Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil (24 page)

His phone rang. A blocked number. He ignored it. Twice. Accepted the call reluctantly the third time.

‘I will ring you back,’ he said, ‘and for the record, if someone doesn’t pick up the first time, Elliot, they don’t want to speak to you.’

‘But you eventually did pick up, Chief Inspector Ortley, so it must have worked.’

A calm voice. Practical-sounding. A girl with a slight lisp.

‘Where’s Eddie, Violette?’

‘Safe.’

‘He needs to be home with his father.’

‘John Conlon had his chance and stuffed up. No more talk of Eddie or I’ll hang up.’

Their accents may have differed, one private-school-educated, the other broad country Australian, but Violette and Noor LeBrac shared the same tone.

‘Where are you, Violette?’

‘Why would I tell you that, Chief Inspector Ortley? I’m a suspect and you’re a cop.’

‘There’s never been talk about you being a suspect,’ he said. ‘We all just want you and Eddie safe.’

‘How do you know everyone wants me and Eddie safe? Have you been following Twitter lately?’

‘Okay, so how about we limit it to Bee and I want you both safe. She’d love to see you and Eddie.’

‘You reckon? I think she’s angry because I didn’t tell her who I was on the tour.’

‘Yes, but you asked her for quite a big favour and she helped you out, regardless.’

‘She was still pissed off.’

‘Bee’s a bit pissed off with everyone.’

‘Well, so am I,’ she said, irritated. ‘Look, I just need you to tell my mum I’m okay.’

‘What are you angry about, Violette?’

‘Nothing! Everything. Just shut up and promise you’ll tell my mum I’m okay.’

He did part of what she asked and shut up. Knew she was still there.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said moments later. ‘That was rude.’

She had manners. Who would have thought?

‘Do you know what pisses me off the most?’ she asked. ‘My father was proud of being a LeBrac and my mother still is. I hated not sharing something that belonged to my parents. For all these years I’ve been Violette Zidane, and now you go and take even that away from me.’

‘Tell me the story of the watch,’ he said.

There was such a profound silence that he thought she was gone. Then: ‘Who told you about the watch?’

‘Your mother. She said I wasn’t worthy of hearing it, but since you’ve bothered to return my call, Violette, perhaps you think I am?’

‘Is she angry with me?’

‘Why would she be angry with you?’

‘Because of the talk about me and Crombie!’ she said, as if Bish were an idiot for not working it out.

‘You think your mum’s angry at you for having sex with Charlie Crombie?’

She made a sound of disbelief. ‘How would you react to Bee having sex with Charlie Crombie and everyone reading about it in the papers and on social media?’

He doubted that Noor LeBrac would appreciate him doing the fatherly thing with Violette and giving her a lecture on keeping away from the wrong guy, but he couldn’t resist. ‘I wouldn’t want Bee in love with someone who’s going to break her heart,’ he said.

‘Then you should have had that talk with her a while ago.’

He didn’t know what she meant by that. Had Bee fallen in love with someone who broke her heart? He was desperate to ask but had to focus on Violette.

‘I think your mother is more angry with the media and the chaperones and me and Charlie Crombie,’ he said. ‘You she’s worried about.’

‘And Eddie.’

‘How does your family know the Conlons?’

‘That’s a long story and I’ve only got time for one today, so I’ll tell you about the watch.’

Bish wished Bee wasn’t just about to run her race. He needed to watch it, but he also needed to hear this story.

‘Go on,’ he said, keeping an eye on the marshalling area.

‘It started sixty years ago, during the Algerian War of Independence. Just after the massacre of pro-French Muslims by the FLN. I assume you know about that, so I won’t go into the details.’

Bish noticed the change in the way she spoke. The intensity. He was hardly an expert on the Algerian War of Independence, but he offered a few ‘hmm’s to cover his ignorance.

‘The retaliation was vicious, and in a village outside the capital, hundreds of Algerians were killed. But there was one dead Algerian who would haunt a French soldier for the rest of his life. You see, it was a macabre French tradition for a soldier to take something from those he had killed, and this soldier took a watch from one of the dead. Not an expensive watch, or even particularly beautiful. But he wasn’t after anything more than acceptance among his own. It wasn’t until he arrived home in Le Havre that he looked at it properly, and found engraved on the back a message in Arabic. He asked a neighbour to translate.
Beloved son. I love you. I love you. I love you.
The words haunted the French soldier. He had a ten-year-old son, so the watch became a reminder of how much he had taken away from another man’s family. He gave the watch to his son as a token of love. Not just his love, but that of a supposed enemy’s father for his own child. The son grew up haunted by the words on that watch, and when his father drank himself to an early death he went on a journey. Despite the dangers for the French to be travelling in Algiers after independence, he knew he would drink himself into the same sort of grave if he didn’t return that watch to where it belonged.

‘So he went to the village that had given his father nightmares over the years, and knocked on every door to tell them the story. Until one day he came across the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, who looked at the watch and wept. It had belonged to her father, who, all those years ago, had died at the hands of this Frenchman’s father.’

When Violette stopped, Bish wanted her to go on. He wanted to know more. Loved the tune of her lisp in the storytelling. ‘I need a happy ending for this, Violette,’ he said with honesty.

‘How can I possibly give you that? I come from a bloody history, on both sides of my family. That French soldier’s son is my grandfather, Christophe, and the Algerian’s daughter is my Henna Nasrene, and they have loved each other despite everything. It’s why they chose to emigrate to Australia after my father was born. They moved to the newest town in the country. It was a ballot system, the way they got their land. Out where I live, they could be anyone from anywhere, as long as they were willing to work hard. They did it for my dad, so he wouldn’t have to choose between being French or Algerian, Christian or Muslim. They wanted him to be all those things. And my father wore that watch every day of his life from the time he was ten until the day he died. Because history meant everything to him.’

It sounded to Bish as if she were crying but he couldn’t be sure. There weren’t stories like this in his family. Just ones of children being taken away from their father by imperialistic relatives who believed the British knew how to raise their children better than others.

‘That’s a good story, Violette. Best I’ve heard for a while.’

‘You’re only saying that to make me surrender.’

He felt regret at the sound of fear in her voice. ‘It wouldn’t be surrender. They’d only want to ask questions, Violette.’

‘My family went in for questioning the day after my grandfather blew up that supermarket and look what happened to them.’

‘This isn’t the same,’ Bish said.

‘It’s exactly the same.’

‘Your mother confessed, Violette.’

‘It was an illegal confession. They got it through torture.’

Bish hesitated. The wrong response now could end the call.

‘I’ll only let them question me if my mother or my uncle is in the room,’ she said.

‘That’s not possible. You know that.’

‘Then you’re turning out to be a great disappointment.’

Bish was dismayed to have reached that status in such a short span of time. It used to take people years to work out what a great disappointment he was. ‘Give me a chance, Violette, and I’ll turn out to be just what you need.’

‘Your daughter’s about to run her best race, Chief Inspector. Don’t miss out on that because of me. I’m dealing with enough guilt in my life. We’ll speak later.’

Bish stumbled to his feet, searching the oval and grandstand. She was
here
?

‘Violette?’

But she’d already hung up. He punched Grazier’s number just as the starter’s gun went off. He looked up to see Bee, and she was beautiful to watch. He hung up. He didn’t know for sure what Grazier’s people had in store for Violette, and he didn’t want to be the one to tell Noor LeBrac that he had found her daughter and had no idea if she had been taken to a twelve-foot-square cell in Paddington Green.

Violette had rung him. It was progress. He’d find another way.

Layla Bayat walked into the pub and most of the men turned to have a second look. Bish was no exception. She was beautiful. Long, thick, wavy black hair, and a pretty impressive body fitted in a black suit. She slid onto the bar stool beside him and he tried not to stare at the way her skirt rode up, because he was almost twenty years older than her and women like Layla made him feel past his prime.

‘What can I get you?’ he asked.

‘The Sangiovese.’

He signalled the guy behind the bar and fought the urge to order a second Scotch. He settled for a tonic water.

‘What did I overhear Violette saying to Eddie?’ he asked, getting straight to the point.

‘You need to talk to Noor about Violette,’ she said. ‘Not me.’

‘Noor and I aren’t exactly on chatty terms, Layla. In fact I’m up there with the top three people she’d prefer to see under the wheel of a bus.’

She studied him suspiciously. ‘Were you one of the arresting officers?’

‘No,’ he said, then decided to go for broke. ‘But I was sent into the cell to take Violette from her that day.’

She looked horrified. ‘I think I could hate your guts for that too.’

‘But then you’d have to remind yourself that no one from the neighbourhood went down to the station to collect Violette,’ he said. ‘Didn’t family and friends turn their backs on the Sarrafs?’

Her wine arrived and she took a sip without answering.

‘I reckon that’s something Noor and Jamal will never get over,’ Bish continued. ‘They expected it from the government, but not their neighbours.’

She looked away. He could tell it was a sensitive issue for Layla. Perhaps he should have pointed out that she was only seventeen at the time, but he doubted it would make her feel better.

‘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 judgement 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.’