Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil

  “Sabah el Kheir,” the man says. He’s in his early forties, with a receding hairline and an impassive look on his face. Or he’s trying to come across as impassive.

  “Morning,” Jamal murmurs in response. There’s no doubt in his mind that the man knows who he is. The waiting on the street corner. The certainty that he understands Arabic. There’s a compartment in Jamal’s head that’s always alert to the possibility of someone’s vengeance for what his father did. And now it’s also alert to the possibility that Ortley and the government are using neighborhood spies to keep an eye out for Violette and Eddie. In the London that he owned as a boy, Jimmy is a stranger as a man, overwhelmed by the crowds, paranoid at any recognition.

  He takes the tube to Charing Cross and then the train to Tonbridge and arrives within the hour. He’s never met Eddie’s adoptive parents, but Anna Conlon was a letter writer. Every year on Eddie’s birthday she sent Jamal a card with a photo. She mentioned her husband often. John Conlon was a gravedigger and, Jamal suspects, less forgiving than his wife. The Conlons moved to Kent when Eddie came to them. Originally from Liverpool, they couldn’t bear to live in their old neighborhood after losing a son.

  Conlon is waiting for him at the station. He’s somewhere in his late fifties, but grief seems to have added on the years. It is a strangely quiet morning they spend together; Conlon has nothing to offer on Eddie’s whereabouts, and Jamal isn’t much of a talker these days, but he finds himself enjoying the stillness of it all.

  “I dug my son’s grave all those years ago,” John tells him as they sit eating lunch in, of all places, a cemetery, watching a procession pass them by. John has brought ham rolls and beer for them both. Jamal doesn’t have the heart to tell him that, regardless of how superficial his practice of Islam is, he avoids pork and alcohol. “And a year ago I did the same for my wife. If I have to dig Eddie’s grave, someone will be digging mine soon after.”

  No use telling him not to think that way. Jamal would do the same thing. Noor too.

  “What happened between you and Eddie, John?”

  “I think I broke his heart even more than our hearts were already broken,” Conlon says, and there’s a crack in his voice. “I don’t care if he’s done something wrong and the French want to talk to him. I don’t care if the police here want to talk to him. I just want Eddie off the streets. I want people to stop hurting kids who look like him.”

  When his phone rings on the train back to Charing Cross, Jamal knows it will be Noor. Any time between three and four thirty is her time to ring him.

  “Where are you?” she asks.

  “On the train. I went to see John Conlon.”

  “What has he got to say for himself?”

  He’s reminded of her words yesterday. Tell him to be a damn father to his son. How much must it have hurt to say that? Etienne was Eddie’s father. She is his mother. They never had their chance.

  “He’s blaming himself. Said he’d slackened off ever since Anna died. That he said something to hurt Eddie and that’s why he’s not coming home.” Jamal knows that Noor would have pushed John Conlon for more.

  “What’s it like out there?” she asks.

  “It’s the same and different.”

  “Yimi’s grave?”

  “Beautiful,” he lies. “Taken care of real good.”

  He can tell she’s crying.

  “I wish I hadn’t seen you, habibi,” she says, and it makes him weep himself.

  “If you want to fight this, Noor, just tell me. We’ll get you out of there. The family will find the money to try again. You know that.”

  “Just find Violette and Eddie safe,” she says. “That’s all I want in this world.”

  33

  When Bish returned from Strood he settled in for another session with the brain-numbing, Kardashian-inspired, selfie-obsessed Instagram photos. To make matters worse, his search was unaided by alcohol and his body was telling him loud and clear to rectify that. His dull headache tapped out the request in a taunting Morse code as his hands shook on the keyboard. But he resisted, and the patron saint of two-day sobriety rewarded him with evidence.

  It was a photo of Manoshi and Lola sleeping, heads together, dribbling. Bish had determined that the bus carrying the British kids arrived at the campsite at 5:45 p.m. on the day before the bombing, this time having been displayed on a selfie taken by one of the twins from Ramsgate on the front steps of the bus. Serge Sagur had playfully photobombed it, which was surprising because most of the other shots of the ill-fated driver showed a seriously irritated man. The photo of the two girls sleeping was taken at 5:40, after the bus had turned off the A16 onto the narrow stretch of road leading to the camp gates, the road Bish and Saffron had walked on the day of the bombing. Surrounding the bus were rows of Scots pine trees that looked close enough to touch from the window beside Lola’s head. When Bish zoomed in to analyze the shot he could make out the shape of someone in the copse of trees.

  The doorbell interrupted his find and he thought about ignoring it, but the second ring was accompanied by a text from Grazier.

  I’m outside your flat.

  He went to the door.

  “How are things, Bish?”

  Bish figured that a personal visit, and no longer being referred to as Ortley, meant either something was wrong or Grazier was about to ask him to do something he didn’t want to do. He felt bone-tired. He’d covered more mileage in a few days than he had in a year. He wanted a drink, but wanted more desperately to resist having one. An order from Grazier would send him over the edge.

  “Things are no different from two hours ago,” Bish said. “When Elliot filled you in on the bail hearing.”

  “Can we talk inside?”

  He didn’t want Grazier in his home. It revealed too much about him and his state of mind. But Grazier wasn’t going anywhere and Bish didn’t have a choice.

  “Love the high ceilings on these postwar restorations,” Grazier said as they made their way down the hallway into the kitchen.

  Bish had never noticed, or cared to notice. “I think I’ve got something,” he said before Grazier could make any demands. He turned his laptop around and showed him the image.

  “I can take it in to the experts but we’re going to need something clearer than this,” Grazier said, studying it. “What’s to say it’s not someone from the campsite going for a walk?”

  “What’s to say it’s not someone on their way to the campsite to plant a bomb?”

  Grazier shrugged. “Email it to me. We’re looking at everything. Whose photo is this?”

  “The twins from Ramsgate.”

  “Whose parents never return my calls. So what’s the Ortley secret ingredient?”

  “Apart from looking after uniformed cops and talking to the community about Guy Fawkes celebrations, Grazier, it’s what I do,” Bish said. “It’s my job. So why don’t you talk to the powers that be and get me back to work? I can do all of this better with access to information.”

  “You stuck a gun down the throat of a senior detective, Bish. Do you honestly think they’re going to want you back?”

  He wondered how long Grazier had known that. And whether the home secretary and the rest of the world knew too. “I’m regretting that I haven’t done the same to you and Elliot.”

  “I think the home secretary would give you a medal for sticking a gun down Elliot’s throat.” Grazier tried to smile. Couldn’t pull it off. He made himself comfortable at the breakfast bar. Bish didn’t. Sitting down meant an invitation to stay. Grazier knew that.

  “Talk,” Bish said.

  Grazier sighed. “Well, let’s start with the easy part and introduce the country to these brave kids. Everyone’s wanting a human interest story now, and Fionn, Manoshi, Lola, and the other kids on that bus are it.”

  The easy part? “I don’t think they’re feeling particularly brave at the moment,” Bish said.

  “The home secretary wants the public to—”

&
nbsp; “Those kids aren’t here to make the public feel good,” Bish interrupted.

  “It’s to take the focus off the deaths, now that the funerals are over. Attention off Violette and Eddie too,” Grazier said. “That’s all we’re suggesting.”

  “So we’re going to pretend the dead no longer exist? Out of sight, out of mind?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Grazier said in an icy tone. “Don’t put words in my mouth.”

  “They’re not ready,” Bish argued. “The kids in hospital are depressed. Charlie Crombie’s being assessed for post-traumatic stress. The others are barely coping. I speak to the parents, Grazier, so I know our little tour of teenagers is falling apart. Thirteen-year-olds getting pissed on alcopops. Getting into fights. Locking themselves in their rooms. Cutting themselves. Bawling all day and night. Not getting out of bed. Taking pills. Screaming in their sleep. Glued to social media for a sighting of Violette and Eddie. Praying that some fucking lunatic isn’t going to bash the shit out of two innocent kids who sat beside them for seven days.” His head was hammering. Too much shouting in his brain. In his heart. He poured a glass of water and downed it. “So on behalf of the parents, can you tell the home secretary that our kids are a bit on the sad side and not up to being next week’s feel-good story?”

  Grazier was studying him with one of those looks Bish could never read.

  “Why are you really here, Grazier?” he asked. “Now that we’ve got the easy part out of the way.”

  Grazier removed a file from his backpack. “This is what we’ve got,” he said. “French intelligence are fixated on Ahmed Khateb as the main suspect. The Algerian driver of the French bus. They want access to Noor LeBrac.”

  “No!”

  “Let me finish.”

  “What’s their strategy?” Bish demanded. “Get into the head of a terrorist by interrogating a so-called terrorist? We’ll lose Noor and any chance of finding Violette and Eddie.”

  “A ‘so-called terrorist’?” Grazier asked. “Is that how you’re seeing Noor these days?”

  He ignored that.

  “Khateb is the French’s main suspect not only because he was seen arguing with the driver of the British bus on three occasions,” Grazier said, “but because an Estonian kid on one of the buses in Bayeux posted a video. If you remember, the French and British tours were in the same campsites for three nights: Calais twice, and Bayeux midtour. So this Estonian kid has footage of Michael Stanley playing the trumpet and Astrid Copely dancing in the car park of the Bayeux. It’s gone viral. Gut-wrenching to watch when you know those two kids will be dead four days later.”

  Bish knew the video existed. He just hadn’t wanted to look at it. “I don’t understand where this is going, Grazier.”

  “Your friend Attal is watching this footage over and over again and he picks up something no one else has noticed. The driver of the French bus is in the background arguing with someone. Violette.”

  “What?”

  “So Attal passes this on to French intelligence and they begin reinterviewing those on board the French bus. According to one of the kids, Violette mentioned Khateb in conversation on the night before the bombing.”

  “Then we’re back to Violette being a suspect?”

  “No. We’re back to Violette possibly being the target. Who knows why? Payback for Brackenham. A connection with the Zidane side of the family in Algeria. We’re all guessing. But we have evidence that she and Khateb spoke at Bayeux, and he’s been missing since the day of the bombing.”

  “How would he have learnt her identity? No one but Eddie was aware she was traveling to this side of the world.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Let’s just say that I worked out the Eddie connection, Grazier. You could have saved me a lot of time if you’d told me sooner. Why didn’t you?”

  “What makes you think I knew?”

  “You seem to know everything else.”

  “Yes, well, I don’t know where those kids are, so my omniscience is a bit flawed at the moment,” Grazier said. “Let’s get back to Khateb. If he discovered Violette was a LeBrac, and she was the target, then he had a couple of days to plan this. So we need LeBrac…Noor to identify this guy.” Grazier put up a hand to stop Bish interrupting. “We’ve said no to the French visiting Holloway because we’ve got you there to talk to her. At the moment, what both sides of the Channel have in common is that Khateb is our chief suspect.”

  “What about the security car that was seen being pushed out of the campgrounds the night before?”

  “That witness needs to be reinterviewed.”

  “No. The parents don’t want that. They’re frightened. None of us want our kids involved.”

  Grazier winced. He wasn’t the wincing sort, so Bish was suspicious.

  “This is the deal,” Grazier said. “Tomorrow morning I want you to go see LeBrac. Show her the photographs of Khateb. Find out what she knows. Does she recognize him? Could he be connected to any of her neighbors in the Brackenham estate? Elliot’s on his way to the grandparents’ farm to find out if they know Khateb.”

  “He’s flying all the way to Australia to see if Nasrene LeBrac knows Khateb because they’re both Algerian? What happened to Skype?”

  “Those people are beside themselves, Ortley,” Grazier snapped. “Their son died in this country, and we can’t find their granddaughter—grandchildren. I think we owe them a bit more than a Skype session.”

  Bish was getting a lecture in compassion from Grazier? Worse still, Elliot had been sent to the other side of the world for a bit of hand-holding.

  “I want you to cross the Channel and speak to your friend Attal,” Grazier said.

  “If my friend Attal wanted to speak to me, he would have texted in very bad English and told me what was going on.”

  “Your friend Attal isn’t texting you because he’s angry that French intelligence have dragged his daughter into this. Marianne Attal is the one who claimed Violette made mention of Khateb.”

  “Then I’ll ring him with a translator and talk to him from here.”

  The wince again. It was making Bish twitchy.

  “According to Marianne Attal, Bee was present when this conversation took place. French intelligence want to speak to both girls together.”

  “Not happening.”

  “You’re going to have to make it happen, Bish.”

  “My daughter is not returning to France, Grazier. Let’s end this conversation here.”

  Grazier was growing exasperated. “Look, Downing Street wants you to take her there. The French are telling us nothing. They’re talking to the Spanish more than to our people. We’re finding out facts through blogs. So if you go in telling them about your meeting with LeBrac, they may give us something in return.” He stood up, and the only relief for Bish was the idea that he was leaving. But instead, the other man had the audacity to put on the kettle in Bish’s kitchen.

  “You’re going to be sitting next to Bee. Stopping her from saying anything that may incriminate her.”

  “Do you have kids, Grazier?”

  Grazier didn’t like the question. “What does that matter? Does it give you a monopoly on caring? I’ve seen dead kids. Isn’t that enough?” Grazier seemed to regret the comment in an instant. Tried to give a compassionate look. It turned out better than Bish thought it would.

  “For some reason, people talk to you, Ortley. The chaperones, the kids, the parents, LeBrac, Sarraf. The fucking French even talk to you. The prime minister’s thinking of sending you to the Middle East to get things sorted out over there.”

  “Is that right?”

  “No. But the consolation prize is that the home secretary would like you in Calais speaking to the French. Tomorrow, seven p.m.”

  “So this was all just a formality? The meeting was going to happen whether I liked it or not?”

  “What do you want me to say, Ortley?”

  “Her mother will never agree to this,” Bish sa
id. “Bee will never agree to this.”

  “They’re not the ones making the decisions.” Grazier was searching through the cupboards now. “Where the fuck’s your green tea?”

  34

  Despite himself, Jamal can’t resist Haversham Park. His best memories come from that footy field down on Hoxton Bridge Road. He can see the kids out there training under the floodlights, while the wind carries the old guy’s threats from across the field. Nothing has changed after all.

  In the stands he recognizes Robbie Tannous, with a few less pounds on him, and Alfie with a few pounds more. And the rest of the lads. Boys he knew as a kid, now grown men. Davie Kennedy. Charbel Bechara. The Ayoub cousins, whom he could never tell apart. They stand up when he arrives and he realizes they’re here tonight for him.

  Robbie wordlessly embraces him. Alfie calls, “Jimmy,” in that singsong voice Jamal and the boys always used to greet one another. One by one the lads step forward to shake his hand.

  Alfie takes out an envelope, a wad of bulging notes. “For you.”

  Jamal stares at them all. Sees the guilt on their faces. He shakes his head. “I don’t need that. I’m doing fine over there.”

  “It’s legit,” one of the Ayoub cousins says.

  “It’s clean, brother,” Robbie says. “For Noor’s kid. If they arrest little Violette, you make sure she’s got the best to take care of her.”

  Jamal’s overwhelmed, not wanting to insult them with a refusal. So he mumbles a thanks and takes the envelope. Beyond his childhood circle he can see his coach. Even when Jamal was a kid, Bill looked ancient.

  “He’s getting old and tired of the little tossers coming through, yeah,” Robbie says.

  “Bigger tossers than us?” Jamal asks.

  “If you want to meet tossers you should see some of the kids I’m teaching.”