‘It’s a no-go for the time being with —’ he began. Elliot listened, then he paled. ‘Are they sure —?’ He removed the phone from his ear and glared at it. ‘Fuck.’

‘Battery dead?’ Bish asked. ‘Not so smart after all then?’

There was no comeback. Elliot went to open the door but it refused to budge. He kicked it. Once. Twice. ‘Fucking kids. Fucking fucking kids.’

Bish glanced around. They had an audience. Elliot was a likely candidate for road rage but Bish knew that whatever had set him off had nothing to do with a stuck door and a dead phone battery.

‘What’s going on, Elliot?’ he asked once they were in the car, Bish having first shoved a week’s worth of fast food containers and coffee cups off the seat. He wanted to remind Elliot that Prius drivers were meant to be helping the environment. ‘What’s happened to those kids?’

Elliot stared at his hands on the steering wheel. After a moment he turned on the ignition and it spluttered.

‘The French border police picked up a body in the Channel. Young, female. It’s all we know.’

Bish’s heart hammered. ‘Attal,’ he said, fumbling for his phone. He found the Frenchman’s number and messaged Violette LeBrac?

They sat in silence. Five minutes later, Bish’s phone beeped a response. He showed it to Elliot, who read it and winced.

‘He wants you to meet him at the morgue on Boulevard des Justes.’

The body in the Channel made the news within the hour. Bish was numb as he drove to Dover. There was something about Violette LeBrac Zidane that had seemed unbreakable. Attal had also messaged that the French border police were searching for a second body. Eddie’s father had been contacted and Downing Street wanted confirmation as soon as possible.

Saffron rang just as he was driving onto the ferry. ‘We saw the news,’ she said quietly. ‘Bee’s here for a couple of days.’

‘How’s she reacted?’

‘She’s on her iWhatever. Claims she hardly knew the girl.’

Regardless, Bee had spent seven days sharing Violette LeBrac’s room. She had to be feeling something. Was his daughter in shutdown, or was it an apathy that bordered on amorality?

‘That poor woman,’ Saffron said.

‘Eddie Conlon’s mother died last year,’ Bish said. ‘Small mercies.’

‘I meant Noor LeBrac.’

‘She’s a terrorist.’

‘But still a mother.’

‘Tell that to the mothers of those who died in Brackenham Street. And Bee’s upstairs on Snapchat or Facebook or whatever the fuck’s in fashion, not giving a shit.’

‘Maybe that’s Bee’s way of coping,’ Saffron said. ‘You spent every moment of your school holidays with earphones on listening to that depressing Jones band. It made me want to slit my wrists.’

‘The Smiths,’ he corrected.

Attal met Bish at the entrance to the morgue attached to the Centre Hospitalier de Calais. The Frenchman ground out his cigarette and raised his chin in acknowledgement.