Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil(22)

But there was a look in Violette’s eyes that told him those days were over.

“We need to go inside,” she said. She was carrying nothing with her, not even a backpack.

Wordlessly he took her hand, dropping his keys once. Twice. Until they were all three in the gym and Violette was clinging to him, both their arms shaking as they held each other.

“I’m sorry,” she cried. “I’m sorry.”

“Talk to me, Violette,” he said, turning on the lights. “Nasrene and Christophe are out of their minds with worry. Why would you come all the way here without telling anyone? Without seeing me?”

She didn’t respond; instead she looked at the boy. A skinny kid in sunglasses and a hoodie, despite the time of the morning and the heat. A wannabe rapper’s version of incognito. Bloody annoying.

“You were down at the campsite,” she said. “You know how bad it was.”

How could he not? Five dead. More injured. Some badly. It’s what happened when you were the son of Louis Sarraf: you became obsessed with victims and numbers and how many people were affected. One dead man meant kids and a wife and parents and brothers and sisters and in-laws and nieces and nephews. Injured kids meant the same. A mother. Father. Two sets of grandparents. Approximately seven aunts and uncles and at least fourteen cousins. Not to mention friends…Jamal had become a mathematician after his father blew up their lives. The figures he tallied based on twenty-three fatalities f*cked with his head every time.

Violette was fighting back tears. He saw the tremble of her mouth.

“They’re saying it was me, Jimmy.”

His blood ran cold just to hear the words. He would take her as far from this place as possible, where no one could find them. He’d kill anyone who tried to stop him.

Beyond Violette, the kid was hitting one of the boxing bags.

“Stop doing that,” Jamal told him. He didn’t like strangers in his life. Violette, he knew, was the same. She was a tough kid because she had to be. It was rare that she spoke of friends and he wondered what had made her decide to let someone tag along.

“If you were near here all this time, Violette, why didn’t you come to me?”

“As if I wouldn’t,” she said. “It’s just that I had a plan and it was a good one.”

The boy was still whacking the bag. “Tell him to stop, Violette,” Jamal said, seeing as the boy wouldn’t listen to him.

“They’re saying Mac’s dead,” the boy called out, and Jamal realized he was speaking to him. “Is that true? And Michael from Hastings and one of the Spanish girls. They’re saying she got a piece of glass right through her throat. And now they’re saying Serge the bus driver’s dead and there are heaps in hospital. With legs gone, and arms. That’s what they’re saying.”

Whack. Whack. Whack. The kid grunted as he pounded into the bag.

Violette grimaced, shooting Jamal a warning look. “We used to talk to the bus driver all the time. But I told him,” she said quietly, indicating the kid, “I told him that just because Facebook says people are dead, it doesn’t mean they are.”

Jamal didn’t know how to break it to them. He’d read it in the news online. The bus driver and a young British girl had died overnight in the Boulogne hospital.

Violette could see the truth in his eyes. “Who else?” she asked softly.

“Astrid Copely.”

She made a pained sound, drowned out by the whack of the boy’s punching. His grunts were sobs now.

“One of the chaperones told everyone who I was,” Violette said. “Who Mummy was—and it’s going to be in the papers and everyone’s going to know. Everyone.” She looked back at the kid, anger and then anguish in her eyes.

“Tell the boy to go back to the campsite,” Jamal said. “I’ll pack us some stuff and we’ll head down south.”

She shook her head. “I need to go because they’ll come here first. Don’t worry—we’ve got money.” She patted the waist of her jeans at what he presumed was a money belt. She’d started to sweat and was trembling again and it broke him to see someone as tough as she was look so vulnerable. He grabbed a jug of water from the fridge and poured a glass for her, then soaked a towel and cooled down her face.

“You’re not making sense, Violette,” he murmured. “You’re not going anywhere. We’ll ring Nasrene and Christophe and work out what to do.”

But she was shaking her head. “They had photos of you at the gate, Jimmy. Just say they arrest you? They’ll put you away again and Mummy will never forgive me.”

“Why would Noor need to forgive you?” Jamal asked. “You’re everything to her.”

“She’ll hate me for this.”

“It was me who ruined everything!” the boy shouted. “Not you, Violette. I found you, and if I hadn’t you’d be on that hike. Safe.”

The air began to smother Jamal. He felt the bile rising in his throat. What had this kid dragged Violette into?

“I heard Henna Nasrene speaking to Papy,” Violette said. “She asked him what they should give me for my eighteenth birthday and he said…he said, ‘I want to take her back into the past, to a time when Etienne was alive.’ And he was crying, Jimmy, and I’ve never heard my grandfather cry before.”