“What else do you do, Grazier, apart from ordering people around?”
“The fun stuff, Ortley. I get to hang out with Eddie Conlon’s father and reassure him that his son’s not going to turn up dead. And next week I get to watch two families bury their teenage children and a town say farewell to its favorite teacher. Make the comparison. Who would you rather be at the moment?”
Bish knew he was going down to Surrey whether he wanted to or not. Grazier must have taken his silence as acquiescence. “Any theories about why Crombie targeted Kennington?” he asked.
“Kennington’s apparently a bit of a squealer,” Bish told him. “I suppose he could have something on Crombie, who may have tried to keep him quiet.”
“And the story with Crombie? By the sound of it, he’s quite the little cunt.”
“Quite,” Bish agreed. “He was at the back of that bus. He was asked to help a kid sitting in the seat close to where the bomb went off, but refused. Could have known it was there.”
“Too far-fetched. If you’re a murdering little bastard who knows there’s a bomb, you’re not going to stay on board. Plus he doesn’t have a motive.”
“And Violette does?”
“Have we ever implied Violette’s a suspect?” Grazier asked.
Bish still hadn’t worked out where Grazier stood when it came to the missing pair.
“Did you get that phone call between her and the grandparents translated?”
Grazier’s telltale sigh sounded in Bish’s ear. Didn’t know whether it was his pissed-off sigh or exhaustion.
“Let’s not talk about the translation. Let’s just find her and Eddie and bring them in. They’re our number one priority, and anything Crombie or Kennington can tell us may help.”
Bish wondered what was in the conversation between the LeBracs that made Violette Grazier’s number one priority.
“Just get over there before Crombie’s parents arrive,” Grazier said. “They’re traveling from Margate so you’ve got about an hour on them. If we’re lucky, the kid doesn’t know his rights and he’ll talk.”
Charlie Crombie did know his rights and he was talking to no one. His sour-faced expression shifted slightly when Bish entered the holding cell in Guildford. A pathetic attempt at summer facial hair made him look even more pale and puny.
“I think it would be in everyone’s best interest if you apologized to Kennington,” Bish said. It was the best advice he could give. “I’ll talk to his parents, persuade them to drop the charges, and this won’t go on your record.”
“And I think it would be in everyone’s best interest,” Charlie mimicked, “if you were out there looking for my missus.”
“Violette’s your missus, is she? A bit derogatory.”
“She’s been called worse.”
“Give me something on Kennington that could motivate his family to drop the charges, Charlie.”
“He’s a wanker. Literally. Wanks all night long.” Crombie was enjoying himself. “You think that’ll do the trick, Chief Inspector Ortley?”
Bish pushed away fantasies of tearing Crombie’s bum fluff off his chin.
“It’s your life, Charlie,” he said. It wasn’t until he was leaving the cell that Crombie called out to him.
“Kennington’s father reckons they should round up all the Pakis and towel heads and foreigners and set ’em on fire under Marble Arch.”
Bish hesitated. Didn’t want to believe the kid, but there was a hint of disgust in Crombie’s tone.
“Not to mention the queers. His words, not mine.”
There it was. A Grazier comparison. Kennington or Crombie? Who deserved a win today?
Rodney Kennington certainly didn’t look like a winner. His broken nose, swollen lip, and purple eye were proof that for someone so scrawny, Charlie Crombie packed a punch. The Kenningtons were furious. Yes, yes, Bish agreed, Charlie Crombie was a troublemaker, and now he was claiming that the Kenningtons believed the solution to Britain’s problems was to set fire to minorities. Perhaps the media would be interested in just how low Charlie Crombie would stoop to get out of this cowardly act. To tell such lies about the Kenningtons. Hopefully the powers that be at Rodney’s school wouldn’t believe everything they heard. The school had a zero tolerance for racist remarks by students. Bish’s advice was that the Kenningtons go all the way with their charges, to show just what a thug and a liar Charlie Crombie was.
The Kenningtons exchanged an uneasy look.
Perhaps not.
Bish met Crombie’s parents in the foyer, where they were being reunited with their ungrateful sprog. Mr. Crombie, in a Salvation Army uniform, was a silent man in his fifties with a sad smile for his son, as if he had only just realized there were souls to be saved closer to home. Mrs. Crombie was the talker. A robust woman with a no-nonsense manner. They were listening to a harried-looking legal rep.