“Bee, I need you to tell me the truth. The French equivalent to MI5 is in charge of this investigation now and I don’t want them on your doorstep. Do you know where Violette and Eddie are?”
“She’s a scummy terrorist’s spawn and I hope she rots in hell. That’s all you need to know.”
Bish thought it best not to ask the question that was hovering. Was she in a relationship with Violette? Was his daughter secretly in love with Noor LeBrac’s daughter?
Saffron insisted he stay the night. Bee made a brief appearance at dinner—for her sake, Bish presumed. Bee never extended her surliness to his mother. When Bish’s phone rang after the meal and Elliot’s name showed on the screen, he was tempted to ignore it, and then he remembered that Grazier and whoever he worked for had a tape of a conversation between Violette and her grandmother. Had there been mention of Bee? He took the call.
“Is there a reason you don’t answer your phone?” Elliot asked.
“Yes. I rarely want to speak to you.”
“Grazier thinks the kids on the bus know more than they’re letting on,” Elliot said.
“Why would he think that?”
“Because one of Grazier’s contacts is a journalist who was at the campground, and he overheard a girl talking about the night before the bombing. Said she saw something. When Grazier tried to set up an interview with the family he was told to go away.”
“Who is she?”
“The girl from Chichester.”
“Greta,” Bish said.
“Can you look into it, seeing you’re on first-name terms with these kids?”
“I’m not,” Bish said. “It’s common courtesy to know their names. You know, referring to her as the girl from Chichester doesn’t exactly invite a relationship with the girl from Chichester’s parents.”
“Then can you have a chat with Greta and find out if she saw or heard something the night before the bombing?”
Bish wanted something in return. He tried to sound casual about it. “By the way, did Grazier get that conversation translated? Violette and her grandmother?”
“He did, and we’re trying to work out how to deal with it. We don’t want some of this stuff getting out.”
“What stuff?” Bish hadn’t meant his question to sound so much like a demand. He could feel Elliot hesitating.
“Just talk to the kids and parents, Ortley. That’s what Grazier wants you to do.”
He joined his mother to watch the news. A teenage girl in Marseille had been threatened by a group of thugs wearing balaclavas outside a gymnasium. It was only through the intervention of a passerby that she escaped without being hurt. She claimed that her assailants had mistaken her for Violette Zidane. Not that the girl looked anything like Violette, but she clearly didn’t have to.
“How did Lucy Gilies put it?” Saffron asked with bitterness. “‘The same sort of foreign.’ And then all you need is a social vigilante on Twitter who wants their hundred and forty characters of fame claiming to have seen her in the neighborhood.”
“I thought you were a social networker extraordinaire,” he said.
“Oh I am. I just find the unregulated part of it frightening.”
In the guest room Bish lay in bed,desperate for a drink. He knew with great certainty that he was going to be creeping around the house in the dark soon enough, like a seventeen-year-old searching for his parents’ booze. He hadn’t slept in this room before. It was an attic space converted, but there was nothing stuffy and old-fashioned about it except the portable TV.
He found himself watching a movie in Arabic and French, the subtitles difficult to read on the small screen. It was hard to watch while half asleep. He couldn’t close his eyes a moment and still understand what was going on. But somewhere, in a different sort of blur to the one he’d woken up in that day, he heard words that had him wide awake in an instant. The subtitles were gone already from the screen, but the phrase echoed in his memory. It sounded like the same thing Violette had said to Eddie in the campsite kitchen—he was sure of it. He scribbled it down phonetically. He had no idea how to make sense of it, but those words haunted his sleep and were on his lips when he woke the next morning.
16
The overgrown teddy bear is coming Layla’s way just as she’s walking into the towers on Fetter Lane during the peak-hour morning shuffle. She doesn’t know whether it’s pure bulk or overindulgent padding, but he’s a big guy.
“Can we talk, Layla? Can I call you that?”
“No, we can’t. And no, you can’t.”
She steps into the revolving doors, hoping to shake him off. There’s no way she wants him following her to the tenth floor. But he’s already waiting inside, having taken the other door, so she revolves herself right back outside and faces off with him on the street.
“Where’s bad cop?” she asks, looking around.
“He’s not a cop,” Ortley says. “And this is something separate from the other day.”
She isn’t in the mood for bullshit. “Don’t follow me in,” she says, walking back into the revolving door. But he’s instantly there behind her and now she’s truly irritated because they’re trapped in the same small space.
“It’s bad etiquette getting into a revolving door with someone who hasn’t given you permission.”
“Haven’t actually read the handbook on revolving-door etiquette,” he says. “I need a favor, Layla.”
“I don’t give out favors,” she says, about to step into the busy foyer for the second time.
“I need you to translate a comment in Arabic that Violette LeBrac made to the boy she’s with.”
Layla finds herself out on the street again. She doesn’t know what game this guy is playing, and she wants him nowhere near her office.
“Last I heard, Scotland Yard had Arabic translators, Chief Inspector Ortley. Not to mention Google. So I think you’re lying to me.”
“I’m not with Scotland Yard, and Google has a problem with the way I spell.”
“Then who are you with?”
He doesn’t respond. Just retrieves a piece of paper from his pocket and holds it out to her.
“There’s something written here that I don’t trust anyone else with,” he says.
“But you trust me?” she asks, disbelieving. “Someone you’ve met once, who you interrogated because I fucked a Sarraf?”
He winces. So does she, a little, inside.
“Your friend’s words, Chief Inspector.”
“But not mine,” he says, still holding up the paper. “I trust anyone who cares for Violette. It’s why I’m not handing it over to just any translator.”
She tells herself to walk away. Junior partner, she reminds herself. It would make up for all the wrongs in her life.
“Two minutes,” she says. “Talk.”
He looks relieved. “My daughter was assigned a room with Violette on the Normandy trip. They were supposedly enemies. But my ex-wife found photos of B—my daughter—with Violette and the boy, clowning around together. So for some reason, my daughter is lying.”
Layla puts up two hands to stop him. “The moment I get to my computer,” she says, “I’m going to google you and find out everything about you, including your daughter’s name, so you can just go ahead and use it.”
That makes him grimace. He would have been good-looking in his youth, Layla thinks. For girls who are into older men, he probably still is. There’s a bloodshot quality to his eyes that could be attributed to the fact that his daughter’s just been in a bomb attack, but she suspects it’s more than that.
“Bee,” he says finally. “Short for Sabina.”
“And you’re scared she’s going to get dragged into this?”
“To be honest, yes. But I also want Violette and the boy safe.” He gestures again with the slip of paper. “Violette spoke these words to the boy in Arabic. I know it mentions love. That much I understand.”
Layla refuses to take it, which seems to anger him.
/> “People are dead, Layla. Kids are dead. The right wing both here and in France are riling up racist scum. Violette and the boy’s lives are at risk. Do you honestly think I want those kids hurt?”
“You’ll do anything to protect your daughter,” she says. “Including sacrificing Violette. My sister and Noor were best friends for most of their lives. My sister would never forgive me if I put Noor’s child at risk. I would never forgive myself.”
Layla is finished here. “Please don’t follow me up. If your daughter showed you the photographs, then I’m sure she’ll trust you with the truth.”
“Bee didn’t show us the photos. My ex-wife found them on her iPad.”
Layla can’t believe what she’s hearing. “You snooped on her life? What kind of people are you? Teenage privacy is important. Very.”
“Please,” Ortley says.
She looks down at the paper. It appears to be gibberish.
“I’ll wait out here,” he says.
From the corner of her eye she sees one of the partners in the foyer.
“No, you won’t,” she says, keeping her voice low. “I’ll ring you when I get to it.”
She pockets the paper as Frank Silvey walks to the lift. She means to follow, but stops. Can’t resist.
“Did you see him?”
“Who?”
“Jimmy Sarraf? Did you see him in Calais?”
He nods.
Layla badly wants to ask how he was, but doesn’t. She can’t make junior partner with the Sarraf noose around her neck.
“Don’t call me,” she says. “I’ll call you.”
17
The soup ladle had found a new purpose: scooping dead fish out of the tank. It was getting to Bish now, because he was following all the rules. Don’t overfeed. Make sure the tank is filtered and cleaned. He was even thinking of filling the tank with bottled water. Didn’t drink bottled water himself, but he’d do anything to keep a fish alive these days.
The phone rang and he saw it was Grazier. Bish had finally added him as a contact, because getting five phone calls a day really seemed to invite the inclusion.
“Charlie Crombie?” Grazier said. No salutation. Sometimes he’d come on the line midsentence.
“Hmm?” Bish concentrated on keeping the fish in the ladle as he took it to the bathroom for its final rites.
“I’m presuming that name rings a bell?”
“Responsible for Violette Zidane’s less-than-pure reputation with our tabloid-reading friends.”
“We believe there’s more,” Grazier said.
Bish thought it best not to flush the fish down the toilet in case Grazier drew the wrong conclusion.
“Why?”
“He beat up that kid from Guildford. Tried to do it incognito, wearing a Chelsea beanie. Apparently Crombie’s a Tottenham fan.”
“Kennington?” Bish asked.
“That’s right. I’ve spoken to the chief constable of the Surrey police and she’ll make sure the Guildford lot are expecting you. The other family’s pressing charges.”
Of all the parents Bish had met at the campgrounds, the Kenningtons were the only ones who hadn’t responded to his calls. They’d been the bigmouths with the press. And Bish didn’t know who he liked least: Crombie or Kennington.
“I’m not a copper here, Grazier. So what the hell am I doing? Either arrange for me to go back to work or stop sending me off to do Elliot’s.”
“We’ve got nothing to do with the Met. You answer to the home secretary for the time being, Ortley. She’s not too happy with the way that nutter Gorman handled things, and she’s less than impressed that the foreign minister, our intelligence, and French intelligence are revealing nothing.”
“Because it didn’t happen here?”
“That’s what they’re telling us. To butt out. But the home secretary has to answer to people here, and the way she sees it, the kids on that bus are ours. Anything they get up to on home ground has to be investigated.”
“And who am I down in Surrey?” Bish asked.
“I’ve told you before. Your being one of the fathers is the closest we’ll come to getting people talking. Find out if Crombie and Kennington know something.”
Bish flushed the toilet anyway because he no longer cared if Grazier thought he was taking a dump while talking to him.
“What else do you do, Grazier, apart from ordering people around?”
“The fun stuff, Ortley. I get to hang out with Eddie Conlon’s father and reassure him that his son’s not going to turn up dead. And next week I get to watch two families bury their teenage children and a town say farewell to its favorite teacher. Make the comparison. Who would you rather be at the moment?”
Bish knew he was going down to Surrey whether he wanted to or not. Grazier must have taken his silence as acquiescence. “Any theories about why Crombie targeted Kennington?” he asked.
“Kennington’s apparently a bit of a squealer,” Bish told him. “I suppose he could have something on Crombie, who may have tried to keep him quiet.”
“And the story with Crombie? By the sound of it, he’s quite the little cunt.”
“Quite,” Bish agreed. “He was at the back of that bus. He was asked to help a kid sitting in the seat close to where the bomb went off, but refused. Could have known it was there.”
“Too far-fetched. If you’re a murdering little bastard who knows there’s a bomb, you’re not going to stay on board. Plus he doesn’t have a motive.”
“And Violette does?”
“Have we ever implied Violette’s a suspect?” Grazier asked.
Bish still hadn’t worked out where Grazier stood when it came to the missing pair.
“Did you get that phone call between her and the grandparents translated?”
Grazier’s telltale sigh sounded in Bish’s ear. Didn’t know whether it was his pissed-off sigh or exhaustion.
“Let’s not talk about the translation. Let’s just find her and Eddie and bring them in. They’re our number one priority, and anything Crombie or Kennington can tell us may help.”
Bish wondered what was in the conversation between the LeBracs that made Violette Grazier’s number one priority.
“Just get over there before Crombie’s parents arrive,” Grazier said. “They’re traveling from Margate so you’ve got about an hour on them. If we’re lucky, the kid doesn’t know his rights and he’ll talk.”
Charlie Crombie did know his rights and he was talking to no one. His sour-faced expression shifted slightly when Bish entered the holding cell in Guildford. A pathetic attempt at summer facial hair made him look even more pale and puny.
“I think it would be in everyone’s best interest if you apologized to Kennington,” Bish said. It was the best advice he could give. “I’ll talk to his parents, persuade them to drop the charges, and this won’t go on your record.”
“And I think it would be in everyone’s best interest,” Charlie mimicked, “if you were out there looking for my missus.”
“Violette’s your missus, is she? A bit derogatory.”
“She’s been called worse.”
“Give me something on Kennington that could motivate his family to drop the charges, Charlie.”
“He’s a wanker. Literally. Wanks all night long.” Crombie was enjoying himself. “You think that’ll do the trick, Chief Inspector Ortley?”
Bish pushed away fantasies of tearing Crombie’s bum fluff off his chin.
“It’s your life, Charlie,” he said. It wasn’t until he was leaving the cell that Crombie called out to him.
“Kennington’s father reckons they should round up all the Pakis and towel heads and foreigners and set ’em on fire under Marble Arch.”
Bish hesitated. Didn’t want to believe the kid, but there was a hint of disgust in Crombie’s tone.
“Not to mention the queers. His words, not mine.”
There it was. A Grazier comparison. Kennington or Crombie? Who deserved a win today?
/>
Rodney Kennington certainly didn’t look like a winner. His broken nose, swollen lip, and purple eye were proof that for someone so scrawny, Charlie Crombie packed a punch. The Kenningtons were furious. Yes, yes, Bish agreed, Charlie Crombie was a troublemaker, and now he was claiming that the Kenningtons believed the solution to Britain’s problems was to set fire to minorities. Perhaps the media would be interested in just how low Charlie Crombie would stoop to get out of this cowardly act. To tell such lies about the Kenningtons. Hopefully the powers that be at Rodney’s school wouldn’t believe everything they heard. The school had a zero tolerance for racist remarks by students. Bish’s advice was that the Kenningtons go all the way with their charges, to show just what a thug and a liar Charlie Crombie was.
The Kenningtons exchanged an uneasy look.
Perhaps not.
Bish met Crombie’s parents in the foyer, where they were being reunited with their ungrateful sprog. Mr. Crombie, in a Salvation Army uniform, was a silent man in his fifties with a sad smile for his son, as if he had only just realized there were souls to be saved closer to home. Mrs. Crombie was the talker. A robust woman with a no-nonsense manner. They were listening to a harried-looking legal rep.
“The Kenningtons have agreed to drop the charges,” she said, “but they want a restraining order.” Her phone buzzed and she walked away to take the call.
The Crombies looked relieved, and Bish thought he needed to explain the whole restraining order deal to them. He began, “Mr. and Mrs. Crombie—”
“Reverend,” Charlie interrupted, the sneer back on his face.
“Reverend and Mrs. Crombie—”
“Mr. and Reverend Crombie to you, wanker.”
“Charlie,” his mother warned, “let it go.”
“My apologies,” Bish said. “It was stupid of me to presume.”
Charlie muttered something under his breath.