They spent the night at a motel in Calais close to the port. While Bee texted her life away, Bish borrowed her iPad and searched through media from thirteen years ago. If Ahmed Khateb had been living in North London in 2002, someone he knew could have been a victim of the Brackenham bombing. What did Violette mean by calling him a stickybeak? Had Khateb approached her because somehow he had worked out who she was? With a name like Zidane it wouldn’t have been as easy as linking a LeBrac to the bombing, but perhaps a grief-stricken man knew every single detail there was to know about the family whose patriarch had been responsible for Brackenham.
In Bish’s search for names, statements from the injured, death notices, and everything else that was written about back then, he came across the front page of The Guardian, which showed photographs of the twenty-three victims. At one point in his police career, Bish had known the names of them all. Remembered their personal stories. A young mother and her five-year-old son on their way to school. A father of four who worked for the council. An eighteen-year-old lad who was the only child of a couple from Merseyside. Bish stared at the lad’s face. Eternally laughing, without a care in the world. His name caught Bish’s eye. A common name, so he should have put the thought aside, but he couldn’t help a Google search. And at a time when he thought there was no more room for surprises from Noor LeBrac, Bish discovered her biggest one.
41
When Eddie’s mum died his dad had stopped doing things around the house, like cooking and cleaning and getting the mail from the post office. Then he stopped getting out of bed.
That was how Eddie came across the letters. He would have ignored personal mail to his mum and just concentrated on counting out the money in the tin that paid for the bills. But this letter came from Holloway Prison and Eddie had never known anyone to get mail from someone in prison, so he opened it. It was from a woman named Noor. Most of the letter was about the babies born in the wing where she worked, but the last few sentences read,
It’s the anniversary of Etienne’s death, and Eddie’s birth, and the day I knew I’d never see Violette again. The worst time of the year for me. The pain never lessens. In actual fact it grows, and one day I’m frightened that it will consume me. Please write when you can, Anna. I worry that I haven’t heard from you.
Love,
Noor
He had always known his parents weren’t his from birth. People only had to look at them to work it out, so Eddie worked it out straightaway. This Noor lady must be his birth mum. So he tore up the letter, because as long as Eddie lived he would never want another mum.
But he couldn’t forget the names. Noor. Violette. Etienne. No surname, but when he googled those names together he learnt everything. Who had done the Brackenham bombing and why. He’d known that “our Jimmy” had died in a bombing, and for days and days and days Eddie was sick inside and couldn’t look his da in the eye.
Eddie went searching for other letters his mother had been sent by Noor. Not all of them were from Holloway. The other mother had been to a few prisons in the early days. And the more Eddie read, the more curious he was. Not about people called Noor or Etienne. But about Violette. He had a sister. A full-blooded sister. She was seventeen years old and she lived in Australia. On a farm. The other mother spoke to her every morning between 10 and 10:30 a.m. in England, which was between 9 and 9:30 p.m. in Australia.
Eddie found out everything about Violette through those letters. Like the fact that she seemed tough but was “seeing someone” because of the nightmares. And she had been homeschooled since year seven because the kids in her class had found out who her grandfather was and had written awful things on her locker. The other mother said she was desperate for an appeal on her case because she needed to be home with Violette. But that didn’t seem to happen.
He also learnt from the letters that Violette was clever and wanted to be a doctor, and she loved her animals and was enjoying netball because for the first time she was allowed to be on a team. That she had become obsessed with her father’s death and wrote to Scotland Yard each time she remembered something new about the day Etienne died. That she swore way too much because she was used to being with the workers on the farm. That she knew very little about the world outside the town she lived in. That she spoke Arabic, French, and English. And that she was going on a camp that year. To Tasmania.
So Eddie went searching for Violette. He couldn’t find her on Facebook or Twitter or Instagram or anywhere else. The only Violette Zidane he came across was in a local paper called the Daily Advertiser. She played center in a junior netball competition in the Riverina, New South Wales. So he found the name and address of the netball club and sent her a letter. He kept it short in case it never reached her.
Dear Violette,
My name is Eddie Conlon and I think you’re my sister. If you get this, my email is [email protected].
Yours sincerely,
Eddie Conlon
One month later he received an email from [email protected].
Dear Eddie,
This is Violette. Yes, I am your sister. I’ve thought of you every day since you were born, and I will think of you every day until I die. (Not to be dramatic or anything.) I’ve attached a photograph of myself. Do we look the same? It doesn’t matter if we don’t. I hope for your sake you don’t have my hair.
Love,
Violette