guardian present.’

The man summoned Gorman, who was only too eager to be that chaperone.

‘If you come anywhere near me, Mr Gorman,’ Violette said softly, ‘I’m going to tell everyone you tried to feel me up in the cupboard.’

‘I did no such thing,’ Gorman spluttered in outrage. He glanced around to see if anyone had heard.

Violette shrugged. ‘Your call.’

Bish managed to get two names out of the men. Braithwaite and Post. A humourless pair who weren’t impressed to be playing second fiddle to a desk inspector and a regional French police force. But they refused to show ID and Bish trusted coppers more than he trusted men with no identification. So he returned to where his mother and Bee sat.

‘Can you go and tell Attal what’s going on here?’ he said to Saffron. He sensed that Violette was no safer with a faceless British Intelligence than she was with the French.

He followed the three out of the recreation hall and into the dining-hall kitchen, where he sat beside Violette. Braithwaite was the tall one, and he perched on the corner of the table, close enough for intimidation. He seemed to have been assigned the role of bad cop. Post sat opposite them, ready to record every word in a notebook.

‘ID?’ Bish asked them again, taking out his passport and placing it on the table.

Both men ignored him. The only passport they were interested in was the one Braithwaite was studying.

‘Violette, you’re the sole student on the bus who forged registration papers to come on this tour,’ he began.

‘Where’s Eddie?’

‘Answer my question, Violette.’

‘You didn’t exactly ask me one,’ she said, her tone blunt.

Braithwaite studied her coldly and then glanced back at her passport.

‘You’ve had a name change, I see. Not keen on everyone knowing you’re a LeBrac?’

Bish thought back thirteen years, to when Louis Sarraf’s only grandchild had been put into the custody of her paternal grandparents, who lived in Australia. She was four years old. No doubt she’d been given her grandmother’s family name because the Sarraf and LeBrac legacy was potentially too dangerous for an innocent child.

‘I’ll always be a LeBrac,’ she said. ‘Can we get this over and done with?’

‘You and Eddie Conlon were the only two who weren’t on the bus when it blew up.’

Violette was nodding. Bish knew she wasn’t agreeing, but processing.

‘You look nervous,’ Braithwaite said.

‘Because it’s circumstantial evidence and it suggests that Eddie and I had something to do with the bomb,’ she said. ‘And my mother and uncle and grandmother and great-uncle were arrested on circumstantial evidence in 2002.’ She looked at Braithwaite. ‘So wouldn’t you be nervous if you were me?’

‘Violette, if I were you I’d be pissing my pants right now.’

‘I already did. In that cupboard,’ she said, pointing.

Bish felt his phone buzzing in his pocket.