When Violette stopped, Bish wanted her to go on. He wanted to know more. Loved the tune of her lisp in the storytelling. “I need a happy ending for this, Violette,” Bish said with honesty.
“How can I possibly give you that? I come from a bloody history, on both sides of my family. That French soldier’s son is my grandfather, Christophe, and the Algerian’s daughter is my Henna Nasrene, and they have loved each other despite everything. It’s why they chose to immigrate to Australia after my father was born. They moved to the newest town in the country. It was a ballot system, the way they got their land. Out where I live, they could be anyone from anywhere, as long as they were willing to work hard. They did it for my dad, so he wouldn’t have to choose between being French or Algerian, Christian or Muslim. They wanted him to be all those things. And my father wore that watch every day of his life from the time he was ten until the day he died. Because history meant everything to him.”
It sounded as if she were crying but he couldn’t be sure. There weren’t stories like this in his family. Just ones of children being taken away from their father by imperialistic relatives who believed that the British knew how to raise their children better than others.
“That’s a good story, Violette. Best I’ve heard for a while.”
“You’re only saying that to make me surrender.”
He felt regret at the sound of fear in her voice. “It wouldn’t be surrender. They’d only want to ask questions, Violette.”
“My family went in for questioning the day after my grandfather blew up that supermarket and look what happened to them.”
“This isn’t the same,” Bish said.
“It’s exactly the same.”
“Your mother confessed, Violette.”
“It was an illegal confession. They got it through torture.”
Bish hesitated. The wrong response now could end the call.
“I’ll only let them question me if my mother or my uncle is in the room,” she said.
“That’s not possible. You know that.”
“Then you’re turning out to be a great disappointment.”
Bish was dismayed to have reached that status in such a short span of time. It used to take people years to work out what a great disappointment he was. “Give me a chance, Violette, and I’ll turn out to be just what you need.”
“Your daughter’s about to run her best race, Chief Inspector. Don’t miss out on that because of me. I’m dealing with enough guilt in my life. We’ll speak later.”
Bish stumbled to his feet, searching the oval and grandstand. She was here?
“Violette!”
But she’d already hung up. He punched Grazier’s number just as the starter’s gun went off. He looked up to see Bee, and she was beautiful to watch. He hung up. He didn’t know for sure what Grazier’s people had in store for Violette, and he didn’t want to be the one to tell Noor LeBrac that he had found her daughter and had no idea if she had been taken to a twelve-foot-square cell in Paddington Green.
Violette had rung him. It was progress. He’d find another way.
26
Layla Bayat walked into a pub and most of the men turned to have a second look. Bish was no exception. She was beautiful. Long, thick, wavy black hair, and a pretty impressive body fitted in a black suit. She slid onto the barstool beside him, and he tried not to stare at the way her skirt rode up, because he was almost twenty years older than her and women like Layla made him feel past his prime.
“What can I get you?” he asked.
“The Sangiovese.”
He signaled the guy behind the bar and fought the urge to order a second Scotch. He settled for a tonic water.
“What did I overhear Violette saying to Eddie?” he asked, getting straight to the point.
“You need to talk to Noor about Violette. Not me,” she said.
“Noor and I aren’t exactly on chatty terms, Layla. In fact I’m up there with the top three people she’d prefer to see under the wheel of a bus.”
She studied him suspiciously. “Were you one of the arresting officers?”
“No,” he said, then decided to go for broke. “But I was sent into the cell to take Violette from her that day.”
She looked horrified. “I think I could hate your guts for that too.”
“But then you’d have to remind yourself that no one from the neighborhood went down to the station to collect Violette,” he said. “Didn’t family and friends turn their backs on the Sarrafs?”
Her wine arrived and she took a sip without answering.
“I reckon that’s something Noor and Jamal will never get over,” Bish continued. “They expected it from the government, but not their neighbors.”
She looked away. He could tell it was a sensitive issue for Layla. Perhaps he should have pointed out that she was only seventeen at the time, but he doubted it would make her feel better.
“My mother’s only way of dealing with the whole mess was to nurse Aziza Sarraf when she was released from jail,” Layla said. She looked up, angry tears in her eyes. “Jimmy should have been there with her.”
“What did Violette say to Eddie, Layla?”
“You could have got this translated by anyone without mentioning Violette,” she said. “What do you want from me?”
“I care what happens to those kids and I figure you do too. That’s why I came to you with this. You were still there for a Sarraf after everything that happened. Not many people were. Etienne LeBrac certainly wasn’t there for his daughter.”
She flinched at his words. “You have no right to pass judgment on Etienne. You didn’t know him like we did.” She downed her wine and he ordered her another.
“What’s your theory about Brackenham?” she asked. “About what really happened?”
“Does it matter? The clue to Violette and Eddie’s whereabouts doesn’t belong in the past.”
“If you’ve come to me, then it is about the past.”
“I just want those kids safe.”
She sighed. “You wrote it down phonetically better than you thought. Bhebak Khayi—‘I love you, my brother.’ It sounds a lot less clichéd and a lot more profound in Arabic.”
It sounded profound enough to him in any language. And the confirmation still came as a shock, despite his having worked it out himself.
“Did you know Eddie was Noor’s son?” he asked.
“Not until I read those words of Violette’s. Then Jocelyn confirmed it. My sister’s a bit of a mess at the moment. She’s scared for those two. We all are.”
“That’s exactly why we have to get them off the streets, Layla.”
She looked at him in frustration. “But I don’t know how to make that happen!”
“Is what Elliot said true?” Bish asked. “That you and Jamal were lovers even after his release?”
“Is it true that your wife ran off with a school principal?” She held his eye. “I mean, wives run off with rock stars, and men with sports cars, and personal trainers, but whose wife runs off with a school principal, Chief Inspector Ortley?”
Bish ignored the jibe. “Noor says Jamal knows Violette better than anyone. But he’s not trusting me. If you went to see him—”
She was shaking her head vigorously before he could finish. Fighting back tears.
“Layla, please. Give me something. And I promise it won’t get back to anyone who will put Violette or Eddie in danger.”
There was a long stretch of silence.
“My sister…I once asked her why she believed Noor had confessed. Joss said it was about the breaking point. Everyone has one, and the day Noor confessed she’d reached hers. Etienne meant everything to her. His death would have broken her.”
Bish couldn’t buy that. There was more to Noor LeBrac than loving a man.
Layla finished her drink and stood. “If I cross the Channel to see him, the people I work for, the same ones I want to impress enough to give me a junior partnership, will find out. I can’t
let the rest of my life be controlled by the misfortunes of the Sarrafs.”
She was crying now.
“It pains me—it shames me—to say that. So please don’t ask me again.”
27
From the pub he headed south for Rye, where Rachel had discovered that the retired Dr. Walden was running the Red Goose B and B. If Bish wanted to reduce himself to quoting Violette, then being at the mercy of holidaymakers clogging up the A229 was what he would describe as a nightmare of biblical proportions.
He arrived in Rye an hour after his GPS promised he would and drove through the narrow town wall gate, clipping his side mirror in the process, before parking his car on a steep lane that petered out in what looked like a courtyard shared between the village church and a cottage. Heading off on foot in search of the B and B, he passed the same pub patrons at least five times until one of them took mercy and pointed him in the direction of the Red Goose. Dr. Walden was out for the evening, which meant that Bish was forced to spend the night in a room too small for someone not born in the seventeenth century and stunted by famine.
Next morning, Dr. Walden’s wife proved to be like most B and B hosts he’d come across by giving him an excess of local information.
“…and then I’d finish on Winchelsea Beach. Glorious in this sunshine. Let me get you a couple of maps.”
Bish smiled politely. “And would you tell Dr. Walden I’d like to say hello?” he said.
She looked at him with curiosity. “Then you know Owen?”
“A mutual friend whose baby he delivered at St. Therese’s told me to look him up here.”
“Of course,” she said, and left to get his maps while he pocketed a few of the marmalade samples.
When Owen Walden finally stood before Bish after the breakfast rush, he was wary. Bish felt studied, judged, dismissed, then reluctantly studied all over again.
“I’ve seen you on the telly,” the doctor said.
“You may well have. My daughter was on that bus in France,” he said, extending a hand. “Bish Ortley. I’ve been sort of dragged in as a spokesperson for the parents.”
“The media seem to be reporting a whole lot of nonsense,” Walden said. And when Bish agreed, the man added, “Emma mentioned we have a mutual friend whose baby I delivered.”
“Yes, at St. Therese’s. Noor LeBrac,” Bish said.
At the mention of the name, Bish could see that Owen Walden had a story to tell but wasn’t quite sure whether Bish was a man to trust.
“I’ve been waiting for this moment. No one’s ever come asking about her. Until now, with those kids off all over the place.”
“Her kids?” Bish prompted.
Walden took a moment to reply. “I’m presuming you’re in contact with people who know all the answers, so why come to me?”
“Because I have a feeling you’ll give me the straight-out truth and they won’t,” he said.
Owen Walden seemed to like the response. He sat down.
“You knew something the rest of the world didn’t,” Bish said. “Did it ever worry you?”
The doctor dismissed this with a wave of his hand. “I don’t think it was top secret. She may have been in solitary confinement but there would have been a handful of people who knew she was pregnant. Granted, the authorities didn’t want people to know. It would have earned her sympathy, and someone had to pay for what happened. True?”
“Is that what you believe?”
“I believed a lot of things before I heard her confession.”
“So you can vouch that there was one?”
“Oh, there certainly was.”
A pity, Bish thought, and was surprised at himself. Perhaps Rachel and Violette’s conviction had started to make a dent in his head.
“So how was a confession obtained from a woman who just the day before had written a letter claiming she was innocent?”
A wry smile. “In the movies, the way to get a confession out of a guilty person is to tell them lies and trick them,” Dr. Walden said. “But the way to get a confession out of an innocent person is to tell them the truth. The most damaging truth for Noor LeBrac was that her husband was dead. I was there when they told her Etienne LeBrac had thrown himself off a cliff at Malham Cove and left their daughter on her own. Then, a reminder that her mother was rotting in jail with Stage IV cancer. And that her uncle, the proud patriarch of the Sarraf family, was reduced to cleaning the shit off the toilets in Lewes Prison. They taunted her with the fact that her eighteen-year-old brother was being raped in Belmarsh Prison. They convinced her that only she could make things right for her family, and that by refusing to admit her guilt she was causing them insurmountable pain.”
Bish fought the images conjured up by all this.
“And what did she say to that?” he asked. He knew that Owen Walden’s response was going to challenge everything he had come to believe for the past thirteen years.
The doctor didn’t reply for a long time.
“If you were there for the confession, Dr. Walden, you would have witnessed her reaction?” Bish pressed, trying to control the shake of his hand under the careful scrutiny of the other man.
“I was a bit busy,” the doctor said softly. “I was delivering a baby, Chief Inspector Ortley.”
Bish felt the next breath catch in his throat. “She confessed during labor?”
Walden nodded, and Bish chose his next words carefully.
“Do you believe she was coerced?”
“Is there a difference between belief and certainty?”
It was a rhetorical question, but Bish nodded all the same.
“Then no, I don’t believe she was coerced. I’m certain of it.”
When Owen Walden walked him to his car, he removed the parking fine from under the wipers and handed it to Bish without a word.
“Why is it that you didn’t reveal what you know before now?” Bish asked, hoping he didn’t sound judgmental.
“Because I was a coward. Wasn’t frightened for my life, of course. But I had no doubt that if I went on a Noor LeBrac campaign they wouldn’t hesitate to trump up a bogus malpractice suit.” He was pensive a moment. “I did go and see her a couple of years later and convinced her that if she went for an appeal, I’d testify. She was grateful. Excited. A few ambitious QCs had expressed interest in taking it on.” The old doctor shook his head in regret. “Bad timing. It was July 2005.”
The London bombings. An appeal at that moment would not have stood a chance. Bish unlocked his car door and extended a hand. “I appreciate your time,” he said.
“I’m not sure if you’re aware, but there’s a journalist asking about rumors of a Noor LeBrac pregnancy thirteen years ago,” Walden said. “A Sarah something from one of those dreadful rags.”
“What sort of questions?”
“‘We’re running a story about Eddie Conlon’s connection to Violette LeBrac,’ were her exact words. ‘Is it true you delivered babies at Foston Hall?’”
Bish felt an uncontrollable need to smash something. The doctor gave a sympathetic grimace. “I think of those people often,” Walden said. “Noor LeBrac. The handler. The Conlons. All of them. It’ll be a pity if Eddie Conlon’s connection to Noor is revealed. Noor LeBrac’s children were raised apart to protect the boy’s identity. It will all have been for nothing. A cruel, cruel pity.”
On his way back to London, Bish tried Violette’s number at different intervals, but the phone was switched off and he figured it no longer existed. When his mobile rang he hoped it was her, but instead Grazier’s name showed up on the display.
“That little cheating fucker Crombie is back behind bars,” he said without preamble. “Just got himself arrested for assaulting Russell Gorman. Jumped him outside Strood railway station last night.”
It took a moment for Bish to register the victim’s name. “The chaperone?” he asked. He was a bit annoyed that he hadn’t thought of jumping Gorman outside Strood railway station himself.
“At the moment the only kids on that bus getting good press are those who are dead or injured,” Grazier said. “Crombie’s association with Violette LeBrac is going to get him fried at that hearing. I’m not making threats here, Ortley, but the media will drag anyone linked to her into this mess. Including Bee.”
“Why are you telling me this, Grazier?”
“The Reverend and Mr. Crombie have taken a liking to you. I think they’d appreciate a bit of hand-holding at the bail hearing tomorrow. Anyway, an old schoolmate of yours will be a judge on the case, so you may want to catch up.”
“Then send Elliot.”
“I will, but I want you there as well. There’ll be a media presence and we don’t want Elliot talking to them. He’s not very good with the uncivilized. I’ll send you the details.” When Bish didn’t respond, Grazier said, “Tomorrow, two thirty.”
Bish was about to turn onto the M20 for London when he found himself following the signs to Dover instead.
“What if I told you I could bring in Violette and Eddie by the end of the week?”
“I’d tell you that you’d be making the home secretary very happy.”
“Well, if she wants to be happy she has to be willing to pull a few strings. Big strings. Some may say big, impossible strings. Are you listening?”
He heard the trademark irritated sigh, but he knew Grazier was listening.
Two hours later he entered La Forge Salle de Boxe on Rue Delacroix. Jamal Sarraf was taping the hands of a kid a little older than Eddie Conlon. Bish wondered if Sarraf saw himself in these younger lads. That fidgeting desire to get into a boxing ring or onto a football pitch. An immigrant boy’s next step to a better life. England’s cricketers always seemed so much more composed, walking calmly on and off the field. As if their whole lives didn’t depend on it. Perhaps it was why Bish cared little for the game of cricket. He could see the skill and brilliance, but not the feral hunger pulsing through the players’ veins.