‘I thought you were a social networker extraordinaire,’ he said.

‘Oh I am. I just find the unregulated part of it frightening.’

In the guestroom Bish lay in bed desperate for a drink. He knew with great certainty that he was going to be creeping around the house in the dark soon enough, like a seventeen-year-old searching for his parents’ booze. He hadn’t slept in this room before. It was a converted attic space, but there was nothing stuffy and old-fashioned about it except the portable TV.

He found himself watching a movie in Arabic and French, the subtitles difficult to read on the small screen. It was hard to watch while half asleep. He couldn’t close his eyes a moment and still understand what was going on. But somewhere in a different sort of blur to the one he’d woken up in that day, he heard words that had him wide awake in an instant. The subtitles were gone already from the screen, but the phrase echoed in his memory. It sounded like the same thing Violette had said to Eddie in the campsite kitchen, he was sure of it. He scribbled it down phonetically. He had no idea how to make sense of it, but those words haunted his sleep and were on his lips when he woke the next morning.

The overgrown teddy bear is coming Layla’s way just as she’s walking into the towers on Fetter Lane during the peak-hour morning shuffle. She doesn’t know whether it’s pure bulk or overindulgent padding, but he’s a big guy.

‘Can we talk, Layla? Can I call you that?’

‘No we can’t. And no you can’t.’

She steps into the revolving doors, hoping to shake him off. There’s no way she wants him following her to the tenth floor. But he’s already waiting inside, having taken the other door, so she revolves herself right back outside and faces off with him on the street.

‘Where’s bad cop?’ she asks, looking around.

‘He’s not a cop,’ Ortley says. ‘And this is something separate from the other day.’

She isn’t in the mood for game-playing. ‘Don’t follow me in,’ she says, walking back into the revolving door. But he’s instantly there behind her and now she’s truly irritated because they’re trapped in the same small space.

‘It’s bad etiquette getting into a revolving door with someone who hasn’t given you permission.’

‘Haven’t actually read the handbook on revolving door etiquette,’ he says. ‘I need a favour, Layla.’

‘I don’t give out favours,’ she says, about to step into the busy foyer for the second time.

‘I need you to translate a comment in Arabic that Violette made to the boy she’s with.’

Layla finds herself out on the street again. She doesn’t know what this guy is up to but she wants him nowhere near her office.

‘Last I heard, Scotland Yard had Arabic translators, Chief Inspector Ortley. Not to mention Google. So I think you’re lying to me.’