Chapter 257

Inspector Silva clearly wasn’t the chatty type. He skipped straight to business once he realised I wasn’t in the mood for niceties. He handed me a file. ‘I must ask you to keep everything you’re about to read strictly confidential. Especially from Monsieur Marchetti—’ ‘Yeah, yeah, I get it,’ I said, waving a hand. ‘Not a word from me.’ The file was in French. With my sad excuse for French skills, I had to use a translation app to even start understanding it. Silva didn’t offer to help. He just sat there watching me wrestle with it like it was some kind of sadistic test. The more I read, the worse it got. For a second, I hoped the app was malfunctioning and spitting out nonsense. But I wasn’t that lucky. I flagged down a waiter and asked for the strongest coffee they had. I needed something industrial-strength. ‘If you’ve got this much evidence,’ I said eventually, my voice sounding oddly detached, ‘why haven’t you just arrested him?’ If the file was accurate—and it certainly looked it—