Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil (21 page)

‘My name’s Rachel Ballyntine,’ she says, sitting down. ‘I’m a QC, and I think it’s about time people heard from a Sarraf, Noor,’ she says with so much conviction that she almost persuades herself it’s why she has come today. ‘I’m here to help.’

Noor LeBrac’s wordless study of her is uncompromising. She leans back in her seat, as if enjoying the way Rachel is running herself into a bit of a babble.

‘I didn’t ask for help,’ Noor says after a time, and when Rachel goes to speak she holds up a hand to stop her. ‘I wanted your help years ago. When I was handcuffed to a hospital bed and told by a kind doctor that Rachel Ballyntine was one of the best human rights lawyer in London. But you didn’t respond to my letter. Since then I’ve had to put up with every idealistic idiot legal intern searching me out and promising me justice will be done.’

‘Look, I know how you —’

‘Do you?’ Noor LeBrac is not a babbler. Her pauses are weapons. ‘Have you woken up every single morning since that bus bomb went off and pictured a maniac stomping your child to death out of revenge for something the media says she’s responsible for? Or imagined the police arresting her and keeping her in one of those underground cells at Paddington Green for as long as they like, because if she’s a Sarraf and a LeBrac she’s obviously a terrorist? We’re clichés like that.’ Rachel goes to speak, but Noor LeBrac holds up a hand again. ‘Don’t
dare
to presume how I feel.’

Lying has made Rachel weak. It makes her voice quiver and it stops her from looking this woman straight in the face. And she’s getting mighty sick and tired of Noor LeBrac’s hand. ‘Okay, I’m not here about your case,’ she says bluntly. ‘Saying I’m your barrister was the only way they’d let me in at short notice.’ She flicks quickly through her notebook and slides one of Bee’s photographs across the table.

It has the desired effect. Noor LeBrac isn’t going to walk away from a recent photo of her child.

Rachel points to Bee. ‘That’s my daughter.’

Noor stares at the photograph greedily. ‘She was on the trip with them?’

‘Bee Ballyntine-Ortley,’ Rachel says, spreading out the rest of the photos. ‘She shared a room with Violette.’

There’s a question in Noor’s eyes, a tilt to her head as she studies her. ‘You’re married to the copper Ortley.’

‘Was.’

Noor looks down at Rachel’s belly.

‘Not his. Our marriage didn’t survive the death of a child. We’re clichés like that.’

Noor LeBrac makes a sound of dismay, as if she can’t help herself. ‘I should have seen it,’ she murmurs.

Suddenly Rachel feels she can’t breathe. She wants to cry and has to get out of here before she does. She tries to stand.

‘Stay,’ Noor says.

Rachel shakes her head. ‘I shouldn’t have come. I shouldn’t have come here.’

And then a hand reaches out and takes hers. ‘Stay. Please.’

Rachel can only stare at the hand. After a moment, Noor lets go. ‘Your daughter doesn’t have either of your colouring but she looks like your husband.’

‘Ex. Bish’s grandfather was Egyptian. Bashir.’

‘Of course.’ As if Bish had been a puzzle this woman has just solved. ‘Was it a son or daughter?’ she asks quietly.

‘Son. He drowned.’ Rachel points to the image of Eddie Conlon. ‘Stevie would have been thirteen this year.’

It is Noor LeBrac’s look of soul-wrenching empathy that finally breaks Rachel and she bawls. In front of this stranger, supposedly responsible for such devastation. And it makes Rachel speak until she’s hoarse. About David and Bee and the baby, and Bish, and the fact that regardless of how their marriage turned out, her greatest fear these days is someone knocking on her door to tell her he’s dead. She blames herself. It’s her pregnancy that seems to have begun his spiral into something truly frightening.

‘You still love him?’ It’s almost an accusation.

‘Not in that way, not anymore. But he’s a good man. My husband, David, feels a bit put out that they’ll never be friends. We’re selfish, he and I. We want our cake and to eat it too.’ Then Rachel can’t stop herself asking, ‘Have you ever loved someone you shouldn’t?’

‘Yes. My father.’ Noor sighs, world-weary. ‘Why are you here, Rachel?’

‘Do you want the selfish answer?’

‘It’s probably the most honest.’

Rachel touches one of the photos. ‘I haven’t seen Bee this happy since before her brother died.’ She tries not to cry again but fails. ‘Violette and Eddie mean something to her and I’m frightened that if anything happens to them it will be the last straw for Bee.’

Noor does not respond.

‘You know Violette’s in danger out there,’ Rachel says. ‘You need to find a way of letting her know it’s safe for me to walk her into a police station.’

‘I don’t know where she is,’ Noor says emphatically. ‘I’ve told your ex-husband that. He stuffed up by not getting on Jimmy’s good side in Calais.’

‘What has your brother told you?’

‘Just that Violette and the boy came to visit him. I didn’t get a sense Jimmy was holding anything back.’

‘You think you’re being tapped?’ Rachel asks.

‘Oh, I know we’re being tapped. Since last week anyway. Jimmy by the French, and my calls are recorded here.’

‘So you don’t think your brother knows their whereabouts?’

‘Not consciously. But Violette and her uncle speak all the time when she’s back home. They have the luxury of longer conversations. So if anyone can get into Violette’s head, it’s Jimmy.’

A guard enters without a knock. ‘Time’s up. Let’s go.’

Before Rachel can stop herself she reaches for Noor’s hand. The other woman squeezes it in return.

‘Tell your ex-husband that if he wants to find Violette and Eddie, he’ll need my brother.’

It had been almost ten days since the bombing and the media were uncompromising in their attacks on the French and British authorities, accusing both of dragging their feet. As yet, no one had claimed responsibility. In the eyes of the world this ruled out Al Qaeda and ISIS, who were never shy about owning up to atrocities. French Intelligence, according to Attal, seemed to be focusing on Ahmed Khateb, the driver of the French bus, but they were keeping tight-lipped about it.

As far as Bish could tell, there were at least five agencies involved, the most official of which were French Intelligence and MI6. If his suspicions about Grazier and Elliot were correct, MI5 were also onto it. The Spanish were conducting their own investigation, based on the death of Lucia Ortez. The Australian Federal Police had sent over a couple of people to find out what the French knew about Violette, which according to Elliot, who was in touch with her grandparents, was nothing.

And then there was Attal himself. Bish welcomed the clumsy texts he received from the French copper, although they demanded intense analysis through Google translations. Attal may have been officially off the investigation, but the bombing was within his jurisdiction and his daughter had been at the campsite. Bish knew that nothing would stop Attal continuing his own inquiries, especially since the driver of her bus was a suspect. For Attal, this was personal. He had returned to the campsite often, suspecting that an employee there knew something. Someone had to have given details about which security cameras to avoid when planting the bomb. Attal had revealed to Bish that the camera overlooking the bus parking bays had been smashed. On the day of the bombing, Attal’s people had backed up footage from the other three cameras still operating, one outside the recreation hall, one outside the office, one overlooking the pool. The footage yielded very little, but did confirm the presence of a security vehicle. When Attal spoke to the owner of the security company, he was told that all their vehicles were accounted for. But between the evening before the bombing and the morning after, there was a discrepancy of eighty kilometres on the odometer of one of the vehicles and very little petrol in the tank. Greta Jager hadn’t imagined what she saw.

Photographies
, Attal texted more than once. The answer to who was responsible possibly lay in the photographs taken by the kids.

The lack of progress in the official investigation meant that Violette and Eddie remained in danger of the ignorance that had swept across London and beyond. Social media was abuzz with sightings of them in Richmond, Pimlico, Edgware Road, Manchester and Swansea, all on the same day. According to Elliot, the only two that could be confirmed were Richmond the day before, when Violette and Eddie were caught on CCTV on the foot ferry near Orleans Road, and Edgeware Road Tube station later in the afternoon.

Bish had spent the previous night studying a map of those areas and their surroundings. London Central Mosque? Had someone in the Muslim community made contact with Violette? Promised her protection? Or were Violette and Eddie fearless enough to go sightseeing at Madame Tussauds?

‘They split up,’ Elliot told him early Monday morning while Bish drove them around Edgeware Road for what Elliot called a clue spark. ‘She knows they’re looking for a girl of seventeen and a boy of thirteen, so on the Tube they separate so as not to draw attention, and they travel during peak hour so they can get lost in the crowd. They look like the least nervous kids in the country. No backpacks, which means they have some kind of home base. A different football beanie each day for him. Hats and wigs for her. Yesterday morning she looked like Eliza Doolittle, later in the day she’s a rock chick.’

For Bish the area brought back memories of working at Paddington Green police station. ‘What’s Grazier’s latest theory about the bombing?’ he asked as he pulled up at the Tube to drop Elliot off.

‘Knows as much as you do.’

‘Well, that can’t be much,’ Bish said.

‘According to him, MI6 weren’t taught to share their toys,’ Elliot said.

‘With their little brothers and sisters, you mean?’

‘MI5 would never consider themselves the younger siblings of 6.’

‘You’d know that from first-hand experience, would you?’ Bish asked.

‘Just come out and ask the question, Ortley.’

‘Okay, are you and Grazier working for MI5?’

‘Grazier and I work for the Home Secretary.’

‘And MI5 answers to the Home Secretary.’

‘You’re saying everyone who answers to the Home Secretary works for MI5?’

‘So when bombs aren’t going off on buses and vulnerable kids aren’t on the run, what is it you do for the Home Secretary?’

‘I do whatever she calls on me to do,’ Elliot said. ‘Isn’t that what an employee does for their employer?’

Bish tightened his grip on the wheel. ‘We’re done here,’ he said. ‘You can get out of my car now, Elliot.’

Morning peak hour was just about to hit and Bish found himself driving to Dover. He was curious about something he’d come across while searching for Ian Parker’s speeches about the migrant crisis in Calais. In the May newsletter of the Kent Garden Society he read that Katherine Barrett-Parker was forced to withdraw from a garden competition at the last minute because of vandalism. He had contacted one of his former detective sergeants, now working for the Folkestone police, who confirmed that no report had been made about the incident, and Bish wanted to know why. He still hadn’t received a call from Ian Parker, despite Katherine taking his number, and figured morning would be the best time to track him down at the hospital.

He reached Buckland two hours later and noticed that security had been beefed up since Saturday. There were two guards and a police officer at the front entrance, as well as at the staff entrance. A couple more policemen could be seen inside. Bish wondered if the request had come from the Home Office or whether Ian Parker had enough pull to put his own security in place.

Bish bumped into Sadia Bagchi in the cafeteria. He asked about her family and they spoke about her husband’s stall at the Spitalfields market and how a cousin of hers was helping out while Sadia was here in Dover.

‘Her father cries each time he sees Manoshi,’ Sadia said, ‘but I have stopped weeping. If she is less than what she was before Calais, it is better than what Astrid Copely’s and Michael Stanley’s people are left with.’

He insisted on paying for her tea and then went looking for Katherine, coincidentally bumping into both husband and wife exiting the lift. Parker was dressed for work in an expensive suit with all the trimmings. There was nothing welcoming in his expression.

‘Can I have a quick word?’ Bish asked.

‘We’ve already been interviewed by French Intelligence, Ortley. Not to mention the daily attempts by the Security Service. And as far as I’m concerned the Met has nothing to do with this investigation.’

‘The police are working across three counties to confirm any threats made this past year to the families of those on board the bus,’ Bish said, impressed at how good he had become at lying.

‘Receiving threats is part of a politician’s job description,’ Parker said.

‘We have a substantial security system in our home,’ Katherine said.

‘Then you were able to see who destroyed your garden in May?’ Bish asked.

Katherine stiffened. Parker’s stare was dismissive. ‘You think someone who cut off the heads of my wife’s flowers is responsible for the bombing?’