Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil(57)

His phone rang. A blocked number. He ignored it. Twice. Accepted the call reluctantly the third time.

“I will ring you back,” he said, “and for the record, if someone doesn’t pick it up the first time, Elliot, they don’t want to speak to you.”

“But you eventually did pick up, Chief Inspector Ortley, so it must have worked.”

A calm voice. Practical-sounding. A girl with a slight lisp.

“Where’s Eddie, Violette?”

“Safe.”

“He needs to be home with his father.”

“John Conlon had his chance and stuffed up. No more talk of Eddie or I’ll hang up.”

Their accents may have differed, one private school educated, the other broad country Australian, but Violette and Noor LeBrac shared the same tone.

“Where are you, Violette?”

“Why would I tell you that, Chief Inspector Ortley? I’m a suspect and you’re a cop.”

“There’s never been talk about you being a suspect,” he said. “We all just want you and Eddie safe.”

“How do you know everyone wants me and Eddie safe? Have you been following Twitter lately?”

“Okay, so how about we limit it to Bee and I want you both safe. She’d love to see you and Eddie.”

“You reckon? I think she’s angry because I didn’t tell her who I was on the tour.”

“Yes, but you asked her for quite a big favor and she helped you out, regardless.”

“She was still pissed off.”

“Bee’s a bit pissed off with everyone.”

“Well, so am I,” she said, irritated. “Look, I just need you to tell my mum I’m okay.”

“What are you angry about, Violette?”

“Nothing! Everything. Just shut up and promise you’ll tell my mum I’m okay.”

He did part of what she asked and shut up. Knew she was still there.

“I’m sorry,” she said moments later. “That was rude.”

She had manners. Who would have thought?

“Do you know what pisses me off the most?” she asked. “My father was proud of being a LeBrac and my mother still is. I hated not sharing something that belonged to my parents. For all these years I’ve been Violette Zidane, but now you go and take even that away from me.”

“Tell me the story of the watch,” he said.

There was such a profound silence that he thought she was gone. Then: “Who told you about the watch?”

“Your mother. She said I wasn’t worthy to hear it, but since you’ve bothered to return my call, Violette, perhaps you think I am?”

“Is she angry with me?”

“Why would she be angry with you?”

“Because of the talk about me and Crombie!” she said, as if Bish were an idiot for not working it out.

“You think your mum’s angry at you for having sex with Charlie Crombie?”

She made a sound of disbelief. “How would you react to Bee having sex with Charlie Crombie and everyone reading about it in the papers and on social media?”

He doubted that Noor LeBrac would appreciate him doing the fatherly thing with Violette and giving her a lecture on keeping away from the wrong guy, but he couldn’t resist. “I wouldn’t want Bee in love with someone who’s going to break her heart,” he said.

“Then you should have had that talk with her a while ago.”

He didn’t know what she meant by that. Had Bee fallen in love with someone who broke her heart? He was desperate to ask but had to focus on Violette.

“I think your mother is more angry with the media and the chaperones and me and Charlie Crombie,” he said. “You she’s worried about.”

“And Eddie.”

“How does your family know the Conlons?”

“That’s a long story and I’ve only got time for one today, so I’ll tell you about the watch.”

Bish wished Bee wasn’t just about to run her race. He needed to watch it, but he also needed to hear this story.

“Go on,” he said, keeping an eye on the marshaling area.

“It started sixty years ago, during the Algerian War of Independence. Just after the massacre of pro-French Muslims by the FLN. I assume you know about that, so I won’t go into the details.”

Bish noticed the change in the way she spoke. The intensity. He was hardly an expert on the Algerian War of Independence, but he offered a few hmms to cover his ignorance.

“The retaliation was vicious, and in a village outside the capital, hundreds of Algerians were killed. But it was one dead Algerian who would haunt a French soldier for the rest of his life. You see, it was a macabre French tradition for a soldier to take something from those he had killed, and this soldier took a watch from one of the dead. Not an expensive watch, or even particularly beautiful. But he wasn’t after anything more than acceptance among his own. It wasn’t until he arrived home in Le Havre that he looked at it properly, and found engraved on the back a message in Arabic. He asked a neighbor to translate. Beloved son. I love you. I love you. I love you. The words haunted the French soldier. He had a ten-year-old son, so the watch became a reminder of how much he had taken away from another man’s family. He gave the watch to his son as a token of love. Not just his love, but that of a supposed enemy’s father for his own child. The son grew up haunted by the words on that watch, and when his father drank himself to an early death he went on a journey. Despite the dangers for the French to be traveling in Algiers after independence, he knew he would drink himself into the same sort of grave if he didn’t return that watch to where it belonged.