Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil(54)

“You know nothing about my family,” he said, ready to move on.

“I know about guilt,” she said.

“Yes, you would.”

“Not mine. The only guilt I’ve ever felt is for catching Etienne LeBrac’s eye in the cafeteria of St. John’s College and ruining his life by association,” she said. “I’m talking about yours.”

He stood to leave.

“You feel guilty because you weren’t on that beach to save him.”

Her words gutted him.

“Your ex-wife feels guilty because she thinks she’s not going to love her new child as much as she loved your son. And your daughter feels guilty that she’s not dead and her brother is. So who’s the better detective here?”

“Shut up.” He’d spat the words out before he could stop himself. It got a reaction from those around them. A guard was walking towards them. LeBrac waved the man away.

“It’s why I can’t hand over the letter from Violette, Chief Inspector Ortley,” she said, unfazed by the fury he directed at her. “Because she didn’t write about a bomb going off outside Calais. She wrote about the people she met and the secrets they shared with her. Are you prepared for whoever you’re working for to know that Bee didn’t compete in track meets for two years because she was cutting herself and wouldn’t be able to hide the scars? Or that the reason she couldn’t be angry with her mother for having an affair with her school principal was because it seemed to make your ex-wife happy, when everyone else was so broken?”

“Are you finished?” he asked.

“No, not just yet, Chief Inspector Ortley,” she said. “You’re drunk. You’re slurring words and I can smell it from where I’m sitting, like I always can when you visit. It makes me sick to the stomach. But the thing is, you’re the best of a bad bunch. So whatever you believe gets you through the day has to stop. Because you’ve got it wrong. I have absolutely no idea where my daughter is, and there are people out there attacking kids with lead pipes. Kids who look like Violette and Eddie. And every time I see your face in this place I think you’re here to tell me my daughter’s dead.”

The wailing got worse and LeBrac stood and walked towards the pregnant girl, pushing through the guards. Wordlessly, she held out a hand and the girl allowed herself to be led away.





24



Bish should have been angry to see Rachel sitting on the front step of his flat when he got home, but concern for her overrode it.

“You’ll get piles,” he said, putting the key in the lock.

“I’m pregnant at forty-six, Bish. Piles are the least of my health issues.”

He held out a hand and she took it, groaning as she got to her feet.

“Are you hiding the spare key from me?” she asked.

“Bee’s got it.”

“You know, a welcome mat would work a treat out here,” she told him.

“Yet welcoming people into my home is the last thing I want to do.”

Inside he made her a cup of tea while she settled herself onto a stool at his breakfast bar. She removed a foolscap deed wallet from her satchel and placed it between them. At least she wasn’t going to pretend she hadn’t spent time bonding with a convicted terrorist. He concentrated on the tea bag, taking his time in order to choose the right words.

“Why did you go see her?” he asked, as she untied the ribbon around the file.

“LeBrac,” he said when she didn’t respond.

“I think Noor and I are on first-name terms,” she said. “We’re besties. Like this.” She twisted two fingers together and managed to look both surprised and angry at herself. “Don’t ask me why, Bish, because you know. Bee’s involved with this business whether we like it or not, so let’s not put our heads in the sand. David says—”

Bish put up a hand. “Can we leave out what he says? Just this one time.” It seemed to him that whenever David Maynard spoke, his words were quoted and spun into pure gold. David Maynard’s take on education. David Maynard’s views on youth. David Maynard was the most quoted wife stealer in England.

“Okay, I won’t go into what David says, although he did say hello.”

Sod off, David.

“Noor LeBrac made mention of something and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head.” Rachel was searching through the file with one hand and sipping her tea with the other. “She told me that all those years ago, she’d given a doctor a letter to send to me.”

“To you?”

“She was looking for a human rights lawyer. This doctor apparently recommended me.”

“You never mentioned Noor LeBrac contacting you back then,” he said. When they were married he had always known what she was working on, just as she knew what was going on in his world.

“Well, she did, but too much was happening and I must have forgotten to tell you,” she said. “It was two weeks before Stevie was born. I passed on all my cases to Robert Houghton and forgot about it. Forgot about her.”

She removed a letter from an envelope with writing on it, still pristine. Bish couldn’t believe she had spent the day traveling from Ashford to Holloway to her chambers and then here to the Docklands.