“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 at 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.”