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Black’s voice lost a little of its hard edge. “We’ll take it easy. Does she have a phone?”

Ben nodded.

“Then call her.”

When Ben struggled to get his own phone out of his jacket pocket, I leaned in to help him, heart thumping as I got close. At least he didn’t shuffle away from me.

Rather than try to hold the phone to his ear with two cuffed hands, he put it on speaker and laid it on the table as it rang.

“Ben?” Roxy’s voice shook when she answered.

“Yes, it’s me. I...er, I got delayed. But I bumped into some old friends, and they’ve offered to help us, okay? They’re on their way to pick you up.”

“Are you sure? I thought we were on our own.”

“So did I. But someone’s smiling down on us today.” He met my eyes as he echoed my earlier words. “They’re good people. We need to let them help.”

He hung up and closed his eyes for a second as he took a shuddering breath. A tear ran down my cheek, and I quickly wiped it away before he saw.

“It’ll be okay, Midnight,” I whispered.

Ben opened his eyes again. “The key’s in my pocket.”

“Gus, find it. Emmy, take Gideon and Xav and get over there.”

Black left the room with his phone clamped to his ear, followed by his chosen team, leaving me alone with Ben and Sofia. An uncomfortable silence reigned, and I needed to say something, anything, to break it.

“I thought Black didn’t like Gideon being near Emmy?”

“He doesn’t,” Sofia said. “But he’ll always pick the best team for the job. Work comes before his personal feelings.”

How strange it must be to be able to tuck your emotions away into a box like that. In the past few weeks, I’d been through agony, despair, and desperate sadness, but no matter how bad it got, the only thing worse than having those feelings would be to have none at all.

“I pity him for that.”

She didn’t reply before Black came back in and sat on the coffee table opposite Ben. “They’re on their way. If I un-cuff you, are you going to try anything stupid?”

Ben shook his head, then stretched his limbs once Black had freed them. I didn’t know whether Ben would want me to move away or not, but I did know I wanted to be close to him. So I stayed put.

Ruth brought in tea and snacks, and as Ben ate one sandwich then another, I realised how much weight he’d lost. The beard hid the gauntness of his face, but when he took his jacket off, there was no mistaking how thin he’d got. I longed to wrap my arms around him, but I forced myself to hold back.

“We need to go over the case,” Black said. “We’ve put some information together, but we don’t know all the history. Apparently, a certain French senator is rather proficient at burying it.”

“That bastard. His son was supposed to be locked up indefinitely, did you know that?”

“Yes. We also know Leroux senior pulled strings to get him out. But we’ll deal with him later. Guy Leroux is our current problem, not Bertrand. Now, can you start from the beginning?”

Ben talked us through the story, and between detective work and guesswork, it seemed we’d already unearthed most of it. Ben had walked in on the most heinous of acts, did the right thing by standing up for two women in trouble, then lost his job and got dragged through the courts afterwards. Black only interrupted once, to tell us Emmy’s team was on their way back with Roxy, but afterwards, he did have one question.

“What happened to the girl? We understand she’s missing.”

“I don’t know.”

“Really? Because if I had to guess, I’d say she was somewhere near Mougins.”

Ben stared at him for a second, then closed his eyes. “Fuck.”

“What happened?”

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