Saffron rang him on Thursday. Not a particularly good morning for Bish. He had gone from cutting down to just one drink a day to going cold turkey. It introduced the shakes. It introduced the reality of a drinking problem.
“Are you there, darling? Did you know that Anthony Walsh is the district judge on the Charlie Crombie case? Remember him from school?”
A. J. Walsh and Bish had never traveled in the same circles. Walsh had been a demigod back in those days, while Bish was awkward in his own skin, his personality a deterrent to the well-adjusted and well-connected. Being friends with Elliot hadn’t helped. The same Elliot who met Bish outside the Strood courthouse, his crumpled suit marked with food stains.
“Aren’t you supposed to be babysitting Sarraf?” Elliot asked.
“It’s not a babysitting job.”
“Really? I understood you’re not supposed to let him out of your sight until you’ve found Violette and Eddie.”
“I know what I’m doing, Elliot.”
Elliot studied him. “Don’t piss off Grazier.”
“Why? Because he’ll make sure I never work in this town again?”
“This is personal for Grazier, so you don’t want to piss him off.”
“Personal in what way?”
“In a none-of-your-business way,” Elliot said.
“I’d say my daughter being on that bus makes it my business.”
“Did you hear A.J. was running the show today?” Elliot asked, changing the topic.
Bish found himself under the scrutiny of a young journalist he recognized from the campground and the Boulogne hospital. She’d been outside Buckland as well. She walked over and offered him her business card: Sarah Griffith. He didn’t take it.
“Let’s talk about Eddie Conlon sooner rather than later,” she said. Owen Walden had got it wrong. Sarah Griffith didn’t work for one of the rags, but for an online news and entertainment paper. Not that it made a difference. The confident woman standing in front of him was no different from the hacks he’d come across over the years. Age was irrelevant when it came to integrity. And for the life of him, Bish couldn’t find a wisp of integrity in revealing Eddie Conlon’s identity.
Elliot, still beside him, reached across to take her business card. “Sarah Griffith?” he said.
“Yes.”
He handed back the card. “Just committing your name to memory.”
In the foyer, Bish saw Crombie’s parents and reintroduced himself. Arthur Crombie was holding a suit for his son. They seemed relieved to see Bish.
“The barrister has managed to get us a few minutes with him,” the reverend said. “Apart from that, she’s not making much sense to us.”
“Unlike the Kenningtons, Russell Gorman has chosen not to drop the charges,” Bish explained. “So this hearing is to determine whether bail will be set.”
“And if it’s denied?” Crombie’s father asked.
“He’ll be remanded in custody and a court date will be set.”
“Charlie doesn’t deserve to be locked up, Chief Inspector,” Arthur Crombie said. “What happened in Calais has set him over the edge.”
“He hasn’t had a night’s sleep since,” his mother said.
The Crombies didn’t seem the sort of people who made excuses for their son, but it was Charlie’s second arrest in as many weeks, and Bish didn’t want to promise them anything.
“This judge is a decent man,” Bish told them, “and can probably be swayed by an accused’s statement. So Charlie being personable and sincere may be the way to go. Have him talk about his trauma after the bombing.”
The Crombies exchanged a look. “Personable and sincere” didn’t seem to describe their son. They were led away by their harassed barrister and Bish moved into the courtroom with a handful of others. There he saw the Kenningtons. Crombie may have got away with breaking their son’s nose, but they were no doubt going to make sure he didn’t walk away from this one.
A short while later, Crombie was accompanied into the dock, where he stood looking as sullen as ever, his usual sour, pasty-faced self, dressed in skinny black jeans, white shirt, skinny tie, and black jacket. The judge entered, his eyes sweeping the room and settling on Bish and then Elliot, who were sitting beside the Crombies.
Although it was only a bail hearing, Russell Gorman’s barrister was more interested in a character assassination. The cheating incident at Charlie’s previous school was rehashed. His sexual relationship with Violette LeBrac was brought up. The drinking, smoking, causing of public nuisance, breaking of curfew, and urinating in public fountains while on the tour were discussed in detail. Bish wondered if this had come from Rodney Kennington. Wasn’t it the rule that what happens on tour stays on tour? Kennington was a corporate whistle-blower in the making. Not a moral one, but one who’d do it out of spite, out of bitterness for not getting the promotion. Bish surreptitiously moved forward in his seat and poked Crombie’s barrister in the back. Say something, you stupid woman, he wanted to shout. This wasn’t a trial.
In the dock Crombie was staring from Kennington to Gorman, hatred in his expression. Bish could see that he was going to be the media’s next target.
“You’re a strange one, Charlie,” Judge Walsh said, looking far from impressed. “Decent people raising you, and you reward them with disgraceful behavior. I think this court needs for you to start with an apology to Mr. Gorman.”
Walsh was giving Charlie a chance to keep his record clean. The Crombies turned to Bish for confirmation and he nodded. It was now up to Charlie to impress Judge Walsh.
“Mr. Crombie?” Walsh said. “We’re waiting.”
Rodney Kennington was leaning over and whispering something to his parents. They seemed amused by what he had to say. Suddenly Crombie leapt to his feet, throwing a punch at the glass wall before him. “Fuckers!” he shouted.
“Oh, Charlie,” his mother muttered.
“They locked my girl in a cupboard like she was nothing. Called her a slag and no one tried to stop them!”
Bish was as stunned as everyone else in the room. The judge ordered that procedures be stopped and Crombie was dragged from the dock, still yelling threats at Gorman.
“I’ll come for you again, and this time I’ll cut out your heart!”
“A Shakespeare in the making,” Elliot muttered.
The Crombies were ashen-faced as they watched their son disappear beyond doors not open to the public.
Bish and Elliot shouldered their way past the reporters, into the restricted hallway, where one of the guards was trying to hold Charlie back. He had lost control, his fists flying way too close to Walsh, who was waving off security. Two guards finally pinned him to the ground.
“The thing is, I’m going to have to set bail or put this down to post-traumatic stress and have him go through a psychological assessment,” Walsh said in his chamber a short while later. He had asked Elliot and Bish to join him after Charlie had been taken back to his cell. The judge had ordered a written apology from Charlie. “Make sure he doesn’t do anything with that pen,” he warned the guards.
Walsh was trying to find the best way around the situation. “But I’m not going to waste my time if Crombie’s not worth the trouble.”
“Let’s hope he’s not going to track down every person on that bus and knock them out,” Elliot said.
“Do you think the Crombies can find someone to vouch for a sliver of decency in this kid?” Walsh asked.
“He was sticking up for a girl,” Bish tried.
“Yes, that’ll make me very popular with the public,” Walsh said. “‘Charlie Crombie was sticking up for the granddaughter of the Brackenham bomber, so let’s wipe any record of wrongdoing from the files.’”
“I doubt there are too many people who could say much in Charlie’s defense at the moment,” Bish said.
Elliot agreed. “And Gorman will make a media fuss if you let the kid off the hook.”
“Gorman reminds me of that bastard who used to thrash us raw in geography,” Walsh said.
He stood up and walked to the cabinet in the corner of his office. Unlike Elliot and Bish, Anthony Walsh hadn’t aged disgracefully. He had never done anything disgracefully. He’d always been ahead of his time, the first openly gay head prefect at his school.
“Are you two an item?” he said, looking back at Bish and Elliot. “The marriage wasn’t a cover-up, was it, Ortley?”
Bish tried not to look offended in case Walsh believed it was a homophobic reaction rather than an Elliot-phobic one.
“It’s what we all thought back in fifth form,” Walsh said. “You two hung out at each other’s homes for the hols quite a lot. What was the attraction, then?”
“His Italian exchange student,” Bish said.
“His mother,” Elliot said.
Walsh looked slightly amused as he took out a bottle of Johnnie Walker from his cabinet and held up a glass to them.
Yes. Please. Would love to.
Bish shook his head to the drink. Elliot’s phone rang and he walked out to take the call.
“What’s this business about your suspension from the Met?” Walsh asked when they were alone.
Bish was back at school and his head prefect was about to tell him off. “Lost my temper, sir,” he said, feigning humility.
Walsh laughed. “Fuck off.” He sat down and took a sip of Scotch. “What was your nickname back then, Ortley? The Hulk? Mr. Meek and Mild until someone set you off.”
“Did I do that much? Don’t remember.”
“Fourth form. Study hall with Thomas Simpson from Plymouth. It still gets mentioned once or twice at reunions. The ones you refuse to turn up to.”
Bish couldn’t think of anything worse than a high school reunion.
“I was gutted when I heard about your son,” the judge said quietly. “I lost a brother the same way.”
Bish remembered the Walsh family tragedy back when they were fourteen. It had happened in Spain on a family holiday.
“Better see what Elliot’s getting up to,” he said, standing and extending a hand just as a knock sounded on the door. Walsh’s clerk came in with an envelope.
“Little cunt,” Walsh muttered after reading the apology note, then handed it to Bish.
I’d rather rot in jail than apologize to those fuckers!
It wasn’t the words that surprised Bish but the handwriting. He recognized it, knew it by heart, because it was from the one document that had provided information on the day of the bombing and beyond. Regardless of everything, Charlie Crombie had managed to do what the two surviving chaperones had failed to. He had also made sure that most of the kids spoke to their parents on his phone. Fionn Sykes had said it. Charlie Crombie took care of his minions.
“I think I’m it,” Bish said. “Charlie Crombie’s referee.”
They spoke about Charlie and the list a little while longer, and when Bish went to leave again he couldn’t resist asking, “What did you think of the Brackenham Four case?”
Walsh was pensive. “I would have liked to see it presented in a courtroom with a jury.”
“I think—”
“Don’t!” Walsh said. “I’m about to be tapped for the federal court, Ortley. I can’t afford a drama.”
In first form, when Elliot was getting thrashed by the prefects, Bish hadn’t had the guts to stick up for him. But he did write a note and put it in Anthony Walsh’s locker. Elliot was never touched again. Walsh’s idealism had always outweighed his ambition.
“Just five more minutes?” Bish said.
Reluctantly, Walsh sat back down, and Bish started talking, knowing full well that someone else would be waking at 3 a.m. with Noor LeBrac in his head.
It felt good to be spreading the insomnia around.