Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil(72)
Conlon is waiting for him at the station. He’s somewhere in his late fifties, but grief seems to have added on the years. It is a strangely quiet morning they spend together; Conlon has nothing to offer on Eddie’s whereabouts, and Jamal isn’t much of a talker these days, but he finds himself enjoying the stillness of it all.
“I dug my son’s grave all those years ago,” John tells him as they sit eating lunch in, of all places, a cemetery, watching a procession pass them by. John has brought ham rolls and beer for them both. Jamal doesn’t have the heart to tell him that, regardless of how superficial his practice of Islam is, he avoids pork and alcohol. “And a year ago I did the same for my wife. If I have to dig Eddie’s grave, someone will be digging mine soon after.”
No use telling him not to think that way. Jamal would do the same thing. Noor too.
“What happened between you and Eddie, John?”
“I think I broke his heart even more than our hearts were already broken,” Conlon says, and there’s a crack in his voice. “I don’t care if he’s done something wrong and the French want to talk to him. I don’t care if the police here want to talk to him. I just want Eddie off the streets. I want people to stop hurting kids who look like him.”
When his phone rings on the train back to Charing Cross, Jamal knows it will be Noor. Any time between three and four thirty is her time to ring him.
“Where are you?” she asks.
“On the train. I went to see John Conlon.”
“What has he got to say for himself?”
He’s reminded of her words yesterday. Tell him to be a damn father to his son. How much must it have hurt to say that? Etienne was Eddie’s father. She is his mother. They never had their chance.
“He’s blaming himself. Said he’d slackened off ever since Anna died. That he said something to hurt Eddie and that’s why he’s not coming home.” Jamal knows that Noor would have pushed John Conlon for more.
“What’s it like out there?” she asks.
“It’s the same and different.”
“Yimi’s grave?”
“Beautiful,” he lies. “Taken care of real good.”
He can tell she’s crying.
“I wish I hadn’t seen you, habibi,” she says, and it makes him weep himself.
“If you want to fight this, Noor, just tell me. We’ll get you out of there. The family will find the money to try again. You know that.”
“Just find Violette and Eddie safe,” she says. “That’s all I want in this world.”
33
When Bish returned from Strood he settled in for another session with the brain-numbing, Kardashian-inspired, selfie-obsessed Instagram photos. To make matters worse, his search was unaided by alcohol and his body was telling him loud and clear to rectify that. His dull headache tapped out the request in a taunting Morse code as his hands shook on the keyboard. But he resisted, and the patron saint of two-day sobriety rewarded him with evidence.
It was a photo of Manoshi and Lola sleeping, heads together, dribbling. Bish had determined that the bus carrying the British kids arrived at the campsite at 5:45 p.m. on the day before the bombing, this time having been displayed on a selfie taken by one of the twins from Ramsgate on the front steps of the bus. Serge Sagur had playfully photobombed it, which was surprising because most of the other shots of the ill-fated driver showed a seriously irritated man. The photo of the two girls sleeping was taken at 5:40, after the bus had turned off the A16 onto the narrow stretch of road leading to the camp gates, the road Bish and Saffron had walked on the day of the bombing. Surrounding the bus were rows of Scots pine trees that looked close enough to touch from the window beside Lola’s head. When Bish zoomed in to analyze the shot he could make out the shape of someone in the copse of trees.
The doorbell interrupted his find and he thought about ignoring it, but the second ring was accompanied by a text from Grazier.
I’m outside your flat.
He went to the door.
“How are things, Bish?”
Bish figured that a personal visit, and no longer being referred to as Ortley, meant either something was wrong or Grazier was about to ask him to do something he didn’t want to do. He felt bone-tired. He’d covered more mileage in a few days than he had in a year. He wanted a drink, but wanted more desperately to resist having one. An order from Grazier would send him over the edge.
“Things are no different from two hours ago,” Bish said. “When Elliot filled you in on the bail hearing.”
“Can we talk inside?”
He didn’t want Grazier in his home. It revealed too much about him and his state of mind. But Grazier wasn’t going anywhere and Bish didn’t have a choice.
“Love the high ceilings on these postwar restorations,” Grazier said as they made their way down the hallway into the kitchen.
Bish had never noticed, or cared to notice. “I think I’ve got something,” he said before Grazier could make any demands. He turned his laptop around and showed him the image.
“I can take it in to the experts but we’re going to need something clearer than this,” Grazier said, studying it. “What’s to say it’s not someone from the campsite going for a walk?”