Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil(17)

“Get off at Oxford Circus. I’ll send you the address,” Elliot said before hanging up.

Bish hated public transport. These past two years he had lived in the Isle of Dogs. He worked locally and drove there, avoiding the West End at all costs. Saffron lived in Gravesend, his daughter in Ashford, both accessible within an hour via the A2 and M20. Getting to the West End was another story. The DLR seemed unnatural to him. An automated tram was too close to a metaphor of his life, on so many levels. No one at the helm, people putting their lives into those driverless hands. So he took the tube from Canary Wharf, regretting it in an instant. The heat and the body odor combined with his throbbing headache made him want to take up cycling.

Elliot’s directions led to a café with outdoor tables. Bish suffered from the opposite of the seasonal illness. He hated sunshine, and for the life of him couldn’t understand how a man with skin as white as Elliot’s would want to sit outside. At school Elliot had been called anything from Casper to albino boy, and the older he got, the more ghostly he seemed to become. Rachel used to refer to him as the Specter of Death.

The man sitting with Elliot had a pissed-off look that was directed at anyone who ventured too close. It was the sort of look that belonged to a harassed man at the end of the day, not at ten in the morning. Elliot introduced him as Grazier. He was older than Bish, but fit. Bish didn’t question whether Grazier was his first or last name because he didn’t want a relationship with the man and asking such a question would suggest he did.

A selection of morning papers lay on the table before them. All about the same person. SPAWN OF SATAN. VIOLENT VIOLETTE. POISONOUS AND PROMISCUOUS. The alliterations were turning his stomach. Violette LeBrac was front-page news everywhere he turned. Most media outlets had dropped the Zidane surname. Earlier that morning Bish had watched a panel arguing about Violette on a talk show. How had a minor’s name been made public? one of the panelists questioned. The killers of James Bulger were given more anonymity, and they’d actually been convicted of a crime. Violette LeBrac had not, so why was she being treated like a criminal? Another panelist brought up the rumors of Violette running off with one of the lads from the tour. At least Eddie’s name and age were being kept out of the media. Bish could just imagine the further savaging she’d receive about what pact existed between a seventeen-year-old girl and a thirteen-year-old boy.

“We were relieved to hear your daughter wasn’t injured in the bombing, Chief Inspector Ortley,” Grazier said.

That “we” again.

“You had the opportunity to speak to most of the students and parents as well as the French police, I hear?”

“As a father. I have the right—”

“That wasn’t a reprimand.”

But it was something other than a friendly discussion, and Bish hoped Grazier would get to the point sooner rather than later.

“I don’t even know where you work,” Bish said, looking at Elliot.

“We work for the government.”

“My postman works for the government,” Bish said. “Can you be more specific?”

The waiter came with a tea for Grazier and a fried-up feast for Elliot.

“Violette LeBrac Zidane holds dual French-Australian citizenship, so neither country is going to be happy with us,” Grazier said, ignoring Bish’s question. “Basically, we want this to go away, and the only way that will happen is if we find Violette and Eddie, alive. Every bleeding-heart organization in the country is crying foul over the way she’s been treated. So what’s your theory?”

“About what?”

Bish didn’t want to have theories. He had got used to the numbness since being forced to take leave.

“About why someone would want to blow up British kids in Calais,” Grazier said bluntly.

On the table before them, Bish caught the squinting distrust in Violette LeBrac Zidane’s eye.

“Well, I don’t believe it was Al Qaeda or ISIS. I don’t think it was some French fanatic angry with the UK over what’s happening to refugees in Calais either.”

These were some of the theories floating around.

“It was targeted,” Bish said, “and I think Violette Zidane could have been the target. She spent six days sitting in one of the seats that were most impacted.”

“But on the seventh day she wasn’t on the bus and it blew up,” Grazier said.

“I’m not exactly buying that Violette bombed the bus because Lola Barrett-Parker took her seat the day before, and I don’t believe that she’d be able to make a bomb just because she was coming first in chemistry.” According to the panel on the morning show, that fact had been posted on a Facebook page titled “Who Went to School with the French Bomber?”

“Her mother was incriminated all those years ago partly because she got honors in chemistry,” Grazier said.

“Noor LeBrac had time to make the bomb,” said Bish. “And she was convicted because she confessed. Violette was traveling on a full itinerary with a large group.”

“And she shared a room with your daughter,” Elliot said. “Not exactly the freedom to build a bomb. Although you and I did in first form.”

Elliot held up his left index finger, minus the tip. Bish remembered the event vividly.

“We’d really like to know where Violette was on the night before the bombing, Chief Inspector Ortley,” Grazier said. “Can your daughter shed light on that?”