Next he tried the cop stationed at the lift, politely asking in slow English how it was possible to get onto the third-floor list. The cop snapped back in fast French. Bish was about to walk away when he heard a familiar voice behind him. He turned. Attal. No sleep, little food, and a whole lot of grief were taking their toll on the French captain. Attal exchanged a few words with the officer before acknowledging Bish with a sound that perhaps meant “Hello” or “Fuck off.” Whatever the case, Bish found himself on the list.
Outside Lola’s room he encountered her father berating an orderly. Ian Parker was a member of Parliament. He came from wealth, had married into wealth, and his public rhetoric reeked of xenophobia and Britain’s decay.
When he was finished, Bish introduced himself.
“Ortley?” said Parker. “Aren’t you with Scotland Yard?”
Bish shook his head. “I’m here as—”
“I’m fed up with you people and your inane questions,” Parker barked. “Make yourself useful. Get out there and find that LeBrac bitch or I’ll have someone do it for you, and there’ll be nothing left of her to put on trial.”
His much younger wife put a cautionary hand on his arm. “Ian,” was all she said, softly. Down the corridor, a doctor exited a ward and headed for the lift. Parker went after her, leaving Bish with the insipid Katherine Barrett-Parker. Moments later, they could hear Parker yelling at the doctor down the corridor.
“Lola is his youngest, and the only one of his children who gives him the time of day,” Katherine finally said. “Arrogance is one thing. Mixed with heartbreak it’s lethal.”
Not quite insipid. Just grief-stricken.
“Can you do something about the press?” she asked. “Sometimes my husband and I need fresh air. Apparently the Pakistani mother is frightened to step outside as well.”
Bish was going to point out that the Bagchi family were originally from Bangladesh, but decided not to make an enemy of Katherine Barrett-Parker. When her husband’s shouting grew worse, she excused herself and went to rescue the doctor.
Two rooms and another world away were Manoshi and her mother. Manoshi had qualified for one of the travel grants the Bengali community in Spitalfields provided for their youngest and brightest in public housing. Her mother was inconsolable as they took Manoshi away for another set of tests. The girl’s hair was half shaved, her face bruised, her arm bandaged, the hand missing. Bagchi told Bish she’d spent the past three nights on a stretcher bed in her daughter’s room, weeping.
But your child’s alive, he wanted to say to her. He asked about her husband instead.
“We have four other children at home. He needs to be with them. He needs to work.” Her Bengali accent sang him a sad tune. Of something more than pain for her daughter.
“It was my pride,” she said bitterly. “I demanded that my husband let her go to France. He is very protective, but I shamed him. ‘Do you want our clever daughter selling cucumbers at the markets like her clever father?’ I asked him.”
She met his eyes across her daughter’s empty bed. “Who would do this to our children, sir? Who would be so cruel?”
Bish had been asked that question too many times over the years, and could never find the right response.
They spoke for a little while longer about the other students before he left to look in on Fionn Sykes. Bish had found out a little about him from Bee, and the papers had profiled all the injured kids. Despite losing part of his left leg from the knee down, his injury was simple compared to Manoshi’s and Lola’s, and he seemed to be healing better than the others. Bish had no idea how the boy was faring mentally, except that, according to Sadia Bagchi, he was pining for his mother.
Bish knocked at his door. “I’m Bee’s father,” he said. “She sends her best,” he lied.
“She’s not hurt, then?” Fionn asked.
“One of the lucky ones.”
“That’s a relief.”
He was a plain kid. Quiet, unassuming. Fionn seemed to have an old soul, which would have made him an outcast among the likes of Crombie and Kennington.
“Well, I won’t keep you,” Bish said. “Just thought I’d say hello.”
“I haven’t really spoken to anyone in days,” Fionn said. “The nurses and doctors are kind but it’s hard to communicate.”
Bish figured it was an invitation to stay, so he sat down in the chair beside the bed.
“Can you tell me about the others, sir?” Fionn asked, a flicker of pain on his face. Bish didn’t know whether it was physical or from the memory of what happened. “I know about Mac and Serge the bus driver. They won’t bring me newspapers or a TV yet, but I know someone died here on the first night. I can’t understand much because they speak so fast, but I saw one of the nurses crying.”
Bish nodded gently. It seemed an insult to deny the deaths. “Michael Stanley and Astrid Copely,” he said. “And a Spanish girl called Lucia Ortez.”
Tears sprang to the boy’s eyes and he gave a ragged sigh, composing himself. “They were younger than me, Michael and Astrid. Fifteen I think.”
“Did you know them well?”
“No, but I remember that his great-grandfather was buried in the Bayeux War Cemetery. Michael played the last post there on his harmonica. Astrid was getting her braces off when she got back from France. I heard her telling him one day.”