“So you know about Eddie?”
“Eddie has the coloring of his mother and the rest is from Etienne. To see that boy breaks the heart of anyone who knew Etienne, but fills it also with joy. Etienne came to this restaurant, sat right here, just days before he died. He was determined and optimistic about Noor and her family being released. He knew the evidence would not stand up in a court of law. I did not break bread with a man who would lose hope days later.”
Bish was about to get into his car when he remembered that Layla Bayat lived on the next block. If Jamal had stayed with her and had been in contact with Violette and Eddie, she would have met them as well. He knew it was late but he rang the doorbell all the same.
“It’s Bish Ortley,” he said, and surprisingly, she buzzed him in without a word.
Upstairs at her door she didn’t quite let him in.
“Violette and Eddie aren’t here,” she said.
“Just looking for a clue, Layla. To keep them safe. I promise your involvement won’t get back to your employers.”
“I’m no longer employed by Silvey and Grayson,” she said.
“They asked you to leave?”
“I’m not into euphemisms,” she said bluntly. “It’s called being sacked.”
“Well, I got sent home from work a month ago,” he said. “Do you think that’s a euphemism for the Met sacking me?”
After an internal war that played out in her expression, she stepped aside and let him in. He’d forgotten how small the place was, especially now that the entire living room floor was carpeted with files. He noticed a map of Yorkshire among them.
“How can I help?” he asked.
“I don’t need your help.”
“You have a Yorkshire map, Layla. Noor and Jamal believe Violette is heading that way. So that tells me I can help out here.”
“This isn’t about Violette and Eddie.”
He couldn’t hide his frustration. “We’re on the same side, Layla. What else can I say to convince you?”
She looked tired. Defeated. Perhaps that was due to spending two days living with her past in the form of Jimmy Sarraf.
“Ask me again what my theory about Brackenham is,” he said.
She shook her head. “Go home, Ortley.”
“Do it. Ask me.”
She sighed. “Okay, so what’s your theory about the Brackenham bombing?”
“That Louis Sarraf acted on his own.”
They were the magic words she seemed to want to hear. After a moment’s consideration she crouched on the floor by her layout.
“I got sacked because I sent an email to the Yorkshire police asking questions about Etienne’s death,” she said. “I used my company email signature so I’d be sure to get answers.”
“Why investigate Etienne’s death now?” he asked. “In the middle of everything that’s happening.”
“Because of you,” she said. “When you accused Etienne of not being there for his daughter. In all this, I’d forgotten him. He met Noor when Jimmy and I were five years old. They were twenty. We all adored him because he was such an idiot. So much fun.” She laughed for a moment. “Not ambitious. Not like Noor. And years later, when they had Violette, he was a fantastic father. Noor and Jimmy had done whatever they wanted all their lives, made up the rules along the way, but not Etienne. The LeBracs had a strong work ethic, and they were strict. It’s how they raised Etienne. Family and responsibility were everything. Etienne would never have left Violette up there on that cove alone. Never. What have I been fucking doing all these years not challenging that? I was too busy making money for the firm, watching couples who used to call each other ‘poppet’ quibble over their Pomeranian. What kid says, ‘When I grow up I want to be a divorce lawyer’?”
She swallowed hard. “That pile is Etienne,” she said, pointing. “That pile is Noor. I’m trying to prioritize.”
“Why Noor?”
“Violette hasn’t come here just to take Eddie on a history tour of their lives. She’s here to continue what her father started all those years ago. Getting her mother out of jail.”
Rachel’s theory again.
“And she wants you to help her?” he asked.
Layla nodded. “She says it’s what Etienne would have wanted. But finding out what happened to him is probably a thousand times easier than working out a case for Noor.”
Bish crouched down beside her. “What have you got?”
She picked up the map of Yorkshire and laid it out on the coffee table. “I drew a radius of twenty miles around Malham Cove on all sides,” she told him, “and contacted every police station within that area, asking for every crime committed the week of Etienne’s death. In Skipton, on the day after he died, three teens were arrested. In the pub the night before, one of them was heard saying, ‘We saw that Aussie. The terrorist’s husband.’”
Bish stared at one of the front-page articles Layla had printed. A photo of Etienne LeBrac. Laughter in his eyes, a quirk to his lips. An older version of Eddie.
“Someone in the pub was disturbed by their words and called the cops the next day,” Layla continued. “It was dismissed as drunken talk, and the three kids were charged with loitering and underage drinking, as well as being in possession of stolen goods.”
“Not Etienne’s watch?” Bish asked.
“Not Etienne’s watch. But the police found souvenirs from the gift shop at Malham Cove. Those thugs were there that night. Now I’m trying to work out how to take this further.” She pointed to the Noor pile. “That’s the ‘too hard’ basket. I literally don’t know where to start. The 2005 appeal didn’t get off the ground because of the London bombings. The 2010 appeal didn’t because there was a general election that year, and then a hung parliament. Bad timing. The legal world was being cautious. There really wasn’t much work done to make these appeals happen. I’m going to have to start from scratch.”
“Where’s scratch?” he asked.
“Noor’s confession. Jimmy told me how they got it, but there’s only Noor’s word for it. For now, that’s all I have.”
Bish thought of Noor’s explanation for Violette’s postcard. Tell truth and shame the devil.
“What if I had a witness to the confession?” he asked.
Layla looked stunned. “How did you come by that?”
“I investigated,” he said with a shrug. “It’s what I do for a living.”
He saw a flash of excitement in her eyes. “So how can I help?” he asked again.
She appeared to be studying the files carpeting the floor. Finally she reached for one labeled “Skipton” and held it out to him.
“The way I see it, Etienne’s death needs an investigator and Noor’s life needs a lawyer,” she said. “I think we’re it.”
44
Bish gave up trying to sleep that night. He found himself writing a piece for Sadia and Katherine’s blog about collective grief, and how it could bring out the best and the worst in a community. Brackenham was a good example of that, so he wrote about Brackenham and how personal it was to him. He uploaded the piece and then started on Layla’s research. Of the three teens arrested for the break-in at the Malham Cove gift shop in August 2002, Alan Penney had been the only one over the age of eighteen. That meant the Yorkshire Post could name him, while the two underage boys remained anonymous. Skipton was a town of fourteen thousand, which meant Alan Penney was going to be difficult to find. Bish missed having access to a police computer. He was left with two options: his Facebook friend Jill from the comms team, who would probably insist on a drink and sex, and the phone book. The online phone book spat out too many A. Penneys to deal with, so Jill it was.
“I’m warning you now,” she said early Sunday morning when she returned his call, “I’m dating someone else. Whatever favor I do for you, there’s to be no sex attached. So don’t even ask.”
“Devastated to say the very least, Jill. Who’s the lucky guy?”
“I’d prefer not to say. Af
ter your meltdown at the station, I’d like to keep him safe.”
“I just need a favor,” he said. “It’s linked to the Calais bombing two weeks ago.”
“I heard your daughter was on board.” Her tone had softened a little.
“She was one of the lucky ones,” he said.
“Name?”
“Alan Penney. Lived in Skipton in 2002. He’d be approximately thirty-one years old now. A last known address would be great.”
“Only doing this because you accepted my Facebook invitation, Bish. Others are so rude.”
“Bloody rude,” he agreed, thinking of the many who had ignored his online requests.
This was what Bish’s life was reduced to. Waiting for Facebook acceptance. Or being rejected even by Jill, who popped a condom in her purse every Friday morning on the off chance of getting lucky after drinks. Missing his ex-wife’s company even as she was about to go into labor with another man’s baby. Waiting for his daughter to take out her earphones so they could talk about the real things going on in her life. Driving down to Dover every other day to drink bad coffee with his mother and two lonely housewives. Dangerously attracted to a convicted terrorist who hadn’t been with a man for almost thirteen years and still found Bish undesirable. It was a never-ending litany. Perhaps this was what happened after so many years of getting your priorities wrong. A desperate need to crawl back into the womb, into the comforting arms of a woman so he could get a good night’s sleep.
He flew to Manchester later that morning, picked up a car, and drove north. Jill had promised to get back to him within the hour, but he reached Skipton still with no message. Once upon a time, a week ago, he would have waited in a pub, drinking. It had now been five days without a drink and he needed these little victories. Which left him browsing the high street, where he bought a tea cake boasting a true Yorkshire recipe, and heading up to Skipton Castle. It had been his thing with his father.
He rang Saffron because he thought she’d appreciate a reminder.
“I’m in Skipton. Just remembering Dad and his obsession with castles.”
“Your father hated castles. It was our obsession, Bish. Yours and mine. Rochester, Pickering, that one down in Wales. Let’s do the Scottish castles one day, darling.”
Where were you? he wanted to ask, because he was tired and lonely and heartsick. “I’ll talk to you when I get home,” he said before hanging up.
Jill’s text finally came through. Alan Penney’s last known address was the council flat of his mother in Scarborough, a hundred miles north of Skipton. Bish got back in the car.
Mrs. Penney had seen better days. Or perhaps this had been her life from the beginning. Perhaps her lot was set before she was even born. She had a hard face ravaged by booze or cigarettes, or by misfortune. She stood behind the screen door, wearing a terry cloth dressing gown, her eyes smudged with makeup that looked as though it belonged to the night before. Her eyes were outlined in a way that made them look small. Mean.
He contemplated whether to hand over his business card. Being a cop would get him through some doors, but not in this neighborhood.
“Is Alan here, Mrs. Penney?”
“Who wants to know?”
“My name’s Bish Ortley. I’m with the Home Office,” he sort of lied, “and we believe Alan may be able to shed light on an incident that took place in Malham Cove back in 2002.”
She glared at him. “Home Office?” she asked. “With all their fancy computers and files?”
He tried to decide whether she was impressed.
“Because the way I see it, Mr. Bosh—whatever your real name is—the Home Office would only have to put my son’s name in a computer to find out that he’s dead.”
Thanks, Jill.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Penney.”
“No you’re not.”
Bish was getting a bit sick and tired of people challenging his truth. “Actually, yes I am,” he said. “I’m really sorry. Because outliving your children is unnatural and no one deserves that.”
Too much information, Bish. He walked away. Another fucking dead end. Literally, this time. Another broken person to add to his long list of acquaintances.
“Why concern yourself with something that happened all that time ago?” she called after him.
A question was good. A question meant she was willing to speak to him. He turned back. It got him through the door, and because poor Mrs. Penney seemed to have had a shit of a life and a shit of a son, whom she had loved, Bish shared the tea cake with her.
“Alan dropped out of school and started hanging out with a couple of no-hopers,” she told him. “Younger boys, but oh, they were brazen. Keith Hugh was one of ’em. He’s doing time for glassing his girl and knocking out her teeth. My Alan may have been a thief and a liar but he never raised a hand to a girl.”
Keith Hugh. Bish committed the name to memory. “And what about the other boy?”
“Paulette Gilbert’s boy. Frank. Always thought they were better than us, the Gilberts.”
Mrs. Penney had no idea of the Gilberts’ present whereabouts. Bish chatted with her until they’d finished the cake and tea, and once he’d left he rang Layla, and asked her to do an Internet search for a Frank Gilbert. She tracked him to the town of Keighley, ten miles south of Skipton, in a street that surprised him. Not too fancy, but a proud one, with neat gardens and cheerful passersby. The man tending the garden at number twenty-seven was dressed in coveralls. All so civilized.
“Frank Gilbert?”
The man looked up. A younger face than Bish’s, but less hair.
“Who’s askin’?”
Bish held out a hand. “Bish Ortley.”
Frank Gilbert shook it with suspicion in his eyes.
“I just wanted to talk to you about Alan Penney and Keith Hugh.”
Frank let the hand drop. “Don’t have anything to do with them.”
“But you did thirteen years ago.”
“They belong to a different time,” Gilbert said, returning to what he had been doing with the strimmer. “And I’d like you to go. Now. You’re a copper and my family will be home any minute. I don’t want them upset. Do you hear?”
“Why would they be upset, Mr. Gilbert? I’m just asking questions. Did Keith Hugh or Alan Penney ever speak about a watch—”
“I know nothing about a watch!”
The response was so quick and vehement that it had Bish’s pulse beating at a Violette LeBrac I-told-you-so speed. Frank Gilbert looked beyond Bish’s shoulder, a flicker of panic in his eyes.
“Mr. Gilbert, have you ever visited Malham Cove?”
“Daddy!”
Bish turned to see a boy of about nine and a little girl of about four walk up the path with their mother. A pretty woman. A question in her eye. The girl let go of her mother’s hand and ran into Frank Gilbert’s arms. Bish watched him hold her close.
“What’s going on, Frankie?” the woman asked.
“Nothin’,” he said. “Just about some of the lads I ran with a couple of years back. Go inside,” he said gently.
His wife wasn’t buying any of it but she ushered the kids into the house, turning back once while Bish and Gilbert stood in silence.
“I’m not the same person who hung out with Keith Hugh and Alan Penney. My family is what matters now.”
“I believe you, Frank. I honestly do. How old’s your little girl? Four? Five? That’s how old Violette LeBrac was when she lost her father.”
He saw the twitch of the man’s cheek.
“Deep down Violette knows he would never have taken his life in that way,” he continued, “but sometimes she’s forced to believe what everyone says. That her dad left her to die up there on that cove. On her own. A four-year-old. We’re both fathers, Frank. We know we wouldn’t do that to our kids.”
Frank Gilbert looked away.
“You know what I can’t understand about her theory, though?” Bish said. “If someone murdered Violette?
??s father, why didn’t they go after her too? Just in case she had seen something she shouldn’t have.”
Frank’s wife was looking at them from the front window. Bish stepped a little closer. “I think that in all the madness up on that rock, there was a voice of reason. I think Etienne LeBrac was supposed to get the bashing of his life. Maybe for his watch. Maybe because he’d been recognized. But somebody went too far. Perhaps Keith Hugh. In jail now for glassing his girlfriend? Or perhaps Alan, who had to prove himself to the younger lads.”
Frank Gilbert’s eyes were glued to the window now, where his family stared back at him. It was Bish’s experience that not many people managed to turn their lives around, but Frank seemed to have done so.
“What do you think happened to a father who didn’t return to his daughter, Frank?”
“I think…I think he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.” And Frank Gilbert walked into his home. A home, Bish knew, he would never let the truth take away from him.
As Bish was about to board the plane back to London, Elliot rang.
“A Violette and Eddie sighting down south reported on Twitter. Grazier wants you on it sooner rather than later.”
“Tell Grazier it’s probably a false alarm. She’s seen her mother, her uncle, and she’s now with her brother. She’s done everything she set out to do except go to Malham Cove, which she’ll do when she deems it safe. I say Grazier contacts the local police up here, gets them to be on the lookout.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about Malham Cove being the only destination. I know this kid—”
“You know Violette well, do you?” Bish asked, then checked himself. He couldn’t afford to lose it while surrounded by airport security.
“I’m the one spending time in her home at the moment, Ortley. Me. Did you know that before they moved back to the Sarraf family home, Noor, Etienne, and Violette lived in Cambridge? Or that the locals ransacked Joseph Sarraf’s home in Manchester all those years ago? The family memorabilia is scattered far and wide and Violette’s always said that she’ll go searching for it one day. And guess where the LeBracs spent their honeymoon? Edinburgh. All north. So I wouldn’t put all your eggs in the Malham Cove basket.”