Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil (39 page)

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’d 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 recognised. 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 that father, Frank?’

‘I think . . . I think he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.’ And Frank Gilbert walked into his home. A home, it seemed to Bish, that 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 —’

‘So you think you know Violette well, do you?’ Bish said, 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.’

‘I’m in Manchester now,’ Bish said, ‘so if the ever reliable Twitter decides she’s close by, let me know. But I’d bet my life on there being nothing and no one that’s getting her out of hiding for the time being.’

‘Not even someone who lives in Margate, Kent?’

Charlie bloody Crombie.

‘Ring Grazier when you get to London,’ Elliot said, sounding smug. ‘One of our drivers will pick you up from the airport and drive you to Margate. Grazier mentioned you had a fainting spell.’

A fainting spell? That’s how it was being described to the Home Secretary? As if Bish were someone out of a Regency romance?

‘Dehydration and low iron,’ he said. ‘I’m perfectly fine now. My car’s parked at Gatwick so I’ll go straight from there.’

‘Well, if Violette is with Crombie, tell her I’m spending a couple of days in the outback with her grandparents.’

‘They live in the country, Elliot. Not the outback.’

‘Tell her that Nasrene and Christophe have taken a great liking to me, and if she doesn’t come back I’m moving into her room. I’m seriously thinking of migrating.’

‘With your skin you’ll be dead within the year.’

When Bish switched his phone back on at Gatwick he saw that Bee had rung. He was about to return her call when another came through. A blocked number.

‘This is Holloway prison,’ a voice said. ‘Will you take a call?’

Had the acting governor worked out that one of her officers let Violette and Eddie through to visit Noor? Bish didn’t want to be the one responsible for Lorna Vasquez losing her job.

He reluctantly agreed and heard a click.

‘Did you find out anything?’ Noor asked, sounding even more cool and clipped over the phone. Bish was taken aback to hear her voice.

‘Through Bilal?’ she asked when he didn’t respond.

He was sort of flattered that someone who had such limited use of phone time would call him.

‘Jamal’s phone is turned off,’ she said, as if reading his thoughts. ‘Your mother suggested I call.’

‘My mother?’

‘She gave me her number on Friday. We’ve been chatting for the past two days.’

‘You and my mother?’

‘Yes, Bashir,’ she said.

‘I’m trying to imagine what you and my mother could have in common,’ he said.

‘You mean apart from her father and mine coming from the same city in Egypt?’

‘I’m just surprised,’ he said, suddenly on the defensive.

‘Well, I find it therapeutic speaking to Saffron.’

‘What do you talk about?’

She hesitated. ‘About how much we love our children. How much we miss our husbands and our mothers and our brothers . . . and our fathers. How she regrets never going to university. How one day she hopes she’ll have the courage to ask you to come along to an AA meeting with her.’

‘I might have a drinking problem,’ he said, ‘but I’m not an alcoholic.’

‘No one said you were.’

It took a long moment to sink in. His mother had a drinking problem? Or did have? And had managed to hide it from him all these years?

‘Do you know what’s strange, Bashir? I’m locked up here and I have more communication with my family than you do as a free man. What are you afraid of finding out if you ask the questions?’

That Saffron had stopped loving him. Stopped wanting him. He understood his father’s absence from his life. Stephen Ortley had always been emotionally distant, but his mother’s love had promised so much when he was a child.

‘It’s a bit like circumstantial evidence,’ she said.

‘What is?’

‘The way we remember our childhood.’

‘So you’re a psychologist now?’ It came out harsher than he meant it to.

‘No, but I meet a lot of troubled people in here and it all seems to stem from either childhood or the men these women met.’

As much as he resented Noor being privy to his personal life, he wanted to keep talking to her. ‘Can I ask you something? And you don’t have to answer.’

‘All right.’

He heard hesitation in her voice and almost changed his mind. ‘That circumstantial evidence thirteen years ago – you were overheard threatening the manager of the Brackenham supermarket two days before the bombing. You told him, “Your time will come.” Is that right?’

A long silence.

‘My father was demoralised,’ she finally said. ‘And don’t think for one moment I’m justifying what he did. But he started his life in this country stacking boxes and he ended it stacking boxes. The manager of the Brackenham store was thirty years younger and was patronising and rude and had no respect. My father was losing the plot in the end, he thought his own family were conspiring against him. Jimmy had made decisions without him. Apart from the Premier League, he had been pursued by a French team before signing with Man United. My father found out through a magazine article months later. He was angry – hurt that Jimmy had consulted his own brother but not him. There was a rift, and Uncle Joseph came to visit because he wanted peace. It was the handshake caught on camera that supposedly incriminated Jimmy and my uncle. But days before, when my father came home from work humiliated, I was so angry I went down to the supermarket and told Jason Matthews what I thought of him. The witnesses heard right. I did say that, but in a sane world where the media and the public aren’t after your blood, those words would be taken as they were meant – that one day Matthews would be a man in his sixties demoralised by someone younger in the workplace, and then he would know how my father felt.’

There was something besides regret in her voice. He wished he were hearing this face to face.

‘So many assumptions. So
many
. You were there that day,’ she said. ‘My mother’s crying in that cell was scaring Violette, and I told Jimmy to make her laugh. And all anyone could say was that the Sarrafs were laughing while Brackenham buried its dead. How could people I’d known all my life possibly believe that my words meant I was going to make a bomb and blow Jason Matthews up?
How?
I bet you’ve said the exact same thing in your own anger.’

‘I have indeed. You are I aren’t that different.’

‘Oh, but we are,’ she said bitterly. ‘Because if your father had blown up those people, they would never have come for your mother, or for you. They came for the Sarrafs because of our race.’

What could he say to that? He didn’t want to insult her with a denial.

‘I’ve got to go,’ she said.

‘Don’t,’ he found himself saying.

‘Is that “Baker Street”?’ she asked suddenly.

Gerry Rafferty’s voice rang out from the airport speakers.

‘Yes.’

‘I haven’t heard that for years.’

‘My first slow dance was to “Baker Street”,’ he said. ‘Francine Riley. I got to touch her boobs. Your first dance?’

‘“Mandy”, Barry Manilow,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t let anyone touch my boobs that night.’

‘Well, what a disappointment you’ve turned out to be today.’

It was the first time he had made her laugh. A great laugh. Coming from some place real.

When he got through to Bee after hanging up from Noor she told him Rachel had delivered a baby boy named Rufus, after David’s father. Bish thought it was a ridiculous name, meant for pets, but he didn’t articulate that thought.

‘Will you go and see them?’ Bee asked.

And because his daughter asked Bish for so little, and because Noor’s words about his son’s spirit were in his head, he took a detour on his way to the Crombies and went to see Rachel. Rufus had his mother’s red hair and his brother’s mouth. From Bee he would probably inherit her attitude. Bish could tell this by the way he screwed up his face when Rachel mentioned that David was spending the night in the bed beside them. He stayed longer than he’d planned to, and they spoke of Bee and Stevie, and how their hearts would always be tied because of their amazing kids. He felt a bittersweet ache, but Rachel was so happy, and he couldn’t want more for someone he loved.

He heard his phone beep and checked the message. Jamal Sarraf.

About time you started on that fitness program we spoke about. 9 am tomorrow at the gym.

They’d never discussed a fitness program. Not even the fact that Bish needed one. Sarraf must have news that he didn’t want to risk on his phone.

‘Can I crash at your place later tonight?’ he asked Rachel. ‘I’m heading over to Calais in the morning.’

‘Where are you off to now?’

‘Margate.’

‘Manchester, Ashford, Margate, Calais, all in twenty-four hours?’ No wonder you’re fainting left right and centre.’

‘Once,’ he reminded her.

The Crombies were surprised to see him later that evening, but hospitable. Charlie had avoided a police record, so Bish was welcome any time in their home.

‘Has he done something else wrong?’ Reverend Crombie asked.

‘Not really.’

The ‘not really’ got him an offer of a cup of tea.

‘I know this may sound alarming,’ Bish began, ‘but we think Charlie could be hiding Violette Zidane and Eddie Conlon.’

The Crombies looked at each other.

‘What on earth would make you think that?’ the Reverend asked.

‘Violette and Eddie were caught on CCTV just outside the Margate railway station.’

Now they were staring at the ceiling. Obviously Charlie’s room.

‘He just got home from taking the senior citizens to bingo,’ the Reverend said.

‘Community service with the Salvation Army,’ Arthur Crombie added.

Charlie Crombie unleashed on the elderly?

Bish followed the Crombies upstairs to their son’s room. Arthur Crombie knocked and they all entered. The reverend gasped.

‘Oh, Charlie,’ she said.

It was a shadow Charlie had seen first when he walked into his room the previous night. He saw it and he knew. Because he’d been waiting for this, every day since Sykes had told him she’d visited at the hospital.

‘You didn’t tell me your mum was a reverend,’ she said.

And there it was. That slight lisp. That awful accent. That funny face that made him ache. Charlie wasn’t just a cheat. He was a liar as well. Because Violette Zidane wasn’t just the girl he was shagging, like he told the cop. She sort of owned his heart a little. Kind of a lot. He knew that now. He may have been angry with her but he had never been so relieved to see someone in his life.

Eddie Conlon was studying the Tottenham posters on the wall, shaking his head. ‘Lame,’ Eddie muttered.

She walked towards Charlie and then
whack
. The slap made his eyes sting.

‘Do that again and I’ll slap you back,’ he growled.

Eddie had tackled him to the ground in an instant. The little bastard was strong. Violette pulled the kid off.

‘Did you tell everyone on the bus that I gave you a hand job?’ she asked.

Eddie covered his ears.

‘You did give me a hand job,’ Charlie said, getting to his feet, ‘and you were rubbish at it.’