Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil(15)

Outside, Bee had disappeared. Bish went searching and found her sitting alone on the recreation hall steps. She had her “sod off” earphones on, which meant no conversation was going to take place.

On the way to the main gate he walked ahead of Saffron and Bee and rang his ex-wife to let her know they were heading home.

“We’ll be there by four p.m.,” he said. “She’ll be relieved to see you.”

“David says you need to let her play out the anger,” Rachel told him.

David Maynard, being a headmaster, was the expert on Bish’s daughter and every other kid in Kent. Bish muttered a good-bye and hung up.

A moment later the phone rang. Again a blocked number. Elliot? Or one of the other parents.

“The LeBrac girl going missing with Eddie Conlon is a bit of a cock-up.”

Elliot hadn’t lost the art of stating the obvious.

“I’d blame that on the friends you sent yesterday to scare her into believing they’d go after Eddie and her uncle.”

“Ah come on, Bish. You know I’m pretty particular about who I’m friends with.”

Bish wasn’t in the mood for jokes.

“At the moment our greatest source of information is The Sun,” Elliot said. “First we read that Violette was put in a cupboard. Next that she gave every guy on the bus a hand job.”

“Yes, because Murdoch’s people always get it right.”

“Give us something, Ortley. Anything.”

“What makes you think I have anything?” Bish asked just as Saffron and Bee caught up with him.

“Because we’ve been tracking down the parents who’ve returned home. Most of them saw you speaking to the French cop in charge. All of them saw you walk into that interview with Violette and two men who we’re presuming are MI6. You’re the name on everyone’s lips, Ortley. So you might know more than we do at the moment.”

“If anyone had brains they’d go visit Sarraf and find out what he knows,” Bish said. “Violette would have gone straight to him.”

“Both sides of the Channel have done that,” Elliot said. “He told us to f*ck off, but not before we discovered that his niece and the boy visited early this morning. He went out to buy croissants or baguettes or whatever the f*ck the French eat for breakfast, and when he got back the kids had vanished.”

“I’m presuming whoever you work for isn’t just focusing on Violette as a suspect?” Bish asked.

“We have no idea who’s responsible for yesterday, but I think it’s pretty clear that those kids are on the run. From us.”

“Who’s this ‘we,’ Elliot? Is it some sort of royal ‘we’? You and the Queen?”

“Let’s talk when you get home, Bish. And give your mum my love. She’s doing a marvelous job over there.”

Bish hung up and found his mother and daughter staring at him.

“Elliot?” Saffron asked.

“He’s working for either the Home Office or MI5.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Bish darling.”

“Not as ridiculous as believing he made the trains run on time.”

They approached the car in silence and got in. It seemed a long time ago that Bish and his mother had traveled down this dirt path, not just the day before. After executing an awkward U-turn, trying to avoid every other car parked in so narrow a track, Bish was relieved to be in control again. He had just reached a fork in the road when Bee made a gagging sound.

“I’m going to be sick.”

He stepped on the brake. Bee was out of the car, disappearing into a thicket of trees before they could stop her. Bish looked at his mother, not knowing whether to follow.

“Daddy. Sofi!”

He was never going to ignore a “Daddy.” Saffron was there beside him and they found Bee with a hand against a tree, bent over.

“Don’t come closer. It looks vile,” she said miserably, turning around and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

Bish and Saffron waited a short distance away, and when Bee reached them he put his arm around her shoulder.

“You’ll be home with Mum soon, Honey Bee,” he promised softly.

She held on tight to both of them, and when she let go the always prepared Saffron had wipes.

“Can we just sit here?” Bee asked. “I feel sick at the idea of getting back into the car.”

Twenty minutes later they were on the road heading towards the port of Calais. Bee was tense, flinching at every sound, every siren. Bish wondered how much she’d actually seen of the dead and injured. Would the memories return now or in the weeks to come? He reached out to take her hand and she let him. He thought of those families traveling home without their loved ones and it made him hold her hand even tighter. Bish hadn’t felt blessed in three years. At this moment it was all he could feel.

Driving through Calais he saw the hunched way that people walked. Regret. Guilt. Children from other countries had died in their own backyard. Had been killed so savagely.

Bee was quiet all the way through French immigration, but when they were asked to hand over their passports by the UK Border Force, she was telling the officer everything. That she’d been on the bus that blew up and her father was a chief inspector for the Met and he was helping out with the investigation, and that the capitaine of the police wouldn’t give them back their luggage and all she wanted was to get home. And then she burst into tears.