But that didn’t stop Officer Gray from taking his time sending out his staff to locate LeBrac.
“It’s been forty-five minutes,” Bish said after listening to Gray give priority to the repair of the foyer’s vending machine and to taking a phone interview from a journalist about the authenticity of Orange Is the New Black.
“So you think LeBrac’s just waiting in her cell for you to pop by and say hello?” Gray said.
“No, but I think she’s waiting to learn if her kid’s dead or not, so it would be in your best interest to find out if she’s hanged herself yet.”
It was another fifteen minutes before he was taken to the same interview room as before. A nurse sat outside. She stood when she saw Bish and Gray approach.
“Do we need to prepare for anything?” she asked.
A sedative, in case LeBrac’s daughter was dead? Restraints? A priest or imam? Did any of those things work in the case of tragedy?
Bish shook his head.
He watched Noor LeBrac through the one-way mirror, and it was as if she knew the exact moment he was there. Could have sworn she was staring him right in the eye. When he entered the room she stumbled to her feet, the question all over her face. She was breathing raggedly but deeply, as if she believed that more air would save her from the despair of hearing her child was dead.
“It’s not her,” he said immediately, because he knew it was all she wanted to hear. Her legs buckled and Bish’s hand snaked out to grab her. He sat her back down on the chair and gently pushed her head between her legs, then waited in silence as she regained her breath.
“Where could she be, Noor?” he asked firmly.
She didn’t respond. When she had recovered, she sat up. “Did you see my brother?” He nodded and she said, “Tell me what you know.”
Would sharing information with Noor LeBrac invite her trust and lead to some revelation about Violette in return? Could it be that easy? He told her that a pressure-cooker bomb had been placed in a backpack in the overhead compartment, killing three kids and two adults. There were two amputees and one victim who’d lost an eye. And there were others, like his daughter, who’d walked away without a scratch.
The fragile woman from moments before was gone, unimpressed. One look said it all. No, Bish. It wasn’t going to be that easy.
“Most of that’s been reported by the media,” she said, her voice clipped and precise. “Tell me something they don’t know.”
The private school accent irritated him.
“I could ask the same of you,” he said.
It was cat and mouse and Bish preferred to be neither.
“I need a motive,” he finally said.
“For my daughter blowing up a bus?” The fury in her expression was instantaneous.
“No. For Violette lying about being on this side of the world. Why now?”
She studied him silently. It was unnerving, but he held the stare.
“Noor, I crossed the Channel today to ID the body of a young girl and I prayed to a God I’m not sure I believe in anymore that it wasn’t Violette.”
After a long silence, she slid her hand into a pocket and retrieved a postcard, placing it on the table between them.
“It’s from Violette.”
The message was brief. I’m going to shame the devil.
“Is it a threat of some sort?” he asked, not quite understanding.
He picked up the postcard and took in the details. Posted in Calais the day after the bombing. “The guards let you have this?” he asked.
“They didn’t suspect it was from her. They probably thought it was some nutter so they let me have it. They’re considerate in that way,” she said dryly.
“How do you know it’s from Violette?”
“She studied Henry IV this year. ‘O, while you live, tell truth and shame the devil,’” Noor quoted. “She borrowed it from Shakespeare.”
“What truth is she referring to?”
The hostility was back in her eyes as she studied him. As if he was supposed to know the truth according to the LeBracs and Sarrafs.
“Can I take this?” he asked.
LeBrac snatched it out of his hands and tucked it back into her pocket.
“All I have to do is tell your guard about it,” Bish said. “So why don’t you put us all out of our misery and hand it over now?”
“Because it could be the last thing my daughter writes to me, so if anyone wants it they’ll have to fight me for it.”
He tossed up whether to give her more information. He figured she’d taken a chance by showing him the postcard. “Violette’s not on her own,” he said. “She’s traveling with one of the kids from the tour.”
LeBrac’s lip curled in disgust. “Who? The one who smeared her reputation?”
“Crombie’s not important,” Bish said.
“If my daughter had sex with him, he’s important,” she said flatly.
“You didn’t have sex with insipid idiots at her age?”
“I’ve had consensual sex with one man in my life, and Etienne LeBrac was anything but insipid.”
Consensual sex. It turned Bish’s stomach to think what she meant by that, regardless of what Noor LeBrac had done.
“The thing is, she hasn’t run off with Crombie. It’s a bit stranger than that.”