Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil (10 page)

Sarraf let go and shoved Bish away. ‘She’s not here.’

‘Where is she then?’

‘No idea.’

‘I don’t believe you. You’d be out there looking for her otherwise. So that tells me you know exactly where she is.’

‘It tells you nothing.’

‘Did she say why she took the boy?’

‘For a concerned father, you’re beginning to sound like a copper.’

‘I’m both.’ Bish took a business card from his pocket. One he currently had no right to hand out. He found a pen, crossed out his work landline and scribbled his personal mobile number. ‘Bring her to me and she’ll be protected,’ he said. ‘No one wants to hurt her or the boy. She’s just a kid.’

‘Yeah, well, so was I,’ Sarraf said bitterly, not taking the card held out to him. ‘And guess where I ended up when I was her age?’

In Belmarsh. Where good-looking boys like Jimmy Sarraf would have walked into a never-ending nightmare. Bish couldn’t help flinching at the thought.

‘If you do know where they are, then God help you should something happen to them,’ Bish said.

‘If I knew where my niece was we’d be halfway down to North Africa by now,’ Sarraf said before walking away.

Jamal watches Ortley drive away. He’ll be heading for the port, and it makes Jamal heartsick just thinking of the trip home. On an honest day he’ll admit to himself that he chose to live in this town because he’s sentimental. He may have been denied entry into his own country but it doesn’t stop him yearning for it. When the weather is good, he can see England from the port.

Not that he doesn’t have an affection for this town. Calais has been good to him. He likes its lack of pretension, the hardiness of its people. The transient quality of the place. No foreigner stays long enough to recognise him or ask questions. He’s had a dog’s breakfast of paid work, but it’s got him by from year to year. When he’s not teaching at the gym he works with the kids in the makeshift migrant camps, because the local charities want someone who knows French, English, Arabic and football. Or he works at the piano bar on Rue du Duc de Guise. Nothing changes in Calais for Jamal. Days mesh into weeks mesh into months mesh into thirteen years in exile.

Until three days ago, when he received a call from Nasrene LeBrac. Had he seen Violette? He thought he’d misunderstood at first. Had Jamal seen his niece who lived with Nasrene and Christophe on the other side of the world? But according to Nasrene, some nameless man had phoned to tell them that Violette had spent the past seven days in Normandy. Jamal thought Nasrene had lost her mind because they all knew that Violette was on a hike in the Tasmanian wilderness. And then came the worst part. Violette was at the campsite outside Boulogne-sur-Mer where a bomb had gone off on a tour bus. Jamal headed out there, but the only way of getting through those police barricades was to prove he was a parent or guardian. He returned to his flat trying to think of a way.

Violette found him first, just before dawn on Sunday morning. He’d gone for an early run to clear his head and returned to find her on the front step of the gym below his flat. She was with a younger boy. Jamal hadn’t seen her since she was four years old. The Australian government had refused him a visa year after year, and no amount of Skype sessions and photographs could prepare him for seeing her in the flesh. She was dressed in skinny black jeans and a black Astro Boy singlet. She was all gorgeous serious eyes and a feral, thin-lipped mouth that promised a baring of teeth when required. She was his mother. Little Aziza, they had nicknamed her as a kid. She was the question on the lips of every member of Jamal’s extended family, from Le Havre to Alexandria to Beirut. Jamal’s response was always the same. ‘She’s safe in Australia with Nasrene and Christophe. Nothing can hurt her now.’

But there was a look in Violette’s eyes that told him those days were over. ‘We need to go inside,’ she said. She was carrying nothing with her, not even a backpack.

Wordlessly he took her hand, dropping his keys once. Twice. Until they were all three in the gym and Violette was clinging to him, both their arms shaking as they held each other.

‘I’m sorry,’ she cried. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Talk to me, Violette,’ he said, turning on the lights. ‘Nasrene and Christophe are out of their minds with worry. Why would you come all the way here without telling anyone? Without seeing me?’

She didn’t reply, just looked at the boy. A skinny kid in sunglasses and a hoodie, despite the time of the morning and the heat. A wannabe rapper’s version of incognito. Bloody annoying.

‘You were down at the campsite,’ she said. ‘You know how bad it was.’

How could he not? Five dead. More injured. Some badly. It’s what happened when you were the son of Louis Sarraf. You became obsessed with victims and numbers and how many people were affected. One dead man meant kids and a wife and parents and brothers and sisters and in-laws and nieces and nephews. Injured kids meant the same. A mother. Father. Two sets of grandparents. Say, seven aunts and uncles and at least fourteen cousins. Not to mention friends . . . Jamal had become a mathematician after his father blew up their lives. The figures he tallied based on twenty-three fatalities fucked with his head every time.

Violette was fighting back tears. He saw the tremble of her mouth.

‘They’re saying it was me, Jimmy.’

His blood ran cold just to hear the words. He would take her as far from this place as possible, where no one could find them. He’d kill anyone who tried to stop him.

Beyond Violette, the kid was hitting one of the boxing bags.

‘Stop doing that,’ Jamal told him. He didn’t like strangers in his life. Violette, he knew, was the same. She was a tough kid because she had to be. It was rare she spoke of friends and he wondered what had made her decide to let someone tag along.

‘If you were near here all this time, Violette, why didn’t you come to me?’

‘As if I wouldn’t,’ she said. ‘It’s just that I had a plan and it was a good one.’

The boy was still whacking the bag. ‘Tell him to stop, Violette,’ Jamal said, seeing the boy wouldn’t listen to him.

‘They’re saying Mac’s dead,’ the boy called out, and Jamal realised he was speaking to him. ‘Is that true? And Michael from Hastings and one of the Spanish girls. They’re saying she got a piece of glass right through her throat. And now they’re saying Serge the bus driver’s dead and there are heaps in hospital. With legs gone, and arms. That’s what they’re saying.’

Whack. Whack. Whack.
The kid grunted as he pounded into the bag.

Violette grimaced, shooting Jamal a warning look. ‘We used to talk to the bus driver all the time. But I told him,’ she said quietly, indicating the kid, ‘I told him that just because Facebook says people are dead, it doesn’t mean they are.’

Jamal didn’t know how to break it to them. He’d read it in the news online. The bus driver and a young British girl had died overnight in the Boulogne hospital.

Violette could see the truth in his eyes. She made a pained sound, drowned out by the whack of the boy’s punching. His grunts were sobs now.

‘One of the chaperones told everyone who I was,’ Violette said. ‘Who Mummy was – and it’s going to be in the papers and everyone’s going to know.
Everyone
.’ She looked back at the kid, anger and then anguish in her eyes.

‘Tell the boy to go back to the campsite,’ Jamal said. ‘I’ll pack us some stuff and we’ll head down south.’

She shook her head. ‘I need to go because they’ll come here first. Don’t worry, we’ve got money.’ She patted the waist of her jeans, at what he presumed was a money belt. She’d started to sweat and was trembling again, and it broke him to see someone as tough as she was look so vulnerable. He brought her a glass of water and a wet towel to cool down her face.

‘You’re not making sense, Violette,’ he murmured. ‘You’re not going anywhere. We’ll ring Nasrene and Christophe and work out what to do.’

But she was shaking her head. ‘They had photos of you at the gate, Jimmy. Just say they arrest you – they’ll put you away again, and Mummy will never forgive me.’

‘Why would Noor need to forgive you?’ Jamal asked. ‘You’re everything to her.’

‘She’ll hate me for this.’

‘It was me who ruined everything,’ the boy shouted. ‘Not you, Violette. I found you, and if I hadn’t you’d be on that hike. Safe.’

The air began to smother Jamal. He felt the bile rising in his throat. What had this kid dragged Violette into?

‘I heard Henna Nasrene speaking to Papy,’ Violette said. ‘She asked him what they should give me for my eighteenth birthday and he said . . . he said, “I want to take her back into the past, to a time when Etienne was alive.” And he was crying, Jimmy, and I’ve never heard my grandfather cry before.’

Jamal swallowed hard. He felt a twist in his gut. His brother-in-law had come into their lives when Jamal was five years old. Easygoing Etienne LeBrac, the complete opposite to Noor in so many ways. Even after all these years, Jamal still couldn’t believe he was dead. And he’d never accept that Etienne had taken his own life, leaving Violette alone up on that cove at Malham.

‘But why come here, Violette? Without telling anyone?’

‘To do part of what Papy Christophe wants. But not for me, though.’

Right then the boy was finally toppled by the bag. He let out a laugh and Jamal turned to see him on his arse, sending a toothy grin towards Violette, his gangster sunglasses flying across the floor. Jamal couldn’t help staring. Couldn’t trust what he was seeing. He walked over, needing a good look at him, and Violette was there, clutching Jamal’s hand.

‘Isn’t he beautiful, Jimmy?’ she said. ‘Isn’t he the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen?’

Jamal stood before the kid and removed the beanie from the boy’s head. And like a punch in the gut, the truth sunk in.

‘Oh, Violette. What have you done?’

Bish decided to make the most of the trip and drove out to the hospital at Boulogne-sur-Mer. He told himself it was in order to give an update to the parents, but he knew it was more than that. Lola Barrett-Parker and Manoshi Bagchi had sat close to Violette and Eddie for most of the trip. Bish hoped they might have heard something that could shed light on where the two would be heading.

On the front lawn of the hospital, waiting for a story, was a cross-section of the world’s media. Sky. CNN. BFMTV. There were no kids left out at the campsite, so the only possibility for a soundbite was the families of the injured. One or two journalists recognised Bish from the day of the bombing, and before he could make it to the entrance microphones were thrust at his face and cameras blocked his path.

He succeeded in ignoring them, but inside was a different set of problems. A strong police presence stopped him in the foyer. According to the hostile receptionist, who at least spoke English, the list of people allowed up to the third floor didn’t include media or troublemakers. Bish tried anyway. Explained that he was the father of one of the English kids and he just wanted to check on those injured. He thought it best not to mention that he was a police inspector because he had no badge to prove it. He also suspected that unauthorised British law enforcement came under the category of troublemaker. The receptionist dismissed him.

Next he tried the uniform stationed at the lift, politely asking in slow English how it was possible to get onto the third-floor list. The cop snapped back in fast French. Bish was about to walk away when he heard a familiar voice behind him. He turned. Attal. No sleep, little food, and a whole lot of grief were taking its toll on the French captain. Attal exchanged a few words with the officer before acknowledging Bish with a sound that perhaps meant ‘hello’ or ‘fuck off’. Whatever the case, Bish found himself on the list.

Outside Lola’s room he encountered her father berating an orderly. Ian Parker was a member of parliament. He came from wealth, had married into wealth, and his public rhetoric reeked of xenophobia and Britain’s decay.

When he was finished Bish introduced himself.

‘Ortley?’ said Parker. ‘Aren’t you with Scotland Yard?’

Bish shook his head. ‘I’m here as —’

‘I’m fed up with you people and your inane questions,’ Parker barked. ‘Make yourself useful. Get out there and find that LeBrac bitch or I’ll have someone do it for you, and there’ll be nothing left of her to put on trial.’