When they reached Sheffield, Bish suggested they stop for sandwiches.
“Sandwiches?” Charlie said. “That’s what they serve these three every day in hospital. Have a bit of imagination.”
Imagination was McDonald’s. It didn’t have a drive-through, so Bee and Charlie went to get the food because, according to Eddie, “they aren’t ex–suspected terrorists or missing any body parts, so they won’t stand out in a crowd.”
Bee and Charlie came back soon enough with bags of food and serious expressions.
“We’re all over the news,” Charlie said.
Lola and Manoshi were caught between the drama of being all over the news and the excitement of eating chicken nuggets and french fries. Bish fiddled with the radio scan and found a news station.
“Chief Inspector Bish Ortley is a person of interest in the disappearance of three young patients who were injured in the August Boulogne bombing.”
“A bit dramatic,” Bish said, and everyone agreed.
“Ortley was suspended from the force last month after assaulting a fellow officer with a firearm.”
He felt their eyes on him. So much for Grazier keeping the media out of it.
“Should we be scared?” Charlie said, sounding anything but.
“Did he deserve it?” Bee asked.
“No one deserves to be threatened with a gun, Bee.”
“Bullshit,” Violette said. “I’d threaten a pedophile with a gun. I’d actually shoot him in the dick.”
After tapping away at the minivan’s GPS, Charlie started up the car. Bish turned his phone back on and regretted it the moment he saw the eleven text messages and twenty missed calls.
“Nothing you can do until we get to Malham, so I’d switch it to silent if I were you,” Charlie said.
Bish did as he was told.
In the rearview mirror he could see Violette whispering to Fionn, a vicious little expression around her mouth. Fionn seemed uncomfortable, and Bish had a feeling that she was forcing him into something he didn’t want to do.
Charlie saw him looking and checked his own mirror. “She doesn’t judge, you know,” he said in a low voice. “She just says, ‘Move on, Charlie. Don’t let shit define you.’” He took a moment to contemplate. “I suppose a cheating scam seems nothing compared to stuff that’s happened in her life.”
Bish was surprised that he had brought that up. He dared to ask, “If it was a scam, what happened to the others?”
Charlie went into shutdown and Bish regretted asking. He looked in the rearview mirror again. There was a lot of whispering going on in the back now.
“Doesn’t matter,” Charlie said at last. “I cheated. And no, I didn’t hand myself in. I got caught. So don’t search for anything decent about the situation. The only thing I didn’t do was rat on the others.”
“Fionn says you’re smart, Charlie. So why?”
Charlie shrugged. Bish was getting a clearer picture of what a Charlie shrug meant. Shame.
“My mother wears a collar. My father wears a uniform that means nothing to the lot I went to school with. It’s not like The Vicar of Dibley, you know. Most of the time it’s a council flat next to a church. At Ashcroft you either had to make a name for yourself or be invisible. You couldn’t be in between.”
“How does Fionn fit into the school, then?”
“He was one of the invisible ones. Didn’t even know he went to my old school until he told me on the night before the bomb went off. I thought he looked familiar.”
Charlie took his eyes off the road to look briefly at Bish. “I was supposed to move that suitcase for Lola. Me. Not Sykes. But Sykes did it. It should have been me. Sykes is fucking decent and he didn’t deserve that to happen to him.”
“And you did, Charlie? You really think anyone deserves it?”
“You don’t know how it feels,” Charlie said dismissively.
“Did Bee tell you about her brother’s death?”
Charlie seemed surprised. “Yeah. He got caught in a rip and drowned. She said you don’t talk about it.”
“I wasn’t there that day,” Bish said. “Her mum and I were having a bit of time apart and she went to Portsmouth with Stevie and I took Bee to a race meet up north. Over the years everyone’s said the same thing to me. Coast guards, police, even Bee’s mum. That even if I’d been there I wouldn’t have been able to save him. It was a killer rip.” Bish swallowed hard. “But a man did go in to save Stevie. Some random guy on the beach. And he died out there too. That’s what I can’t forgive myself for. Another man died trying to save my son.”
After a moment he said, “So I sort of do know how you feel, Charlie. Just don’t let it take you to dark places, because it’s a bugger to dig yourself out of that pit.”
Ten minutes later, Bish knew something was wrong. There hadn’t been talk in the back for some time, and when he checked the mirror Fionn looked shattered.
“Pull over, Charlie.”
When the minibus was parked by the side of the road, Bish unbuckled his seat belt and turned around. “Fionn, are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” He was scrubbing tears from his eyes.