Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil(59)

“My mother’s only way of dealing with the whole mess was to nurse Aziza Sarraf when she was released from jail,” Layla said. She looked up, angry tears in her eyes. “Jimmy should have been there with her.”

“What did Violette say to Eddie, Layla?”

“You could have got this translated by anyone without mentioning Violette,” she said. “What do you want from me?”

“I care what happens to those kids and I figure you do too. That’s why I came to you with this. You were still there for a Sarraf after everything that happened. Not many people were. Etienne LeBrac certainly wasn’t there for his daughter.”

She flinched at his words. “You have no right to pass judgment on Etienne. You didn’t know him like we did.” She downed her wine and he ordered her another.

“What’s your theory about Brackenham?” she asked. “About what really happened?”

“Does it matter? The clue to Violette and Eddie’s whereabouts doesn’t belong in the past.”

“If you’ve come to me, then it is about the past.”

“I just want those kids safe.”

She sighed. “You wrote it down phonetically better than you thought. Bhebak Khayi—‘I love you, my brother.’ It sounds a lot less clichéd and a lot more profound in Arabic.”

It sounded profound enough to him in any language. And the confirmation still came as a shock, despite his having worked it out himself.

“Did you know Eddie was Noor’s son?” he asked.

“Not until I read those words of Violette’s. Then Jocelyn confirmed it. My sister’s a bit of a mess at the moment. She’s scared for those two. We all are.”

“That’s exactly why we have to get them off the streets, Layla.”

She looked at him in frustration. “But I don’t know how to make that happen!”

“Is what Elliot said true?” Bish asked. “That you and Jamal were lovers even after his release?”

“Is it true that your wife ran off with a school principal?” She held his eye. “I mean, wives run off with rock stars, and men with sports cars, and personal trainers, but whose wife runs off with a school principal, Chief Inspector Ortley?”

Bish ignored the jibe. “Noor says Jamal knows Violette better than anyone. But he’s not trusting me. If you went to see him—”

She was shaking her head vigorously before he could finish. Fighting back tears.

“Layla, please. Give me something. And I promise it won’t get back to anyone who will put Violette or Eddie in danger.”

There was a long stretch of silence.

“My sister…I once asked her why she believed Noor had confessed. Joss said it was about the breaking point. Everyone has one, and the day Noor confessed she’d reached hers. Etienne meant everything to her. His death would have broken her.”

Bish couldn’t buy that. There was more to Noor LeBrac than loving a man.

Layla finished her drink and stood. “If I cross the Channel to see him, the people I work for, the same ones I want to impress enough to give me a junior partnership, will find out. I can’t let the rest of my life be controlled by the misfortunes of the Sarrafs.”

She was crying now.

“It pains me—it shames me—to say that. So please don’t ask me again.”





27



From the pub he headed south for Rye, where Rachel had discovered that the retired Dr. Walden was running the Red Goose B and B. If Bish wanted to reduce himself to quoting Violette, then being at the mercy of holidaymakers clogging up the A229 was what he would describe as a nightmare of biblical proportions.

He arrived in Rye an hour after his GPS promised he would and drove through the narrow town wall gate, clipping his side mirror in the process, before parking his car on a steep lane that petered out in what looked like a courtyard shared between the village church and a cottage. Heading off on foot in search of the B and B, he passed the same pub patrons at least five times until one of them took mercy and pointed him in the direction of the Red Goose. Dr. Walden was out for the evening, which meant that Bish was forced to spend the night in a room too small for someone not born in the seventeenth century and stunted by famine.



Next morning, Dr. Walden’s wife proved to be like most B and B hosts he’d come across by giving him an excess of local information.

“…and then I’d finish on Winchelsea Beach. Glorious in this sunshine. Let me get you a couple of maps.”

Bish smiled politely. “And would you tell Dr. Walden I’d like to say hello?” he said.

She looked at him with curiosity. “Then you know Owen?”

“A mutual friend whose baby he delivered at St. Therese’s told me to look him up here.”

“Of course,” she said, and left to get his maps while he pocketed a few of the marmalade samples.

When Owen Walden finally stood before Bish after the breakfast rush, he was wary. Bish felt studied, judged, dismissed, then reluctantly studied all over again.

“I’ve seen you on the telly,” the doctor said.

“You may well have. My daughter was on that bus in France,” he said, extending a hand. “Bish Ortley. I’ve been sort of dragged in as a spokesperson for the parents.”