‘I was about to ring to make sure she arrived safely. She was pretty shaken by those Bristol bashings and I got a sense she wanted to be with you.’

Bee returned from her run looking as if she had pushed herself hard. He saw tears but she refused to meet his eye and went straight to the shower. Later, he thought he could entice her out for a quick meal. Just as he was about to knock at her door, his phone rang.

‘She’s here and she’ll speak to you, for five minutes,’ said Layla Bayat. ‘Only because the Violette and Eddie lookalikes getting beaten up has freaked her out.’

It took Bish a moment to realise that ‘she’ was Layla’s sister. Before he could ask a question, Layla gave him her address and hung up.

He didn’t like the idea of leaving Bee alone in the flat. It gave him an easier reason to knock on the door.

‘We have a little errand,’ he said.

She looked up from her iPad. ‘The way I hear it, you don’t have a job,’ she said, ‘and I’m not going anywhere unless it’s worthwhile.’

His phone rang again, Grazier this time. ‘You’ve seen the news?’

‘Yes. Only good thing that’s come from it is that Jocelyn Shahbazi has agreed to speak to me.’

‘I’ll send Elliot.’

‘Not if you want this to end well,’ Bish said, hanging up.

He was about to go into round two of convincing Bee to come along, but she was already on her feet. ‘Let’s go,’ she said.

Layla’s flat was in Shepherd’s Bush. The traffic across town was wretched and the trip wasn’t helped by Bee’s silence. Bish tried to ask her about the athletics meet coming up in a couple of days but she wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

He pulled into a street off Uxbridge Road, around the corner from the Brackenham estate. ‘You stay here,’ he told Bee. ‘It won’t take long. Then we can go somewhere cool and trendy to eat.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

Bish didn’t know which of the two suggestions she thought was ridiculous. Bee was out of the car before he could stop her.

‘They were in Hello,’ she told him. When she said Hello she rolled her eyes. ‘I want to see how much photoshopping was done on them.’

He pressed the doorbell and Layla buzzed them in without a word. In the foyer he glanced up the central stairwell to see Layla and one of the Shahbazi boys looking down over the banister from the top floor. By the time he got to them he was trying hard to catch his breath.

‘Five minutes,’ Layla said, eyeing Bee and then Bish. ‘Are you taking her along on your police work now? First you go through her personal stuff. Now this?’

‘He was going to leave me in the car,’ Bee said.

Layla looked at him in disgust. ‘One more strike and I’m reporting you to child protection, Ortley.’