Bish put the phone on speaker, praying that Elliot wasn’t the delusional bastard he had been at school. Finally he had everyone’s attention. Post reached over for Bish’s passport, which remained on the table.
“Strange name for a Brit,” he said, showing Braithwaite. “We’ll be seeing you again, Bashir Ortley.” He threw the passport down before casually walking out. Bish hung up. Saffron was at the door, concern in her expression.
Attal rattled off something, fast and furious.
“He wants her for interviewing,” Saffron translated.
“Tell him the anglais want to take their children home,” Bish said. “Starting now. And when someone arrives for Violette, he can ask her whatever he wants.”
Evening came with more than half the students having been interviewed and allowed to go home. Those left were given a family cabin each. Two staff members from the British embassy finally arrived from Paris, but their stay was short-lived.
“Can you take over here?” one of them asked Bish. “We’re going to need Russell Gorman to come with us. The Stanley parents have arrived.”
Bish spent the rest of the evening talking to parents in the other cabins. Twenty-five years in the police force had taught him that people wanted communication. It made them feel safe, and listened to.
Later, he stepped out for some fresh air and found himself walking back towards the bomb site. Attal’s team had left but the capitaine remained, along with the bodies of Julius McEwan, Michael Stanley, and the Spanish girl. Bish guessed the Frenchman was waiting for the coroner, who would come only once all the evidence was collected and labeled. Attal’s people had been meticulous all day, and Bish couldn’t fault their procedures.
Bish stood not far from the Spanish bus; the concealed body of the fourteen-year-old girl lay before him. He watched as Attal crouched, almost reverently, between the bodies of Michael Stanley and Julius McEwan. When the Frenchman noticed Bish he nodded in acknowledgment, and in that way the pair of them kept a strange vigil.
Forty-five minutes later the coroner arrived. Julius McEwan’s body was taken first. A thirty-five-year-old man who lived with his mother, loved his dog, and loved his job. It didn’t seem to Bish such a bad life to have had. All three deaths had been quick. The pain wouldn’t be over quickly for the families, but one day there would at least be the consolation that their loved ones had never seen it coming.
The next morning, a handful of parents arrived on the first ferry, two having flown in from holidaying in India, the other Eddie Conlon’s father. An older man. Disheveled. Disconnected. And certainly not someone Lucy Gilies would identify as a foreign type. Bish was about to introduce himself when sirens sounded and Attal and his team arrived in a small convoy. The capitaine hit the ground shouting orders. His people sprinted from cabin to cabin.
“Do you think it’s another bomb?” Saffron asked as they watched from the veranda of the dining hall.
Lucy, sans medication, was the one to break the news. The students without guardians had shared her cabin, and sometime during the night two of them had managed to disappear.
Eddie Conlon and Violette LeBrac Zidane.
5
Bish rang his embassy contact at the hospital to update her on the Violette and Eddie disappearance and found himself on the receiving end of a heartbreaking update. He passed it on to the remaining parents, before they could hear it from the press. The news of Astrid Copely’s death stunned the already fragile group. Astrid had sat next to Michael Stanley, opposite Manoshi Bagchi and Lola Barrett-Parker. The wounds to her torso were so horrific that Bish hoped Bee would never learn the details.
A group of local women were allowed to enter the campground with fresh food to distribute to the various busloads of foreign kids, as well as to the British families. There was a practical earthiness to them that provided a comfort beyond words.
Bee was finally interviewed by Attal. She was rude in dismissing the translator. Her French, as far as she was concerned, was better than the translator’s English. Bish wasn’t happy with that arrangement and called in Saffron, who could at least translate for him. The capitaine’s questions centered on Violette. Had the girl revealed anything about her family’s identity? Had her actions spoken of anything suspicious? What did they talk about, seeing as they shared a room for six nights? Bee was surly in her responses. Angry. At one stage she demanded that Attal return the belongings of those on the bus.