Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil

by Melina Marchetta

  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 police constables, 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 he 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?”

  Bish hadn’t known that detail. “Well, it’s not everyday vandalism,” he said. “That seems more like some kind of message. Why didn’t you report it?”

  “We didn’t want a fuss,” Parker said firmly.

  “And we had to concentrate on Lola at the time,” Katherine added. “She was being bullied at school and not coping. We let her go on this trip because she’d been miserable all year, and her favorite teacher was a chaperone on the tour.”

  “Julius McEwan?” Bish asked.

  Katherine nodded. “Lola was in his history class. Some teachers can find her annoying, but he understood her spirit. Up until the day of the bombing, she was having the time of her life.” Katherine was looking at Bish, pained. “Do you think that bomb was meant for my daughter?” she asked quietly.

  “I honestly don’t know.” Bish still believed that Violette could as easily have been the target. “But I’ll never forgive myself if I don’t cover every hunch.”

  “If someone takes issue with my views, it’s me they should come after,” Parker said. “Not my family.”

  “But that’s not how these sort of people operate,” Bish said. “They go for your nearest and dearest.”

  “All I’m doing is saying the things most people are expressing around their kitchen table.”

  Bish again felt Katherine eyeing him. “What are your thoughts, Chief Inspector Ortley? You seem to have some—I can tell.”

  Bish’s opinion on the subject was simple. What was said in the confines of one’s home should sometimes remain there. But he didn’t believe the Parkers would appreciate the honesty.

  “My thoughts these days are always on the kids,” he said, retrieving his notebook. He scribbled out his email address and tore out the page. “Can I have the security tape from the day your garden was destroyed?” he asked, handing it to Parker. “And a list of any speaking engagements you were invited to prior to the vandalism?”

  “There’s no security tape,” Ian Parker said.

  “It got damaged,” Katherine said.

  “If that’s all, we’ll be off now,” Parker said and turned briskly to his wife. “I’ve booked us a table for morning tea in town.”

  She looked surprised. “I’ve already arranged to drive up to Canterbury with Sadia for a bit of sightseeing,” she said.

  “With who?”

  “Sadia Bagchi. Manoshi’s mother.”

  Parker’s look was one of disbelief. “Why would she want to go to a cathedral?”

  “For the art and the history,” Katherine said, irritation in her voice. “Honestly, Ian, I’m going for a drive with the woman. Not converting her to Christianity.”

  Bish was becoming quite a fan of Katherine Barrett-Parker.

  Before he left, he went up to see Fionn. The door was shut and he heard laughter coming from inside.

  “He’s got a visitor,” one of the nurses told him cheerfully. “Two mornings in a row. Go on in. I doubt he’ll mind.”

  But he shook his head, glad the kid had friends coming through. “I think he’s spent enough time with us oldies around him.”

  “Speak for yourself.”

  He went to walk away, but stopped. What if it was Violette or Eddie in there?

  “Is it a girl?” he asked the nurse.

  “No. One of the lads in his form from school.”

  Back home, Bish stopped at his local for a drink. He had avoided it for weeks, not wanting to explain why he wasn’t at work, so he sat at the back surrounded by TV screens. It was somber viewing. A Sky News special edition of three of the funerals taking place. White balloons hovering above Astrid Copely’s village in Devon. A transcript, read aloud, of the heartbreaking eulogy by Julius McEwan’s childhood best friend. The coffin carrying Lucia Ortez being carried up a stony outcrop in Basque Country to an eight-hundred-year-old chapel by the kids she grew up with, all of them taking their turns. Add to that Bish’s memory of Stevie’s funeral and the drowned body of the anonymous girl in the Calais morgue, and it was too much to bear.

  Grazier rang for an update and Bish told him about Katherine Barrett-Parker’s vandalized garden.

  “When did it happen?” Grazier asked.

  “Back in May.”

  “Did they report it?”

  “No. And surprisingly, their own security footage for that night got damaged.”

  “What are you thinking?”

  “She’s hiding something,” Bish said. “Perhaps an affair. She may know whoever was responsible and wants to keep it from her husband.”

  “I’ll get Elliot to look into it.”

  “No, I’ll do it—”

  “I need you for something else,” Grazier interrupted.

  According to Grazier, Noor LeBrac had received a letter from her daughter. Although it had been intercepted in the prison mail room, a decision had been made by the acting governor of Holloway to release it to LeBrac. Apparently there was nothing in it of concern, but the Home Office wanted it regardless.

  “And you want me to go in there and wrestle it from her?” Bish said. “When?”

  “Now.”

  Bish had lost count of how many drinks he had already consumed.

  “Grazier, I’m not—”

  “Get to Holloway. Ask her politely to hand it over, and we’ll take car
e of politely asking the officer in charge of mail to send anything from Violette straight to us in the future,” Grazier said. “There was another bashing this afternoon. Same age as Violette. Same coloring. The parents don’t want it made public. Tell LeBrac that if she doesn’t give you the letter she’s putting her daughter and Eddie Conlon’s life in danger.”

  Bish could just imagine how much Noor LeBrac would appreciate being told she was the one responsible for her daughter and Eddie’s being in danger.

  Grazier, or the power the Home Office thought they had over Holloway, was slipping. That, or the acting governor was trying to make a statement.

  “There’s no Bish Ortley on the list to see anyone today,” he was told by Allison, the efficient woman from the visitors’ center who usually accompanied him to Officer Gray’s post. Her expression always seemed to warn against trying to charm her.

  “But you know who I am,” he said.

  “Yes I do, Chief Inspector Ortley, but there’s nothing here to say that a visit has been approved.”

  “Then it’s probably been organized directly with Officer Gray.”

  She picked up the phone, punched a few numbers, and waited a moment before asking if Chief Inspector Bish Ortley was authorized to visit Noor LeBrac.

  She hung up and shook her head. “And according to Officer Gray, the meeting rooms are all being used for parole hearings or visits from legal representation.”

  “Then I’ll see her here in the visits hall.”

  “If you’d like to see an inmate on a social visit, you’ll have to get a visiting order signed by her, and then book the visit over the phone, quoting the number.”

  He stared at her, beginning to lose his cool. “Which means I can’t see her now?”

  “All general visits to the inmates are organized via our booking line—”

  Bish removed his phone from his pocket. “Allison,” he said patiently, “in two minutes’ time you’re going to speak to the home secretary’s adviser.” He had no idea whether Grazier was the home secretary’s adviser, but Allison didn’t need to know that. “He’ll be the one to work out whether to interrupt the home secretary’s busy schedule because some incompetent person didn’t do their paperwork.”

  But she refused to be moved. He pressed the number and waited. Prayed that it wouldn’t go straight to message bank.

  “What?” Grazier asked.

  For once Bish was relieved to hear his voice. “They won’t let me see LeBrac,” he said. “Lack of paperwork or some bullshit. Can you have a word?”

  He handed the phone to Allison and watched as she listened. As her face turned many shades of puce. A wince or two. Fear. Anger. Then fear again. All in total silence until she handed Bish back his phone.

  “Visits are in the yard today.”

  Noor LeBrac looked different in natural light. Not so much younger as more human. Outside with the other inmates and their visitors, she nodded in acknowledgment to some who passed by. But he missed the confines of the meeting room already. It was noisier out here, mostly arguments between family members or crying kids.

  “You’ll have to hand over the letter you received from Violette,” he said.

  “No.”

  Just like that.

  Before he could insist, a woman twice LeBrac’s size stood at their table and shoved a form under her nose.

  “I need this filled out.”

  “Then come to my classes and learn,” LeBrac said dismissively.

  A wail sounded close by. One of the younger girls, heavily pregnant, was gripping the hand of her female visitor. Two prison guards made their way towards them.

  “Gentle,” LeBrac said as they passed by. It sounded more like an order than a request. The young girl was wailing in a language Bish couldn’t understand. He was finding it hard to read Noor’s mood.

  “She’s not having the baby out here, is she?” he asked softly. He sensed a fragility in this dark, savage place.

  “She’s due soon. Her cousin won’t take the baby once it comes, and she hasn’t a place in D Four. So it goes into the system.”

  “D Four?”

  “Mother and baby unit.”

  “You work in that unit?” he asked.

  “I show them how to feed and to change nappies.” He felt her eyes boring into his. “Teach them how to cope without their children.”

  Bish tried to stay focused on the reason he was here. “You need to hand over the letter,” he said.

  “The guard in the mail room has already forwarded it to the acting governor and she returned it to me,” she said. “It in no way incriminates Violette, nor does it reveal where she is—those were their words, not mine. It was sent from central London, postmarked two days ago. She’s obviously not there anymore. The letter stays with me.”

  “All I have to do is make a phone call, Noor. I didn’t the last time as a sign of good faith between us. So why don’t you save me the trouble and hand it over?”

  “We’re outside,” she said. “Which means you’re here as a visitor, not as someone from Special Branch. I doubt a phone call is going to change anything.”

  “I’m not with Special Branch.”

  “You’ve all come to look the same to me over the years,” she said absently, her attention back to the sobbing girl a few tables away.

  He tried a different tack. “Tell me about Violette,” he said. “What sort of a kid is she?”

  “Tell me about your son.”

  Bish felt stunned. “My son has nothing to do with this.”

  “I have a feeling your son has everything to do with most things you do these days. I met your ex-wife this morning. We had so much in common.”

  Oh Rachel. What possessed her to allow this woman a glimpse into their lives?

  “I don’t talk about my children,” he said, his fists clenching under the table.

  “Really? Yet you expect me to talk about mine. Why is that?”

  “Because I don’t think you and Violette keep secrets from each other, and I believe you know exactly where she is.”

  “Do you know what I think, Bashir? I think you and your family need to speak to each other more often.”

  “I’ll say this one more time. Do not talk about my family.”

  “What are you going to do? Have me locked up for life? Are you going to punch me in the face with those clenched fists?”

  He hadn’t realized his hands were now on the table between them.

  “You know nothing about my family,” he said, ready to move on.

  “I know about guilt,” she said.

  “Yes, you would.”

  “Not mine. The only guilt I’ve ever felt is for catching Etienne LeBrac’s eye in the cafeteria of St. John’s College and ruining his life by association,” she said. “I’m talking about yours.”

  He stood to leave.

  “You feel guilty because you weren’t on that beach to save him.”

  Her words gutted him.

  “Your ex-wife feels guilty because she thinks she’s not going to love her new child as much as she loved your son. And your daughter feels guilty that she’s not dead and her brother is. So who’s the better detective here?”

  “Shut up.” He’d spat the words out before he could stop himself. It got a reaction from those around them. A guard was walking towards them. LeBrac waved the man away.

  “It’s why I can’t hand over the letter from Violette, Chief Inspector Ortley,” she said, unfazed by the fury he directed at her. “Because she didn’t write about a bomb going off outside Calais. She wrote about the people she met and the secrets they shared with her. Are you prepared for whoever you’re working for to know that Bee didn’t compete in track meets for two years because she was cutting herself and wouldn’t be able to hide the scars? Or that the reason she couldn’t be angry with her mother for having an affair with her school principal was because it seemed to make your ex-wife happy, when everyone else was so broken?”

  “Are yo
u finished?” he asked.

  “No, not just yet, Chief Inspector Ortley,” she said. “You’re drunk. You’re slurring words and I can smell it from where I’m sitting, like I always can when you visit. It makes me sick to the stomach. But the thing is, you’re the best of a bad bunch. So whatever you believe gets you through the day has to stop. Because you’ve got it wrong. I have absolutely no idea where my daughter is, and there are people out there attacking kids with lead pipes. Kids who look like Violette and Eddie. And every time I see your face in this place I think you’re here to tell me my daughter’s dead.”

  The wailing got worse and LeBrac stood and walked towards the pregnant girl, pushing through the guards. Wordlessly, she held out a hand and the girl allowed herself to be led away.

  24

  Bish should have been angry to see Rachel sitting on the front step of his flat when he got home, but concern for her overrode it.

  “You’ll get piles,” he said, putting the key in the lock.

  “I’m pregnant at forty-six, Bish. Piles are the least of my health issues.”

  He held out a hand and she took it, groaning as she got to her feet.

  “Are you hiding the spare key from me?” she asked.

  “Bee’s got it.”

  “You know, a welcome mat would work a treat out here,” she told him.

  “Yet welcoming people into my home is the last thing I want to do.”

  Inside he made her a cup of tea while she settled herself onto a stool at his breakfast bar. She removed a foolscap deed wallet from her satchel and placed it between them. At least she wasn’t going to pretend she hadn’t spent time bonding with a convicted terrorist. He concentrated on the tea bag, taking his time in order to choose the right words.

  “Why did you go see her?” he asked, as she untied the ribbon around the file.

  “LeBrac,” he said when she didn’t respond.

  “I think Noor and I are on first-name terms,” she said. “We’re besties. Like this.” She twisted two fingers together and managed to look both surprised and angry at herself. “Don’t ask me why, Bish, because you know. Bee’s involved with this business whether we like it or not, so let’s not put our heads in the sand. David says—”