Outside on Fetter Lane, Bish walked ahead of Elliot. Surrounding him were buildings housing state-of-the-art courtrooms that reeked of multimillion-dollar cases. London had outgrown him. It was for people with a burning desire. People like Layla Bayat and those young ambitious faces that had surrounded him in the lift, talking apps and tweets. He felt a little man in a big city and it frightened him to the core. Had he reached an age at which he no longer had access to the riches of the greater world? At his work in the Met, at least there was a place for authority. Seniority. Until his suspension, there was respect for a man who’d worked hard for longer than some of them had been alive. Bish had no idea who he was without his work, and nothing reminded him of that more than standing amid the city’s high achievers.
Elliot was at his heels, further confirmation of the regression of Bish’s life. Six years sharing a dorm weren’t enough? What gods had Bish angered to have him and Elliot sharing space more than three decades later?
“Much appreciated if you’d give me a heads-up on when you’re going to threaten people,” Bish said.
“You’ve spent too much time behind a desk, Ortley. You’re getting soft.”
“I wasn’t the one identified with a little dick,” Bish said.
“And I’m not the one whose wife ran off with the school principal.”
Bish began counting to ten in his head to stop himself from responding. Before he got there, Elliot’s phone rang and he answered it wordlessly. There was a bit of nodding, a few “Yeps.” Then Elliot said, “Well, the thing is, my phone’s running out of juice and you can’t send it to him because the idiot doesn’t have a smartphone.”
Bish refused to feel held back by the Nokia brick he carried. He knew plenty of dumb people with smartphones.
Elliot hung up. “Grazier’s on his way up north and can’t deal with this—Violette’s made contact with her grandparents. The Australian Federal Police have taken their time sending us the recording. Grazier wants to know if there’s anything of importance in it.”
A few moments later, Bish heard the alert and watched Elliot retrieve the attachment. He tapped on a link and they waited, only to hear Arabic being spoken.
“Shit. Fuck. Bum. We’re going to have to wait till the translator gets to it.” Elliot stopped at a filthy black Prius, retrieved a parking fine from the wipers, and stuffed it in his pocket just as his phone rang again.
“It’s a no go for the time being with the—” he began. Elliot listened, then he paled. “Are they sure—” He removed the phone from his ear and glared at it. “Fuck.”
“Battery dead?” Bish asked. “Not so smart after all, then?”
There was no comeback. Elliot went to open the door but it refused to budge. He kicked it. Once. Twice. “Fucking kids. Fucking fucking kids.”
Bish glanced around. They had an audience. Elliot was a likely candidate for road rage, but Bish knew that whatever had set him off had nothing to do with a stuck door and a dead phone battery.
“What’s going on, Elliot?” he asked quietly once they were in the car, Bish having first shoved a week’s worth of fast-food containers and coffee cups off the seat. He wanted to remind Elliot that Prius drivers were meant to be helping the environment. “What’s happened to those kids?”
Elliot stared at his hands on the steering wheel. After a moment he turned on the ignition and it spluttered.
“The French border police picked up a body in the Channel. Young, female. It’s all we know.”
Bish’s heart hammered. “Attal,” he said, fumbling for his phone. He found the Frenchman’s number and messaged Violette LeBrac?
They sat in silence. Five minutes later, Bish’s phone beeped a response. He showed it to Elliot, who read it and winced.
“He wants you to meet him at the morgue on Boulevard des Justes.”