Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil (41 page)

‘I meant nine am in France,’ he said, getting into the car. ‘Not nine am in the UK.’

Bish wasn’t in the mood to apologise about the misunderstanding. ‘So what’s going on?’ he asked.

‘Bilal found Khateb.’

That took some processing. ‘He did?’ Bish asked. ‘He had no idea who Ahmed Khateb was when I spoke to him.’

‘But he knows every wealthy Algerian within a radius of two hundred miles, which includes Paris, and wealthy French Algerians have staff. Khateb’s wife works as a live-in for a family in Paris. A cousin of a cousin of a cousin of Bilal’s. If some fucker’s caught on camera arguing with my niece, we want to know why. Turn left at the bottom of the street.’

Bish pulled out but forgot where he was and had to swerve to miss a car coming from the opposite direction. He could feel Sarraf’s glare.

‘I’m driving,’ Sarraf said. ‘Pull over.’

‘We should get Attal in on this,’ Bish said when they’d swapped seats and set off again.

‘Not happening. It was hard enough convincing Khateb to let you come along.’

‘Good of you to trust me this time round.’ Bish tried to keep the reproach out of his tone.

‘I don’t,’ Sarraf said. ‘But if I get caught speaking to a terror suspect, who knows where I could end up. You’re here to do the explaining if I do get caught, and Khateb’s agreed because you have no jurisdiction in France and can’t arrest him.’

‘Always,
always
a pleasure to be useful,’ Bish muttered.

Khateb’s hideout was a twenty-minute drive south of Calais, off the main highway and five miles down a gravel track not quite meant for a Renault 5. Bish couldn’t help wondering what his response would have been if someone had told him two weeks ago that he’d be letting Jamal Sarraf drive his car down a road that seemed to go nowhere. Just when he was beginning to think that Lelouche and Sarraf had been duped, they came across a dilapidated cottage fronted by a rotting vegetable plot. Sarraf pulled up. The overripe produce had split open and the stench was overwhelming. A far cry from Monet country.

Bish counted four children peering out at them from a cracked window before disappearing from sight. Inside the cottage, he and Sarraf sat on the only piece of furniture in the room, a two-seater with half its stuffing pulled out. A girl of about twelve wearing a hijab served them tea, choosing the floorboards as she moved. She looked nervously from Sarraf to Bish. Khateb sat opposite them, his appraisal less nervous than hostile. He was surly, if not rude, and refused to speak English although he admitted to knowing a little. He and Sarraf slipped from French to Arabic and back again. Bish had to trust that Sarraf was translating accurately.

The Algerian was clear about one thing: he would cut off his hand before he would hurt a child. He had five of his own, the oldest thirteen, the youngest two. His issue with the driver of the British bus had to do with the parking bays. Serge Sagur had been a stickler for assigned parking. Ahmed Khateb wasn’t.

Bish listened to Sarraf question the man about Violette. It was the only word he recognised in the quick exchange. Did English sound this fast to immigrants?

‘In Bayeux, he overheard a phone conversation between Violette and Nasrene in Arabic,’ Sarraf told him. ‘He heard her use the word
henna
, which is Algerian for grandmother. When she hung up Khateb told her off for being disrespectful to her grandmother. It was obvious to him that Violette wasn’t where she was supposed to be. She’d described the weather as bitterly cold, for one thing, in the middle of August. So Violette told him to mind his own business, but then came back to say she was sorry.’

‘Do you believe him?’ Bish asked, remembering the stickybeak comment.

‘Yeah, I do. Nasrene’s a stickler for manners, and one of the big rules is to respect your elders.’

‘Ask him why he disappeared the day of the bombing,’ Bish said.

Sarraf asked, then translated. ‘He says his wife is working illegally for a wealthy Algerian family in Paris. She sends home money, but mostly he’s raising these kids on his own. When he’s away for work for more than a week, he leaves them with a friend in Amiens. He went to collect them after being gone for eight days, and by the time he returned, his photo was plastered all over the TV. He’s been hiding in this dump ever since.’

‘I’m not buying it,’ Bish said. ‘Why not go talk to the police? He could have cleared things up with the truth.’

‘Really?’ Sarraf’s voice was icy. ‘Because coppers always believe the truth, do they?’

‘Look —’

But Sarraf cut him off with another question to Khateb. It was a quick exchange and Khateb was agitated. Then silent.

Sarraf glanced at Bish. He went to speak but Khateb stopped him.

‘What?’ Bish asked.

Whatever Khateb had just revealed to Sarraf, he seemed to regret it. He began talking rapidly.

‘What’s going on, Jamal?’ Bish asked.

‘He lied about leaving the kids with a friend in Amiens. They aren’t enrolled in school. He needs the older ones to look after the younger ones while he works. He’s scared the authorities will find out and take them away.’

Bish sat forward, his eyes meeting Khateb’s. ‘I’ll bring you in to Attal.’

‘No!’ Khateb shouted. No translation needed there.

‘You heard him,’ Sarraf said. ‘We’re finished here. Let’s just leave these people alone.’

‘He’s a terror suspect. They’ll come hunting him down. Tell him that if he gives himself up as a person of interest, it’ll go much better for him.’

‘You’re asking too much,’ Sarraf said.

‘Then why did you bring me here?’

‘To find out if he was a threat to Violette! That’s all I wanted to know.’

‘Well, how about you answer to Violette when Anti-Terrorism catches up with this guy and starts shooting. Because God help you all if five innocent kids get caught in between.’

Bish retrieved his phone but Khateb was on his feet in an instant, yelling at both of them. They heard crying from the back room. ‘
Baba. Baba
.’

‘Put the phone away,’ Sarraf said. ‘You’re scaring him. He thinks you’re calling the coppers.’

‘I’m getting the name of someone who can help. Tell him to trust me.’

Sarraf looked torn.

‘This isn’t a repeat of Brackenham, Jimmy,’ Bish said. ‘Tell him I can help.’

When Bish finally got the nod he rang Rachel at the hospital. ‘Do you know a human rights lawyer in the Calais area who could make a big fuss if a French Algerian disappeared beyond the doors of a police station?’ he asked. ‘Someone like a French Amal Alamuddin,’ he added.

‘What’s wrong with a French Rachel Ballyntine?’

‘Yeah, her too.’

Once Bish had a name, there was more back and forth between Sarraf and Khateb, but finally Khateb agreed. Sarraf phoned a volunteer he knew through his work with migrant kids and organised someone to take in Khateb’s children for the time being. And then they drove to the Calais police station, where the French equivalent of Amal Alamuddin and Rachel Ballyntine was waiting outside.

Lena Crozier spoke French, Arabic and English. She had contacted Attal to say she was bringing her client in for questioning, and had informed the French press as well. She made a statement outside the police station explaining that her client was about to be questioned. It all seemed so civilised. Until the four of them entered the foyer under the intimidating scrutiny of the local police.

‘I’m getting out of here,’ Sarraf said, well aware that the hostility was directed at him as well as Khateb. ‘Let me know how it goes.’

‘Keys?’ Bish reminded him.

Sarraf went to retrieve them from his pocket and within seconds two uniforms had him facedown on the floor, with a gun to his head. Khateb got jumpy, turned to run and there was shouting and more weapons drawn until Khateb too was down, a knee to his back. Both men were cuffed.

‘Uncuff them!’ Bish shouted at Attal, who had just entered the foyer and was looking stony-faced.

It was Lena Crozier’s voice of reason that seemed to calm the situation. Probably a threat or two that Bish couldn’t understand. Once uncuffed, Sarraf made an exaggerated show of removing the keys from his pocket and handing them to Bish.

‘Fuck you all,’ he muttered, walking out.

Attal beckoned Bish to follow him upstairs with a gesture, but Bish was too annoyed to respond.

‘You should go with him,’ Crozier said in English. ‘There is something else going on here, I think. I’ll take care of Monsieur Khateb.’

By the time Bish was inside the station proper, he knew Crozier was right. The place was in full frenetic alert. There were phones ringing, shouts across the room; every landline, mobile and computer was in use. It was constructive chaos and seemed to have nothing to do with Khateb or Sarraf walking through the front doors. Bish followed Attal into his unsurprisingly cluttered office. Once inside, through the glass door he could see a group standing before a massive map of the area projected onto a white wall.

‘What’s happening?’ he asked.

Attal put on a pair of latex gloves to open a plastic evidence bag and take out an envelope with the words
Capitaine Olivier Attal
scrawled on the front. He withdrew a single sheet of paper and held it out to show Bish.

Lundi 16.05. Bombe numéro deux.

Bish didn’t need a translator for that. Attal pointed to the mobile phone in Bish’s hand.
Ring your people
was the silent instruction.

‘There’s been a bomb threat,’ Bish told Grazier moments later.

‘Where?’

‘Calais.’

He heard a commotion on the other end and figured Grazier was multi-tasking his own staff into action.

‘Did they give a time?’

‘This afternoon, 4.05. A letter addressed to Attal at his station. Postmarked Calais. Probably means it’ll happen here.’

‘Facts, Ortley. Not presumptions.’

‘The letter says “Bomb number two.” ’

‘Does Attal think it could be another British target?’

Now it was presumption time?

He watched an agitated Attal light up a cigarette. A thumping sounded at the glass door and Bish saw a woman wagging her finger. Attal ground out his cigarette with a curse.

‘I’m
presuming
he showed it to me and wanted you to know for that precise reason,’ Bish said. ‘I’m presuming that
Bombe numéro deux
suggests that it’s the same bomber, which could mean the same targets. British kids.’

‘Summer tours are over,’ Grazier said. ‘The Boulogne campground is still closed for business. Can’t imagine it being there. Think, Bish.’

Attal was listening attentively, but Bish could tell he understood little.

‘What about the driver of the French bus?’ Grazier asked.

‘We’ve got him here. They’ll question him, but I’m almost certain he’s not the one.’

‘We?’

‘Long story.’ Bish thought of the scene along the port. ‘This town is turning into one big refugee camp and it could be someone trying to make a political statement. They’re pretty pissed off at our government.’

Some of those words Attal certainly did understand because he was nodding.

‘So they kill British kids?’ Grazier asked. ‘I’m not buying the evil madman thing.’

‘Why not? Louis Sarraf walked into a supermarket and blew up twenty-three people because he couldn’t stand his supervisor.’

‘Louis Sarraf probably only had one victim in mind but the bomb went off too early and too close to a couple of gas cylinders,’ Grazier said. ‘Less intent than the bus bomb, but more fatalities.’

‘That sounds like a presumption, Grazier, rather than a fact.’

‘A presumption that is not going to bring those people back, so it doesn’t need to be explored.’

‘Yes, well, it does when someone’s rotting in prison because of it!’

‘Control your stonker for LeBrac, Bish, and concentrate on working out where this bomb is.’

‘We got it wrong back then and you know it,’ Bish said with a quiet fury. Attal was watching carefully. Bish turned away a little, as if that could stop Attal overhearing. ‘It’s why you and the Home Secretary have been desperate to get this right. Because you know deep down, whether it was Blair’s people or yours, we got it wrong.’

‘Just concentrate on making sure we don’t get it wrong today, Ortley. As far as I’m concerned, Violette and Eddie are still in danger.’

‘Any more sightings?’ Bish asked.

‘Not since Margate. Should we have a tail on Crombie?’

‘I doubt he’ll get up to much driving a Salvation Army minibus around on community service, but it’s worth getting the local police to check in on him today. Violette and Eddie may return there.’

‘Keep me posted on any developments,’ Grazier said before ringing off.

Bish followed Attal out to where his team was studying a wall covered in hundreds upon hundreds of photos. Bish recognised some from his trawling on Instagram. Photos taken by kids and teachers from every bus at the campsite the night before the bombing. Here, he saw the bigger picture. It’s what he hadn’t noticed in his cynicism. That the United Nations of youth having fun on Instagram looked all the same in the end. Happy and safe. He recognised those he had sent through. Shots of the shadowed man lurking in the woodlands. Birdwatcher or murderer?