“She insisted you come along. We wouldn’t have done this with you if not for her.” She poked him in the side. “Go.”
Bish did as he was told but figured his daughter had got it wrong. Violette wasn’t interested in talking and at times he felt as if she were quickening her step to shake him off. Until she suddenly said, “I thought they were friends of my father’s who followed us up here that day. That’s what I told my grandparents and they wrote it all down.”
“Why did you think they were friends?” he asked.
“Because one of them said, ‘I know you.’”
They came to the foot of the cove, staring up at the vertical face of the cliff. It wasn’t merely the height that filled Bish with awe, but what seemed its impenetrability; a reminder of human frailty weighed up against the might of Mother Nature. Beside him, the kids were staring up at the ancient stone with reverence. No selfies here. Bish saw tears in Fionn’s eyes for the second time today. Reality didn’t hit you lying in a hospital bed. It was here that the kid truly realized that things would never be the same.
“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?’”