‘Let’s go on, then.’ Fairchild paused and took a deep breath before continuing. ‘Brandon Hope lives in Naples, but he owns a holiday villa close by on the Amalfi Coast in the town of Positano.’ Fairchild reached for a photograph on the table and passed it over. There was a green wall and a metal bench. Brandon sat at one end of the bench staring out at the sea. Beside him was an Arab businessman wearing traditional Saudi clothes and with a white keffiyeh on his head, and two younger men of Middle Eastern origin who wore Western clothes. One was clean-cut with dusty black hair, an engaging smile and piercing brown eyes. He had clear skin and a wisp of hair on his chin. The other had a rich head of hair and a full beard. ‘Brandon Hope and next to him the Saudi backer. His name is Jawad al Haddad and he’s an extremely rich businessman with connections to the Saudi royal family. He owns an airline, a shipping company, a football club in the Netherlands and a large amount of commercial property. He’s been involved in brokering a number of significant arms deals between the Saudi government and defence firms in the US and the UK, notably, of course, several eye-watering contracts involving American Armaments.’

‘You said he had something to do with terrorism?’

‘Just so. Haddad is on a US watch list of terrorist sympathisers. Allegedly he helped fund a training camp in Somalia and provided advice and contacts to ISIS commanders in Syria who were involved in selling oil on the black market to Turkey. Such overt activity had to stop a few years back when the Saudi government launched a crackdown on their nationals funding terrorists. In reality the crackdown was half-hearted and it was easy for Haddad to find another way of getting money out of the country.’

‘Brandon Hope.’

‘Correct.’

‘And who are the other men?’

‘The good looking one is unidentified, but the guy with the beard is a man by the name of Mohid Latif.’

‘Should I know him?’

‘Not yet, but the security services do.’ Fairchild lifted another photograph from the table. ‘This picture comes courtesy of the Tunisian police. It’s taken from a CCTV camera on a building close to the cafe where your mother was killed.’

Silva took the picture and examined it. The still was monochrome and showed a street scene. A minibus sat across from the cafe, slewed in the road. Three men stood beside it, two of them holding assault rifles, the other a pistol. In the distance, distorted by the wide-angle lens of the camera, Silva could see the tables and chairs of the cafe. Anonymous people sitting at those tables, their faces too pixellated to recognise.

‘My mother?’ Silva’s hand shook, the photograph flapping in her hand.