Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil(89)

“You have no idea what you’re talking about,” she snapped. “Gray is merely backing his two officers. He wasn’t there when Lelouche came through with the kids. Farrington is less experienced and Lorna doesn’t even handle visits. It’s mayhem here in the mornings.”

Bish wasn’t buying any of it. “You’re lying too, for Noor LeBrac.”

“I don’t give a damn about Noor LeBrac! As far as I’ve heard, there’s no love lost between her and Gray either. She’s complained about him in the past and he’s been known to use a choice word or two about her. I can assure you no one’s done anyone a favor here, Chief Inspector Ortley. It was a mistake for us not to have interviewed Bilal Lelouche and those kids, but that’s all it was—a mistake. Not a conspiracy.”

Bish didn’t believe for a moment that the guards hadn’t bothered to question the teenage visitors. Whatever else they were, Holloway’s guards had never struck him as incompetent. “I want to see her,” he said.

“No.” Now Eleanor Cook’s voice was cool. “A visit hasn’t been sanctioned by the Home Office, so you’ll have to organize it like everyone else. You’re not calling on a neighbor for afternoon tea, Chief Inspector. There’s a number you can call to get a visitor’s pass.”

“Well, how about you let it slide that there’s no paperwork sanctioned by the Home Office, and I won’t mention the fact that your guards think that all people of Middle Eastern appearance look the same, and have let two at-risk teenagers walk out of your prison?”



Noor was waiting for him. He could tell the difference in her instantly, after having seen her children. A hint of happiness still lingered.

“Where are they?” he asked, his voice even.

She didn’t respond.

“I made it possible for you to see your brother. I brought him here so he could find your kids!”

“What is it you want?” she asked. “Gratitude?”

Yes he did. The realization hit him in the gut and made him feel like a pathetic needy kid. He was furious at being left out. Left behind. A boy in the playground crying, “I thought you were both my friends.”

“Do you want me on my knees?” she asked. “Are you like those arsehole screws from the last place I was in who wouldn’t give me my daughter’s letters unless I gave them something in return?”

He felt as if she’d slapped him. “Damn you for saying that.”

“As if you care what I think of you.”

“Why can’t you f*cking trust me?” he shouted.

“Because you think I’m a monster!” she shouted back.

And regardless of his anger, all Bish wanted was not to ruin the beauty of her day with the son and daughter she hadn’t seen for thirteen years.

There was silence between them, until he sat down opposite her.

“I know who the Conlons are,” he said quietly. “I know about their son. James Edward Conlon. Eighteen years old. He’d been in London for a couple of months, working on a construction site around the corner from Brackenham Street.”

Bish had spent the previous night trying to fathom the mentality of the people on both sides of the Brackenham tragedy. “Why would you give Eddie to people who could so easily have hated him?”

She held his eyes but he couldn’t read hers.

“Some people get hate mail in jail,” she finally said. “Some get proposals. I got Anna Conlon. Hers were the only letters the authorities passed on to me before I confessed. Maybe they didn’t want to deny a woman who had lost her son in the bombing. She needed to understand why her boy died. I had no answer, and she didn’t deserve my theories or whatnot. She wanted her boy back and I couldn’t give her that. Perhaps it was something in my reply that made her write again, that led her to believe I had nothing to do with Brackenham.”

She bit her lip to stop it from trembling.

“And we just continued writing to each other. Apart from Etienne, Anna was my only link to the outside world. Mostly, she wrote about her boy. ‘Our Jimmy,’ they called him. I wrote about Etienne and Violette and Jamal and my mother. By the time I gave birth to Eddie, I felt as if I knew Jimmy Conlon, as if I’d grown up alongside him. When you make a decision not to give your baby to family, you make damn sure about the people you hand him over to.”

“So why not your husband’s parents, since they were taking Violette?”

A flash of pain crossed her face. “My mother-in-law had just been diagnosed with Parkinson’s. She was only in her fifties so it was a bit of a surprise. That’s why Etienne was in Australia without us when Brackenham happened. To help his father on the farm. So the idea of giving her a baby to care for seemed cruel. But worse than that was what happened to Violette after Etienne died. His parents flew to England to take Violette along with Etienne’s body back home with them. Violette had been placed in foster care for a couple of nights, and a whole lot of well-meaning people had collected clothing for this poor destitute child whose father had left her freezing on the dales. Except some base repulsive subhuman laced a cardigan with acid and it burnt her little arms. And I knew then that there was no way to protect my children from other people’s rage and insanity except to give them the gift of anonymity. The Conlons had just moved away from Merseyside because they couldn’t handle the memories, or the scrutiny. Who better to give my son to than a couple who had raised a beautiful lad like Jimmy Conlon? It’s why we decided on Eddie. Edouard, for my grandfather, and Edward, for Anna’s father.