“I’ll take Violette and Eddie,” Bish said. “The rest of you stay.”
“I’m coming too,” Bee said.
Charlie looked in the direction of the village. “People were staring back there. I bet they’ve called the cops.”
Bish pointed to Manoshi and Lola. “Don’t let those two out of your sight.”
It was a somber journey up the steps, Violette still ahead as they took it in single file. At the top of the cove, on the limestone platform, the wind made their cheeks smart and eyes water. But regardless, the rock formations were stunning; clints and grikes as far as the eye could see, their strange hues in communion with the gray storm clouds that hung low and threatened to spill. Violette turned to them and Bish saw she was crying, holding her arms around her body.
“He hid me,” she sobbed. “They always say I was left walking on my own, but that’s not true! He hid me between the fissures big enough to fit me. It was to protect me. Not leave me behind. My dad wouldn’t have left me behind. It’s what I write in my letters every time I remember something. But the police here never believe me.”
And Bish thought it strange that seventeen-year-old girls who had sex with idiot boys could still cry like babies for their fathers.
“I believe you, Violette.”
Eddie wasn’t coping well with Violette’s reaction and was now crying himself. His sobbing seemed to come from the gut, a mixture of pain and grief. “I miss my mum,” he said over and over. And that got Bee started, and all Bish could do was hold on to the three sobbing kids and hide his own overwhelming anguish. All those years ago, a man had tried to protect his child on this rock. Etienne LeBrac hadn’t come here to die; he’d come to be reminded of beauty in an ugly year. If Bish were still a religious man, he would have sworn that the dead were with them in this ancient place. The beautiful dead. And he felt that the three in his arms sensed it too.
They heard a whistle and looked down to see Charlie waving and pointing towards the village. A horde was approaching. Reporters, Bish thought. They didn’t look like day-trippers. They headed down.
In the meadow the girls were picking flowers and Fionn was lying on the grass, the sun in his eyes and a degree of contentment on his face. His chair was close by and Bish helped Charlie get him back in.
“Are you tired?” Charlie asked.
“Sick and tired of you asking me if I’m tired,” Fionn said.
“I’m tired,” Manoshi said.
“You’re always tired, Manoshi,” Bee said. “Even in France you were always tired.”
“They’re not going to let us go any further, are they?” Fionn asked Bish.
“We’ll get you home,” Bish promised.
“Maybe your mum will come here, Fionn,” Lola said.
“She can’t move from the house, Lola!” Charlie said. “How many times does he have to say it?”
Lola started crying.
“Stop blubbering or everyone’s going to think Bee’s dad molested us,” Violette snapped. She put an arm around Lola all the same. “Come on, Lola, don’t be a wimp. You don’t want to end up like Lucy.”
Everyone agreed.
“You shouldn’t be so hard on Lucy,” Bish said. “Some adults don’t deal with extreme circumstances.”
“Extreme circumstances?” Manoshi said. “That’s what she was always like, Chief Inspector Ortley.”
“Yeah,” Eddie said. “Everything was a drama. Like, ‘Lucy, can we have a toilet stop?’ ‘I can’t handle this. You kids are pushing me over the edge!’”
By the laughter, Bish figured Eddie’s impersonation was spot-on—the pitch of Lucy Gilies’s voice, the hands flapping around the head.
“Lucy, do you have a tissue?” Manoshi asked.
“‘What did I do to deserve this? It’s too much!’”
Their laughter became wheezing and snorts. Bish hadn’t heard such unadulterated hilarity for a long time. Eddie had an audience and was on a roll.
“Lucy, do they have Internet coverage at the campsite?” Fionn asked.
“‘Why are you tormenting me with all these questions?’”
“I’m going to wet my pants,” Lola said.
The laughing was so infectious Bish couldn’t help joining in. He should have felt guilty, but then he remembered that Lucy Gilies had known that Gorman had locked Violette up in that cupboard all those days ago and done nothing.
Elliot and Grazier had almost reached them, looking out of place in their suits.
“Don’t join them, Dad,” Bee pleaded. “You’ll look like the Three Stooges of doom.”
But he went to meet the pair. “What happened to keeping the press away?” he asked them.
“The hospital released a statement,” Grazier said. “Most of the press are heading to Newcastle. This lot are locals. The home secretary wants us to take advantage of it. Would love nothing more than the media getting a positive moment with these kids. Especially Violette and Eddie.”
Bish shook his head. “Not after they put his face on the front page.”
“John Conlon’s piece on the blog has gone viral,” Grazier said. “Let’s show the world how unique Eddie is.”
Bish looked back at the kids, who seemed oblivious to anyone but one another.
“John Conlon should be here soon,” Grazier said. “He can take Eddie. Elliot’s going to take Violette. You can take your daughter home in my car. I’ll get the kids back to the hospital in the Salvation Army bus. I think the reverend’s heading this way with a vengeance as well. Apparently the senior citizens Charlie was supposed to pick up this morning are not happy.”
“I’m taking Fionn to see his mother,” Bish said.
“Not your decision to make.”
“G’day, Violette,” Elliot called out in an awful Australian accent. “How y’going?”
Violette laughed, despite herself. Bish had hardly ever seen her teeth, but Elliot received the full gummy grin.
“Tell her to stop,” Bee whispered to Bish. “She’s scaring me.”
The first of the journalists reached them, panting and red-faced. A one-mile walk had wiped them out. When a reporter from the Yorkshire Post asked what they were doing in Malham Cove, the kids exchanged looks.
“My father died here,” Violette finally said, which resulted in a frenzy of questions. Violette ignored the questions. Instead she told the press the story of the watch. Its bloody and beautiful history. Her belief that one day it would be returned to her family.
“How fucking smart is this kid?” Elliot said, watching a reporter surreptitiously wipe a tear from his eye.
Bish couldn’t help agreeing. All eloquence. No accusations. No bitterness.
“Decent people, the grandparents,” Elliot said. “Bloody decent. Wish I hadn’t got to know them. Bad things always seem to sniff out the most decent people. Yet the arseholes…” He shook his head. “They keep on keeping on.”
When the local police had managed to get the kids inside the visitors’ center, away from the press, a handful of villagers turned up with cake and juice. The Parkers and Bagchis arrived. In separate cars. Bish stood with Katherine and Sadia watching the girls with their fathers. The men would never be friends but it was clear they loved their daughters, so they were stuck with each other.
“The only reason I’m not shouting at you, Bish, is because the girls are happy,” Katherine said.
“All I—”
“Ring your mother,” Sadia interrupted, her tone cool. “She will be the only person who’ll want to speak to you today.”
He rang Saffron—not because Sadia told him to, but because he wanted to.
“Everyone’s a bit furious with you, Bish darling. Is it true you’ve kidnapped the children from the hospital?” And it made him smile, the way his mother had of announcing the most dramatic thing in the most normal tone.
He was suddenly overcome with homesickness for her. As if he’d regressed thirty-five years. “Where were you all those years I was a
t school?” he asked. “Because if you say you were drying out I think I can cope with that. More than with you not wanting me.”
He had to wait a long moment for her reply. “Did I ever tell you that I went searching for my father when you started boarding? I missed you so much and I think I needed to fill that void.”
Bish didn’t know why he was surprised that she’d tried to find Bashir Nasrallah.
“I was too late by six months. I didn’t think it would affect me so badly, but of course it wasn’t just about his death. It brought up everything. My mother, and brother, leaving Alexandria, and growing up with Aunt Margaret. So I did what the Worthingtons do so well: I drank. It’s easy to hide how much you’re drinking when you have the expat’s lifestyle. Brunch, followed by a long lunch, followed by cocktails and then predinner and postdinner drinks. Different guests each time. No one picked up that I had a problem. Then I’d try desperately to pull myself together for your school holidays, and I failed at that.”
In the silence Bish wanted to say the right thing. Something that would make sense to them both.
“Eight days without a drink.”
“Thirty-three years.”
“So it gets easier?” he asked.
“Not at all, darling. Stevie’s death made me almost give in about a thousand times a day. And if it wasn’t for visiting those kids in Buckland, I would have had one for sure these past weeks.”
“Demons,” she had called them.
“No more secrets, Mum,” he said. “They make us lonely.”
“Do you want to hear some good news coming out of this whole bombing mess?” she asked.
“Always.”
“My nephew found me. My half sister’s son. Out of respect for my father’s second wife, they waited until she died to search for me. It was what our father wanted—that one day, all his children would be reunited. They got as far as knowing that my surname was Ortley and that my brother had died, then they hit a roadblock. Until my nephew saw us on Al Jazeera—you and I talking outside Buckland Hospital. The French ran the story and identified you as Bashir Ortley.”
Bish turned at the sound of a car and watched as a sedan pulled up and an older man stepped out. John Conlon.
“I’ll take you there, Mum. To Alexandria. Bee can come too. Right now I’ve got to go, but I’ll ring you later.”
Grazier was there to greet Conlon and they embraced. Eddie and Violette walked out of the visitors’ center and stood close together. They looked so vulnerable. Bish went over to join them and the atmosphere was strained.
“Can you introduce me, Eddie?” Bish asked.
The kid did a mumbled pointing and naming. “Have you been feeding my fish?” he asked his father.
Conlon nodded. He seemed not to know what to say. Wasn’t that Noor’s fear? That all the talking would have stopped now that Anna was dead?
“Am I going to live with them?” Eddie asked his father. “With Violette?”
Conlon flinched as if someone had struck him. “Don’t be silly, Eddie. You belong with me.”
Eddie was gripping his sister’s hand. “I belong with my dad, Violette.”
And she was trying not to cry and nodding all the same. “Yeah, that’s what my mum said.”
“We saw the graffiti,” Eddie said to his father. “On YouTube.”
“It’s all gone now. Didn’t have to lift a finger myself. People are mostly decent, Eddie. I’ve dug the graves of their loved ones. They’ll pay me back with decency.”
John Conlon looked at Violette for the first time. “We’ll take you home,” he told her.
Bish read the confusion on her face.
“Me and Eddie together,” Conlon said, turning back to his son. “It’s where our Jimmy always wanted to go, you know, Eddie. The other side of the world. I bought him an atlas and we picked a place together. And our Jimmy, he said, ‘I’ll get your passport stamped if it’s the last thing I do, Da.’”
This time Violette did cry. “It’ll mean everything to my grandparents to see Eddie. Everything.”
Bish felt as though he was in a fishbowl. Their little group in the car park, surrounded by a circle of police, surrounded by the press. All wanting a glimpse of these kids’ lives. Soon afterwards, Violette was saying good-bye to Charlie, just as the Crombies were parking a Smart car.
“If their snogging entails tongues and saliva, one of you is going over to stop them,” Grazier said, approaching Bish and Elliot. “I’m fucking traumatized by those Instagram accounts.”
But there was no snogging. Just the pair of them holding on to each other with all their might. Bish was a bit on the touched side.
“Oh God, she’s coming this way,” Grazier muttered as they watched Reverend and Arthur Crombie striding over to them.
“Righto,” she said. “Who’s in charge here?”
Bish and Elliot pointed to Grazier.
“We’re taking that boy to see his mother,” she said firmly, pointing to Fionn, who was being wheeled around by Eddie as if the chair were a shopping trolley. A subdued Charlie took over and wheeled Fionn towards them.
“That won’t be necessary, Reverend Crombie,” Grazier said politely. “I’ll take him myself.”
“I don’t believe you,” she said. “Come on, boys.”
“Reverend Crombie, I’ll be taking Fionn,” Grazier said.
“Well, you’re just going to have to arrest me, then,” she said. “Who has the authority to arrest people around here?” She looked at Bish.
“Unfortunately, I can’t, Reverend Crombie, because I’ve been suspended from the police force.”
“And they can’t because they’re spooks,” Charlie said, pointing to Grazier and Elliot.
“We work for the Home Office,” Grazier said.
“Yeah, so does MI5, and they can’t arrest people,” Charlie said.
“We’ve watched the show,” Mr. Crombie said politely.
“Then I’ll come along with you.” Grazier’s politeness was now forced. He handed Bish his car keys. “We’ll talk later.”
“What about my job?” Bish asked.
“Fuck your job, Ortley. Just resign without fanfare. That’s what the Met wants, by the sound of things.”
Bish had always imagined this moment feeling like a Band-Aid being ripped off his hairy leg, but he suddenly realized he’d been slowly peeling it off since he was suspended. The bomb and Noor LeBrac and her kids and her brother had changed everything. But he would miss his job. And he wished he could have walked away on his terms.
“I’ll be in touch,” Grazier said.
Bish shook his head. “Don’t. Be in touch, I mean. Don’t offer me work.”
Grazier gave him a questioning look.
“Because there’s this woman and it’s complicated and I don’t think you people will approve of where she lives.”
Grazier muttered something as he hurried off after the Crombie entourage.
“His woman’s ex-IRA,” Elliot said. “I’d say he understands complicated.”
54
Bish started the car with Bee in the passenger seat. He heard a knock at the window and saw Violette’s solemn face staring at him. He wound down the window, and before he could ask what she wanted she leaned in and kissed his cheek. And walked away.
He pulled out of the car park and a moment later Bee’s phone beeped. “Anyone I know?” he asked.
“Yeah. It’s Violette saying good-bye.”
“Why didn’t she say that just now?”
“Dad, stop asking stupid questions.”
A moment later there was another beep, and Bee made a scoffing sound after reading the text. “Shahbazi’s already hysterical.”
“You have her number?”
“Why wouldn’t I?”
“I thought you two were enemies.”
“Violette told her what Mum said about Violette and me being two Mesopotamian sisters, and of course Gigi had to be the third. Except now we’re apparently thre
e Persian princesses.”
Bish tooted at the Salvation Army van being driven by Charlie. Grazier, of the one facial expression, was riding shotgun. The Crombie Smart car was close behind.
“I’m going to tell you something else now, and you can’t get hurt,” Bee said.
“I can’t promise that.” And he actually couldn’t.
“Okay, then I’ll say it anyway.” She took a deep breath. “I’m going to unfriend you on Facebook.”
Bish was crushed. Tried hard not to show it.
“I’ve encouraged all my friends to do the same,” she said, digging the knife in deeper. “Don’t take offense, Dad. We can’t say stuff and muck around with you checking us out.”
“That’s cold, Bee. Really cold.”
“Violette’s started a Free Noor LeBrac page and she says if you want you can join that.”
Little crumbs.
“And I need to tell you one more thing…”
“There’s more? Couldn’t we just stop at you not wanting to be my friend?”
She studied him a moment. “You make Mum laugh,” she said softly. “But David makes her happy.”
She had the iPad in her hand now. Soon it would be four hours of silence after a day of babble. He didn’t want the conversation to end there.
“Can you promise me something now?” he said.
“As long as it’s not something really stupid.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Because you’ve got that look on your face. Stevie used to call it your he’s-going-to-say-something-stupid face. Remember?”
“Trust me, there’s nothing stupid about what I want you to promise.”
“Okay, what is it?”
“That you’ll never accept Charlie Crombie’s sperm to make my grandchild.”
She laughed. “You’re an idiot.” She put her iPad in her bag and sat back and laughed some more.
By the time he’d driven all the way down to Ashford and then back to London, he was beat. He went to the supermarket to grab some dinner, tempted himself with a look at the off-license, but picked up the Evening Standard instead. For once in his life he liked the front-page news. They were laughing. Violette and Bee and Eddie and Charlie and Fionn and Lola and Manoshi. THE KIDS ARE ALL RIGHT, ran the headline. It had to count for something.