Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil(20)
His mother rang in the evening. Bish felt a tinge of guilt that he hadn’t rung to check up on her.
“How was Bee when you left her?” he asked.
“Back to angry and withdrawn. She went for a run this morning, before they dropped me home. Rachel made David go with her.”
Just what Bish wanted to hear.
“Any news about the missing kids?” she asked.
“Afraid not.” He looked down at the front page of the newspaper sitting before him. Two images: an unsmiling Violette placed beside a joyful Astrid Copely. No context, just a headline: EVIL HAS TAKEN OUR GIRL. No guesses who Evil was.
“I’m praying nothing’s happened to them,” Saffron said.
Later, restless and desperate not to have a drink, Bish scoured the news online. The Guardian, Al Jazeera, the New York Times. The Australian media hadn’t made up their mind how they felt yet. At the moment they were identifying Violette as “the British-born French-Arab LeBrac, who went by the name Zidane, which belonged to her Algerian grandmother.” Bish couldn’t think of how many more hyphens and details they could use to distance themselves from the world’s least favorite teenager. That was another point being argued on social media. What country did Violette LeBrac Zidane belong to? On Twitter, @princec2 was the most eloquent: “She’s Australian, you f*ckers.”
When Bish had exhausted the media outlets he found himself studying the file Grazier had given him. Noor LeBrac’s life was as productive as prison allowed her to be, but her contact with the outside world was limited. She hadn’t attempted an appeal for at least six years now. Grazier had included phone records of the past year. Until a fortnight ago, LeBrac had rung the same number every day between 10 and 10:30 a.m. In Coleambally, Australia. The next-most-dialed number was in Calais, once a week. Her daughter. Her brother. Every day. Every week.
Perhaps it was because Bish had nothing better to do, or because searching for Violette’s whereabouts gave him some purpose, but whatever the reason, he found himself crossing the Channel again first thing the following morning. If Noor LeBrac spoke to her brother every week, then he must know something.
Calais seemed like another world today. Three days ago, Bish had just wanted to get to Bee. Now he noticed the reality. Migrants lined the road alongside the port, because Downing Street had promised generous benefits to those displaced from war-torn countries. It had resulted in Calais becoming the place for them to get across the Channel any way they could. An eleven-mile fence and a twenty-one-mile stretch of water stood in their way, and for all its promises, the UK was dragging its feet dealing with the intake. Even if someone succeeded in getting over the Ring of Steel, as it was called, from there they’d have to be desperate enough to attach themselves under a lorry or, better still, get into a refrigerated vehicle, where the heat sensors at customs wouldn’t detect their presence. Those lucky enough to get through the tunnel were met by sniffer dogs at customs on the other side, which still counted as French soil. Once caught, it was straight back across to Calais, only to try again the next day.
The extreme right wing maintained that those who wanted to get into the UK were economic refugees, taking advantage of handouts. But who, Bish wondered, would live like this and take such chances if not out of necessity and desperation? With no assistance from the French government, these people were surviving on the goodwill of a small group of retirees who handed out food and clothing. Bish didn’t know what the solution was, but it wasn’t this.
The boxing gym on Rue Delacroix was yet another world. The smell was a cocktail of blood and spit and body odor, and the stillness of the air was stifling. Bish felt like a foreigner and it had little to do with language or culture. Young men, some of them in their teens, pounding into boxing bags, or each other. It was a room pulsing with testosterone-fueled energy and the sense that there was nothing else for these men. They eyed Bish suspiciously as he made a sweep of the place, searching. For years the only photos out there of Jamal Sarraf were from his days with the football club. Man United’s great British-Arab hope. The photos showed a handsome kid with a wide grin and laughing eyes. He was popular. He was a good look for the club.
“Is Jamal Sarraf here?” Bish asked a young man carrying a bucket and picking up towels. The lad pointed to the ring closest to them, where two men were fighting it out. One was Senegalese, judging from the T-shirt he was wearing. His opponent was lean and muscular, with a short-cropped beard and a quick right hook. Being a man of soft bulk himself, courtesy of a diet of liquid lunches, Bish couldn’t help holding a hand to his gut and vowing he would soon begin a regimen of more vegetables, more protein, and fewer excuses. He’d been happy enough to leave exercise to the young because he believed it was futile, and then Daniel Craig had come along as Bond and ruined it for any man growing old disgracefully.
The bout finished and the two men touched gloves. As the older man stepped from the ring, Bish approached.
“Jamal Sarraf? Bish Ortley.”
Sarraf didn’t respond, but the look in his eyes said there’d be no handshaking between them.
“I’m the father of one of Violette’s friends,” Bish continued. “And my daughter’s desperate to know that your niece and the boy are safe.”
The man standing before Bish seemed a world away from the promising footballer he had been as a teenager. Back then, Jimmy Sarraf was the star of the England Under-17 team and sought after by a number of the big clubs. When Man United signed him up to their junior team, the headlines read LITTLE BIG MAN and Sky News did a feel-good piece on him. “He’s a cheeky bugger, that one,” Sarraf’s childhood coach in Shepherd’s Bush had said. When seventeen-year-old Jimmy was first interviewed on TV and asked what he’d do when he made it in the big league, tears had welled up in his eyes. “Buy me mum and sister a house each, as big as that mansion Posh and Becks have out in Hertfordshire.” Bish recalled the boy talking nonstop and at a speed beyond reckoning in that interview.