Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil (37 page)

‘He was born twelve hours after his father died,’ she finished. ‘I was allowed to keep him for forty-eight hours and in that time I gave him a history of our lives. It’s what Etienne had done with Violette the day she was born.’

She looked at Bish. ‘Samuel Grazier was the middle man. I still haven’t quite worked out whether I hate him or appreciate what he did. It was his job to make sure the victims’ families were kept up to date on everything. Getting bodies returned. Arrests. That sort of thing. He got close to the Conlons. It was Grazier who made the exchange of letters between Anna and me possible. He made the adoption happen. He took Eddie out of my arms . . .’

Bish couldn’t help thinking what a pair he and Grazier were. Removing children from their mother.

‘I had one stipulation,’ she said, finding her voice again. ‘It was that neither Eddie nor the public could know who his birth family were. Anna agreed, but it didn’t stop her visiting me once a month. She brought picture books and a tape recorder and I’d spend hours reading the books into the tape, which she’d play back to our son. Eddie may have thought it was a stranger reading those books at the time, but the first thing he said to me today was “I know your voice.” ’

She was fighting tears. ‘Anna continued to visit me right up to a few months before her death. It was a deep friendship that I will never forget. My fear now is that John Conlon is a man of few words and that darling boy seems to be the exact opposite. I can’t bear the idea of Eddie living in silence when he was so used to talking all the time with his mother. That’s what will wake me now at the witching hour.’

The witching hour. How well he knew it.

To Bish, these people’s stories made sense of a cruel world. The story of Etienne LeBrac’s watch. And the story of two sons.

‘What else do you think of?’ he asked. ‘At your witching hour.’

She seemed almost to welcome the question. ‘All the things I miss. Holding my daughter. All the talks we could have had when she came home from school. I miss my mother’s belly laugh, and the way my little brother would drop to his knees when he scored a goal. I miss talking to my best friend for hours on the phone, and I miss not having seen her four children grow up. I miss my husband’s lazy smile and I miss the sex and I miss wearing high-heeled shoes and beautiful things, and I miss using my brain and I miss the pride people used to feel in me . . .’ Her shoulders slumped with a fatigue that was doubtless etched in her bones. It made Bish want to hold her. Tell her he understood.

Instead he removed the image of Ahmed Khateb from his notebook. ‘Can you look at this photo again? Khateb lived in North London in 2002. Could he be a threat to Violette?’

She stared at the photo. Shook her head. ‘I don’t know this man.’

There seemed nothing else to say, but he didn’t want to leave.

‘How did the kids seem to you?’ he asked.

‘They’re tired. I told her . . . to take Eddie home where he belongs. But she’s a bit of a mess, my Violette is. Deep down she needs to feel convinced that Etienne didn’t desert her on that rock. That’s what happens when they stick you in a cupboard, lock you up. You start to believe all the lies and you don’t know what the truth is anymore. You don’t know who you are.’

‘I can only help Violette if I know where she is,’ he said. ‘If she’s working out how to get to Malham Cove, where could she be staying now? Would she be with Lelouche?’

‘She wouldn’t tell me where she was staying. But it wasn’t with Bilal.’ Noor took Bish’s pen and wrote down an address in his notebook. ‘He has a restaurant in Shepherd’s Bush. If Khateb was living in these parts in 2002, Bilal may have known him. He might also be able to tell you where Violette is, but I’m presuming she’s long gone from him.’

He walked to the door but her voice stopped him. ‘When Eddie was sitting before me, Etienne’s spirit was dancing there between us. I felt it. Here.’ She pressed a fist to her chest. ‘Make peace with your ex-wife’s life, Chief Inspector. Because her son will have some of your boy’s essence and it could bring you joy. How could it not?’

Officer Lorna Vasquez was at the desk when Bish asked for his belongings. ‘Looking forward to getting back to the mailroom?’ he asked. He couldn’t imagine her finding satisfaction working alongside Gray and Farrington.

She retrieved a form for him to sign. ‘Strange place to be, the mailroom,’ she said. ‘All that private business between people. All the lies and the promises. The hate mail. All the marriage proposals.’

He signed and she handed him his phone. ‘But every month a letter arrives from Violette. Boy, can that kid write a letter. The kind any mother would want to receive. About the farm, the sunshine, the dog, the horse, the grandmother and grandfather, the crying, the hope. I know every lad she’s ever had a crush on, every kid who’s called her names. I know every confession she’s made to her mother, and every promise. Nothing delusional about that kid. I tell you what, Chief Inspector Ortley, if a girl like that looks you in the eye and hopes you won’t recognise who she is, you give her everything she wants. Because she deserves it.’

Gray chose that moment to appear. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked, picking up the mood between them.

Lorna Vasquez was staring at Bish defiantly.

He pocketed his phone. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘My work here’s done.’

That evening he paid a visit to Algiers Street Food on Uxbridge Street. He was politely advised that, it being a Saturday night, all they could offer him was a seat at the bar, where he was most welcome to have food brought. He ordered a tasting plate, ignored the wine list, and then ordered more of what he’d tasted. Bish recognised Bilal Lelouche from the CCTV at Holloway. He was dividing his time between chatting with guests and checking up on his staff, but Bish felt the man’s attention on him the entire time, and when he’d finished his meal it was Lelouche who came to remove the plates and cutlery.

‘May I?’ he asked, indicating the stool beside Bish when everything was clear before him.

‘Of course.’ He extended a hand. ‘Bish Ortley.’

‘Bilal Lelouche.’

They talked about food and business for a while, even though they both knew that Bish wasn’t here for the hospitality.

‘What you did was illegal, Mr Lelouche,’ Bish said at last.

‘And what was it that I did, Chief Inspector Ortley?’

‘Passing off Noor LeBrac’s daughter and Eddie Conlon as your own children.’

‘Well, you do not have proof of that.’

‘Do you know where Violette and Eddie are?’ Bish asked. ‘I’m not here to bring any harm to them.’

Bilal Lelouche shook his head. ‘Both Jamal and Noor have asked me to keep an eye on her. But Violette is a very determined young lady. They stayed one night. I haven’t seen her since we left. . . since this morning.’

‘But she’s in contact?’

‘I sense you’re angry, Chief Inspector Ortley.’

‘Then you’ve read me wrong. Maybe I’m disappointed Violette didn’t come to me. Because I would have done anything to get her and Eddie in to visit Noor.’

Lelouche eyed him. ‘You make it seem as if it’s personal.’

‘Doesn’t everything feel personal when you get to our age, Mr Lelouche?’

The other man’s smile suggested that he couldn’t help but agree. Bish took the photo of Khateb from his pocket. ‘Do you recognise this man? His name’s Ahmed Khateb.’ Briefly he explained the connection to Violette.

Lelouche studied the photograph. ‘He does not seem familiar. I’m sorry I can’t help you.’

Bish pocketed the photo and removed his wallet to pay.

‘You haven’t tasted our date and honey pastries, Chief Inspector Ortley.’

Bish looked at him. Bilal Lelouche had a story to tell, and these days Bish couldn’t resist one.

A waiter was beckoned and instructions given.

‘How is it you know the Sarrafs?’ Bish asked when they were alone again.

‘The LeBracs,’ Lelouche corrected. ‘Etienne came across my food at the souk close to where he lived. They had moved in with his wife’s family when she took up her studies again. The next week he brought Noor to my stall and told her it was the way he wanted her to cook.’

Lelouche looked amused at the idea of anyone telling Noor how to do anything.

‘It was an ongoing joke between them. Etienne would say his wife could do everything in the world better than everyone else, except cooking. That was his job. He was always with a smile. A laugh. I knew I could trust him, so I told him about my past, why it was impossible for me to ever return to my country, and about my Amina, who was pregnant with our second child, and about Amina’s parents who lived with us. Mine had died in Algiers. We had been lucky to get a temporary visa. When it expired we stayed, scared all the time that we would be found out. But better to take that chance than return.’

The coffee and pastries arrived. When the waiter had gone, Lelouche continued. ‘One day, Etienne and Noor came to my stall to tell me she was going to work on making things right for my family. Noor . . . she was difficult to understand. Not her language, but in here.’ He pointed to his heart. ‘How do you say it? Aloof. But she told me she had filled out immigration and government papers for the Sarrafs all her life. She would be convincing with ours. So she and Etienne spent the next month interviewing us, writing down everything about our life in Algiers and our life in London. At first we were frightened to reveal so much that could place our entire family in danger, or trouble, both here and in Algeria. But it didn’t take long to trust the LeBracs.’

He smiled sadly. ‘Months later, when they came to arrest Noor, she wouldn’t let them in without a warrant. The police believed she used that time to burn evidence of buying material for the explosives, but what she actually burnt were the notes she took about us. Evidence that could have been used to tear my family apart. You see, regardless of how strong our chances were of staying here, we were planning to break the law. Noor had put in an application for Amina and me, but she thought Amina’s parents’ application would fail. So we decided that if we succeeded, my wife’s parents would live here with us illegally. No one would ever discover it.’

Bish put up a hand. ‘Be careful what you tell me here, Mr Lelouche.’

‘Amina’s parents are both dead now, so they can’t be taken from us. My five children got to be held in their grandparents’ arms. That has meant everything to my wife. To me. My own mother and father never had that chance.’ Lelouche fell silent a moment and then said, ‘Noor owed us nothing, yet what she did for us has counted for
everything
in our lives. So every year after Ramadan I take my children to see her in jail. I tell them that this life we live would not have been possible without Noor and Etienne LeBrac.’

Lelouche looked around the room. ‘They even worked on the papers that made this restaurant happen. It’s a good life, Chief Inspector. All because of two generous people.’ Bish saw a resolute look in the other man’s eyes. ‘So when Etienne and Noor’s children come to me for help, who am I to turn them away?’

‘So you know about Eddie?’

‘Eddie has the colouring of his mother and the rest is from Etienne. To see that boy breaks the heart of anyone who knew Etienne, but fills it also with joy. Etienne came to this restaurant, sat right here, just days before he died. He was determined, and optimistic about Noor and her family being released. He knew the evidence would not stand up in a court of law. I did not break bread with a man who would lose hope days later.’

Bish was about to get into his car when he remembered that Layla Bayat lived on the next block. If Jamal had stayed with her and had been in contact with Violette and Eddie, she would have met them as well. He knew it was late but he rang the doorbell all the same.

‘It’s Bish Ortley,’ he said, and surprisingly she buzzed him in without a word.

Upstairs at her door she didn’t quite let him in.

‘Violette and Eddie aren’t here,’ she said.

‘Just looking for a clue, Layla. To keep them safe. I promise your involvement won’t get back to your employers.’

‘I’m no longer employed by Silvey and Grayson,’ she said.

‘They asked you to leave?’

‘I’m not into euphemisms,’ she said bluntly. ‘It’s called being sacked.’

‘Well, I got sent home from work a few weeks ago,’ he said. ‘Do you think that’s a euphemism for the Met sacking me?’

After an internal war that played out in her expression, she stepped aside and let him in. He’d forgotten how small the place was, especially now that the entire living room floor was carpeted with files. He noticed a map of Yorkshire among them.

‘How can I help?’ he asked.

‘I don’t need your help.’

‘You have a Yorkshire map, Layla. Noor and Jamal believe Violette is heading that way. So that tells me I can help out here.’

‘This isn’t about Violette and Eddie.’

He couldn’t hide his frustration. ‘We’re on the same side, Layla. What else can I say to convince you?’

She looked tired. Defeated. Perhaps that was due to spending two days living with her past in the form of Jimmy Sarraf.

‘Ask me again what my theory about Brackenham is,’ he said.