Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil(29)

A few moments later, Bish heard the alert and watched Elliot retrieve the attachment. He tapped on a link and they waited, only to hear Arabic being spoken.

“Shit. Fuck. Bum. We’re going to have to wait till the translator gets to it.” Elliot stopped at a filthy black Prius, retrieved a parking fine from the wipers, and stuffed it in his pocket just as his phone rang again.

“It’s a no go for the time being with the—” he began. Elliot listened, then he paled. “Are they sure—” He removed the phone from his ear and glared at it. “Fuck.”

“Battery dead?” Bish asked. “Not so smart after all, then?”

There was no comeback. Elliot went to open the door but it refused to budge. He kicked it. Once. Twice. “Fucking kids. Fucking f*cking kids.”

Bish glanced around. They had an audience. Elliot was a likely candidate for road rage, but Bish knew that whatever had set him off had nothing to do with a stuck door and a dead phone battery.

“What’s going on, Elliot?” he asked quietly once they were in the car, Bish having first shoved a week’s worth of fast-food containers and coffee cups off the seat. He wanted to remind Elliot that Prius drivers were meant to be helping the environment. “What’s happened to those kids?”

Elliot stared at his hands on the steering wheel. After a moment he turned on the ignition and it spluttered.

“The French border police picked up a body in the Channel. Young, female. It’s all we know.”

Bish’s heart hammered. “Attal,” he said, fumbling for his phone. He found the Frenchman’s number and messaged Violette LeBrac?

They sat in silence. Five minutes later, Bish’s phone beeped a response. He showed it to Elliot, who read it and winced.

“He wants you to meet him at the morgue on Boulevard des Justes.”





13



The body in the Channel made the news within the hour. Bish was numb as he drove to Dover. There was something about Violette LeBrac Zidane that had seemed unbreakable. Attal had also messaged that the French border police were searching for a second body. Eddie’s father had been contacted and Downing Street wanted confirmation as soon as possible.

Saffron rang just as he was driving onto the ferry. “We saw the news,” she said quietly. “Bee’s here for a couple of days.”

“How’s she reacted?”

“She’s on her i-whatever. Claims she hardly knew the girl.”

Regardless, Bee had spent seven days sharing Violette LeBrac’s room. She had to be feeling something. Was his daughter in shutdown, or was it an apathy that bordered on amorality?

“That poor woman,” Saffron said.

“Eddie Conlon’s mother died last year,” Bish said. “Small mercies.”

“I meant Noor LeBrac.”

“She’s a terrorist.”

“But still a mother.”

“Tell that to the mothers of those who died in Brackenham Street. And Bee’s upstairs on Snapchat or Facebook or whatever the f*ck’s in fashion, not giving a shit.”

“Maybe that’s Bee’s way of coping,” Saffron said. “You spent every moment of your school holidays with earphones on, listening to that depressing Jones band. It made me want to slit my wrists.”

“The Smiths,” he corrected.



Attal met Bish at the entrance to the morgue attached to the Centre Hospitalier de Calais. The Frenchman ground out his cigarette and raised his chin in acknowledgment.

“A girl,” he said in his thick accent. “Young. Arabe.”

“ID?”

Attal shook his head. He shoved the door open and they went inside.

“L’oncle. He is coming.”

The mother. The uncle. Regardless of everything the Sarrafs and LeBracs had done, Bish couldn’t get the families out of his head. Eddie Conlon’s father, Violette’s uncle and grandparents. If it was Violette lying in this morgue, Bish was grateful that he wouldn’t be the one to have to tell them.

They stepped into a room and an attendant pulled open a drawer. The last time Bish had been in a morgue was to identify his son’s drowned body. He’d known for sure it was him. There’d been no room for hope, only the sort of certainty that could kill a man.

Attal waited just behind him. The capitaine had never interviewed Violette. Bish knew he’d hardly had a good look at her, except in the photos from the trip that the media were using.

Bish studied the girl lying on the slab, his stomach churning. An overwhelming sense of relief came over him, mixed with a sickening sadness. He shook his head.

“Again,” the Frenchman ordered. “Look again.”

Bish tugged at his own hair. “Violette. Light.” He pointed to his shoulder. “Up to here.” This girl’s hair was longer and darker.

They heard shouting outside the room and exchanged a look. Attal walked out with Bish close behind. In the sterile, fluorescent-lit corridor they saw Jamal Sarraf hurrying towards them, his presence filling the narrow space.

“Where is she?”

Bish heard the anguish. Felt it. Attal stepped in front of Sarraf, who shoved past him. It took both Bish and Attal to hold him against the wall.

“Ce n’est pas Violette.”