“Are you there, Ortley? Can you commit these names to memory?”
Two pairs of legs standing before Violette blocked Bish’s view of her. Everyone else in the hall was looking either at the men or at Bish, as if they expected him to do something. Violette was one of a handful of students who had no parent or guardian sitting beside them. One chaperone had locked her in a cupboard, another was lying in the fetal position in a corner, and the third was dead. Someone had to be responsible for her.
“Violette Zidane and Eddie Conlon,” Bish said, knowing exactly which two names Elliot would give him.
Bish heard a sigh and then Elliot was speaking to someone, his voice muffled.
One of the men beckoned Violette with a hand gesture. The utter silence of it all was chilling. And then a slight movement from Violette. Her head leaning to the left of the legs so she could make eye contact with Bish. There was no call for help. No accusation. But the action called for an answer to a question. Are you just going to sit there?
Bish hung up and got to his feet. He walked across the room, feeling every pair of eyes on him.
“Problem here?” Bish asked the two men.
The taller of them held up a hand and pointed to where Bish had come from. A wordless order to sit back down.
“We’ll be speaking to everyone soon enough,” the man said without looking at Bish. “So let’s wait our turn.”
“How about we stick to legalities?” Bish said. “She’s a minor. She doesn’t get questioned without a chaperone or guardian present.”
The man beckoned Gorman, who was only too eager to be that chaperone.
“If you come anywhere near me, Mr. Gorman,” Violette said softly, “I’m going to tell everyone you tried to feel me up in the cupboard.”
“I did no such thing,” Gorman spluttered in outrage. He glanced around to see if anyone had heard.
Violette shrugged. “Your call.”
Bish managed to get two names out of the men: Braithwaite and Post. A humorless pair who weren’t impressed to be playing second fiddle to a desk inspector and a regional French police force. But they refused to show ID, and Bish trusted coppers more than he trusted men with no identification. So he returned to where his mother and Bee sat.
“Can you go and tell Attal what’s going on here?” he said to Saffron. He sensed that Violette was no safer with a faceless British intelligence than she was with the French.
He followed the three out of the recreation hall and into the dining hall kitchen, where he sat beside Violette. Braithwaite was the tall one, and he perched on the corner of the table, close enough for intimidation. He seemed to have been assigned the role of bad cop. Post sat opposite them, ready to record every word in a notebook.
“ID?” Bish asked them again, taking out his passport and placing it on the table.
Both men ignored him. The only passport they were interested in was the one Braithwaite was studying.
“Violette, you’re the sole student on the bus who forged registration papers to come on this tour,” he began.
“Where’s Eddie?”
“Answer my question, Violette.”
“You didn’t exactly ask me one,” she said, her tone blunt.
Braithwaite studied her coldly and then glanced back at her passport.
“You’ve had a name change, I see. Not keen on everyone knowing you’re a LeBrac?”
Bish thought back thirteen years to when Louis Sarraf’s only grandchild had been put into the custody of her paternal grandparents, who lived in Australia. She was four years old. No doubt she’d been given her grandmother’s family name because the Sarraf and LeBrac legacy was too potentially dangerous for an innocent child.
“I’ll always be a LeBrac,” she said. “Can we get this over and done with?”
“You and Eddie Conlon were the only two who weren’t on the bus when it blew up.”
Violette was nodding. Bish knew she wasn’t agreeing, but processing.
“You look nervous,” Braithwaite said.
“Because it’s circumstantial evidence and it suggests that Eddie and I had something to do with the bomb,” she said. “And my mother and uncle and grandmother and great-uncle were arrested on circumstantial evidence in 2002.”
She looked at Braithwaite. “So wouldn’t you be nervous if you were me?”
“Violette, if I were you I’d be pissing my pants right now.”
“I already did. In that cupboard,” she said, pointing.
Bish felt his phone buzzing in his pocket.
“Can we talk about where you sat on the bus every day, Violette?” Post asked from across the table. He had a harelip scar that made him look angry.
“Front seat, left-hand side,” she said.
Where the bomb was planted, Bish thought, although it seemed to have its most deadly effect on the right-hand side.
“Until yesterday,” Post reminded her. “When Lola Barrett-Parker finally convinced poor Mr. McEwan to let her and Manoshi Bagchi sit where you and Eddie Conlon sat every other day.”