‘A girl,’ he said in his thick accent. ‘Young. Arabe.’

‘ID?’

Attal shook his head. He shoved the door open and they went inside.

‘L’oncle. He is coming.’

The mother. The uncle. Regardless of everything they had done, Bish couldn’t get the families out of his head. Eddie Conlon’s father, Violette’s uncle and grandparents. If it was Violette lying in this morgue, Bish was grateful that he wouldn’t be the one to have to tell them.

They stepped into a room and an attendant pulled open a drawer. The last time Bish had been in a morgue was to identify his son’s drowned body. He’d known for sure it was him. There’d been no room for hope, only the sort of certainty that could kill a man.

Attal waited just behind him. The capitaine had not interviewed Violette. Bish knew he’d hardly had a good look at her, except in the photos from the trip that the media were using.

Bish studied the girl lying on the slab, his stomach churning. He felt an overwhelming sense of relief, mixed with a sickening sadness, and shook his head.

‘Again,’ the Frenchman ordered. ‘Look again.’

Bish tugged at his own hair. ‘Violette. Light.’ He pointed to his shoulder. ‘Up to here.’ This girl’s hair was longer and darker.

They heard shouting and exchanged a look. Attal walked out with Bish close behind. In the sterile, fluorescent-lit corridor they saw Jamal Sarraf hurrying towards them, his presence filling the narrow corridor.

‘Where is she?’

Bish heard the anguish. Felt it. Attal stepped in front of Sarraf, who shoved past him. It took both Bish and Attal to hold him against the wall.

‘Ce n’est pas Violette.’

But Sarraf refused to listen to Attal.

‘It’s not her!’ Bish said.

Sarraf shrugged free. ‘I need to see for myself.’

When Bish knew his son was dead, he had still needed to see. He’d needed to see so he wouldn’t believe that Stevie was there at every corner, every doorway, in the backseat of his car, at the dinner table, in his room, at his school, on the football field.

So they let Sarraf go and he followed the attendant into the room. Bish waited in the stark white corridor with Attal.

‘Investigation?’ Bish asked, hoping it sounded like the French equivalent.

Attal shook his head, a look of bitterness on his face.

‘DGSI,’ Attal said. ‘La sécurite interieure.’

From what Bish knew, the DGSI was French Intelligence answering to the Minister of the Interior. That meant Attal was no longer handling the case, and was here today only because dead migrants in the Channel fell under his jurisdiction.

Bish thought of the makeshift camps along the port of Calais and wondered if the girl in the morgue belonged to anyone in them. Someone’s daughter. Someone’s sister or niece or neighbour. Someone who had given her father grief. Someone who believed that swimming over a treacherous Channel would lead to a better life. Now Bish wanted to find this girl’s people. He wanted to find Violette LeBrac. All of them. Because who were they if they couldn’t protect their children?