‘Who are the other two?’ Lola asked, the tears suddenly gone. ‘Were some left behind?’

Katherine caught Bish’s eye over her daughter’s bed. He figured it was her way of telling him to talk about the runaways.

‘Violette Zidane and Eddie Conlon.’ Bish sat down on the chair beside the bed, watching her reaction. He didn’t want to say anything that might cause an anxiety attack. ‘They weren’t injured, Lola, but they’re still in France and once they’ve been . . . returned, they’ll be able to help answer a lot of questions.’

She made a confused face. ‘If they’re together, they’re not in France,’ she said, as if she had never heard anything so silly. ‘Violette’s here.’

‘Poppet, they’re in France,’ Katherine said.

‘No. Violette came to visit while I was sleeping.’

Katherine gave her a look. ‘You said you didn’t wake up once, Lola. You couldn’t have seen her.’

Lola, apparently, was a storyteller. By the looks of things, a storyteller who believed her own fibs.

‘Was Violette a friend, Lola?’ Bish prodded, unnerved by the intensity of her one eye.

‘Not really. Eddie was.’

‘He’ll be home soon,’ Bish said. He sounded as though he was telling a once-upon-a-time story to a five-year-old. One that certainly wasn’t going to end with a happily-ever-after.

‘Violette was here,’ Lola insisted. ‘See?’ she held up her cast and Bish peered at it. The cast was clean except for the words, Wake up Lollapalooza.

‘It’s a concert in America,’ Lola explained. ‘I used to think she was calling me Lola the Loser, because that’s what the girls at school call me, but when I showed the nurse this morning he told me about Lollapalooza.’

Bish heard the sharp intake of breath from Katherine. He could only stare at the cast. A nurse entered to check Lola’s vitals, and Bish led her mother outside.

‘You’re sure it wasn’t there before she fell asleep?’ he asked.

‘Of course I’m sure,’ she said, horrified. ‘I have to ring Ian.’

Bish wished there was some way of getting her to hold off telling her husband. Ian Parker would go ballistic at the thought of Violette being anywhere near his daughter. He could see Saffron and Sadia Bagchi standing outside Manoshi’s room and led Katherine towards them before she could reach for her phone. Sadia was weeping. The talk in the nurses’ station was that Manoshi was the greatest concern of the three. Not because of her physical injuries, but because of her state of mind. Who could blame the kid? A week ago she had woken up to a half-silent world. The doctors were talking cochlear transplants, but the costs were astronomical.

‘Perhaps a cup of tea,’ Bish suggested to all three.

Manoshi’s mother shook her head but Saffron would have none of it.

‘Let’s go, Sadia,’ she said firmly. ‘You’re going to be no help to your daughter if you’re dead on your feet. ‘You too, Katherine.’

Bish peered into Manoshi’s room. She was lying on her side facing the window. He was about to walk out when he noticed the same pathetic cluster of flowers in a glass on her bedside table. Much like those in Lola’s room – not from a florist, or placed there by a nurse. A nurse would have put them in a vase.