‘In 2010 you made a trip to Australia with your daughter.’

Ali Shahbazi made a sound of irritation. ‘My wife has family there.’

‘In the Riverina?’ Elliot asked. ‘A town called Coleambally? Violette LeBrac’s hometown?’

Neither Jocelyn nor Ali had a response for that.

‘Because we do have evidence of you being there, Mrs Shahbazi,’ Elliot continued. ‘Not to mention your visits to Holloway every month under your maiden name.’

Ali Shahbazi stared dumbfounded at his wife. ‘What’s he talking about, Joss?’

‘Daddy!’ The cry came from the teenage daughter.

‘Go upstairs,’ Jocelyn ordered her kids. ‘Now.’

None of them moved.

‘Jocelyn?’ her husband pressed.

‘I don’t know where Violette is!’ she said. The kids were staring from one parent to the other, and Bish was imagining the next Hello photo shoot: Jocelyn Shahbazi bringing up her kids on her own. Had this been a contentious issue throughout their marriage?

‘Do you honestly think I’d keep Violette’s whereabouts from Noor?’ she asked her husband.

‘You’ve been in contact with her all these years?’ he asked. ‘What the hell, Joss?’

The youngest child was crying now and Jocelyn stood up. ‘You’re scaring the kids, Ali,’ she hissed. ‘Take care of these idiots, I’m going to my mother’s.’

‘Mrs Shahbazi —’

‘Go do your job and find them,’ she shouted, ushering her children out of the room.

That night, Bish took a call from another blocked number.

‘A twenty-year marriage with not a sniff of infidelity, and from what I know they’re still having sex at least twice a week, and you’ve managed to ruin it.’

Layla Bayat.

‘Well, it can’t be that great a marriage if she’s lying to him and he’s telling her what to do.’

‘What’s this CCTV bollocks?’

‘Truth. Those kids were there. Let me talk to your sister, Layla. Is she there?’

‘She’s at my mother’s. The kids are hysterical. Do you know how scary divorce is to them? My niece Gigi fainted. Fainted. She’s petrified.’

Bish felt grateful for his stoic daughter. There’d been no fainting from Bee when she heard about his and Rachel’s divorce.

‘Look, if you let me see Jocelyn, I’ll keep Elliot and the Home Office out of this.’

‘I’m going to really believe you now,’ she said.

‘Was I the idiot or the slob?’

Layla Bayat hung up on him.

Violette and Eddie’s visit to Buckland had worse repercussions than Bish imagined. The CCTV footage was forwarded to Elliot by the hospital security company, and also to the Dover police. From there it was leaked, and the image of Violette and Eddie was all over the media. For a minute, Eddie’s identity was kept safe because of the code of practice that stopped the media from naming a minor. Until someone from his village outside Tonbridge tweeted that the kid with Violette LeBrac goes to my school, which was followed by yeah, that looks like Eddie Conlon. That led to Eddie Conlon & Violette LeBrac are the Calais bombers.