She seemed almost to welcome the question. “All the things I miss. Holding my daughter. All the talks we could have had when she came home from school. I miss my mother’s belly laugh, and the way my little brother would drop to his knees when he scored a goal. I miss talking to my best friend for hours on the phone, and I miss not having seen her four children grow up. I miss my husband’s lazy smile and I miss the sex and I miss wearing high-heeled shoes and beautiful things, and I miss using my brain and I miss the pride people used to feel in me…” Her shoulders slumped with a fatigue that was doubtless etched in her bones. It made Bish want to reach out. Hold her. Tell her he understood.
Instead he removed the image of Ahmed Khateb from his notebook. “Can you look at this photo again?” he asked. “He lived in North London in 2002. Could he be a threat to Violette?”
She stared at the photo. Shook her head. “I don’t know this man.”
There seemed nothing else to say, but he didn’t want to leave.
“How did the kids seem to you?” Bish asked.
“They’re tired.” He heard her voice crack. “I told her…to take Eddie home, where he belongs. But she’s a bit of a mess, my Violette is. Deep down she needs to feel convinced that Etienne didn’t desert her on that rock. That’s what happens when they stick you in a cupboard, lock you up. You start to believe all the lies and you don’t know what the truth is anymore. You don’t know who you are.”
“I can only help Violette if I know where she is,” he said. “If she’s working out how to get to Malham Cove, where could she be staying now? Would she be with Lelouche?”
“She wouldn’t tell me where she was staying. But it wasn’t with Bilal.” Noor took Bish’s pen and wrote down an address in his notebook. “He has a restaurant in Shepherd’s Bush. If Khateb was living in these parts in 2002, Bilal may have known him. He might also be able to tell you where Violette is, but I’m presuming she’s long gone from him.”
As he was walking to the door, she said, “When Eddie was sitting before me, Etienne’s spirit was dancing there between us. I felt it. Here.” She pressed a fist to her chest. “Make peace with your ex-wife’s life, Chief Inspector. Because her son will have some of your boy’s essence and it could bring you joy. How could it not?”
Officer Lorna Vasquez was at the desk when Bish asked for his belongings. “Looking forward to getting back to the mail room?” he asked. He couldn’t imagine her finding satisfaction working alongside Gray and Farrington.
She retrieved a form for him to sign. “Strange place to be, the mail room,” she finally said. “All that private business between people. All the lies and the promises. All the hate mail. All the marriage proposals.”
He signed and she handed him his phone. “But every month a letter arrives from Violette. Boy, can that kid write a letter. The kind any mother would want to receive. About the farm, the sunshine, the dog, the horse, the grandmother and grandfather, the crying, the hope. I know every lad she’s ever had a crush on, every kid who’s called her names. I know every confession she’s made to her mother, and every promise. Nothing delusional about that kid. I tell you what, Chief Inspector Ortley: if a girl like that looks you in the eye and hopes you won’t recognize who she is, you give her everything she wants. Because she deserves it.”
Gray chose that moment to appear. “What’s going on?” he asked, picking up the mood between them.
Lorna Vasquez was staring at Bish, defiantly.
He pocketed his phone. “Nothing,” he said. “My work here’s done.”
43
That night he paid a visit to Algiers Street Food on Uxbridge Road. He was politely advised that all they could offer him was a seat at the bar, where he was most welcome to order food. He ordered a tasting plate, ignored the wine list, and then ordered more of what he’d tasted. Bish recognized Bilal Lelouche from the CCTV at Holloway. He was dividing his time between chatting with guests and checking up on his staff, but Bish felt the man’s attention on him the entire time, and when he’d finished his meal it was Lelouche who came to remove the plates and cutlery.
“May I?” he asked, pointing to the stool beside Bish when everything was clear before him.
“Of course.” He extended a hand. “Bish Ortley.”
“Bilal Lelouche.”
They talked about food and business for a while, even though they both knew that Bish wasn’t here for the hospitality.
“What you did was illegal, Mr. Lelouche,” Bish said at last.
“And what was it that I did, Chief Inspector Ortley?”
“Passing off Noor LeBrac’s daughter and Eddie Conlon as your own children.”
“Well, you do not have proof of that.”
“Do you know where Violette and Eddie are?” Bish asked. “I’m not here to bring any harm to them.”
Bilal Lelouche shook his head. “Both Jamal and Noor have asked me to keep an eye on her. But Violette is a very determined young lady. They stayed one night. I haven’t seen her since we left…since this morning.”
“But she’s in contact?”
“I sense you’re angry, Chief Inspector Ortley.”
“Then you’ve read me wrong. Maybe I’m disappointed Violette didn’t come to me. Because I would have done anything to get her and Eddie in to visit Noor.”
Lelouche eyed him. “You make it seem as if it’s personal.”