Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil(26)
Fionn seemed embarrassed by his disclosure. “If you tell me that my time will come at university, sir, I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
Bish laughed. “I was a social twat at university, so I’d never lull you into a false sense of security.”
Fionn grew pensive again. “He’s a smart one, that Crombie. Don’t know why he cheated on that exam. He didn’t have to, you know.”
Quiet souls like Fionn Sykes noticed the not-so-obvious. Did the truth of what led up to the bombing belong to a hidden part of this boy’s memory?
Bish would have loved to know what Fionn had observed of Bee, but talking about her seemed a betrayal.
A nurse came in to check the boy’s blood pressure and Bish thought it was a good time to leave.
“Mr. Ortley,” Fionn called out when he was at the door.
Bish waited, but Fionn didn’t speak again until the nurse had left.
“I think it would be easy for people to hate Violette because she belongs to that family, but regardless, she didn’t hand out sexual favors on the bus. I think it’s wrong that they’re saying things about her that aren’t true. It’s just wrong.”
Elliot rang him when he was on the M20 heading home. “Every time I turn on my TV or open a paper, there you are.”
“What is it you want, Elliot?”
“Layla Bayat. She’s a connection to the Sarrafs and could have information about Violette and Eddie. Grazier wants us to speak to her.”
“Good luck with that, Elliot, but you and me aren’t an ‘us.’”
“We are if the home secretary says we are.”
11
Ms. Bayat?”
Layla looks up to see two men standing at the door of her office.
“Can I help you?” she asks, feeling far from helpful because whoever these men are, they should have been announced. Her office may be a shoe box next to the toilets, reflecting her status in the firm, but all she wants is for people to do their job and respect the importance of the four suffocating walls around her, thank you very much.
One of the assistants appears behind the men, looking almost apologetic. Almost.
“George Elliot and Bish Ortley.” Jemima gives a couldn’t-give-a-shit-who’s-who wave between the two. Layla’s last encounter with a George Eliot was in high school, having failed an English literature exam after expressing the view that Middlemarch could have been written in five hundred pages rather than the eight hundred plus. So the hostility she feels towards these two, turning up at 10 a.m. without an appointment, is limitless. But one look at them tells her they aren’t here for Silvey and Grayson business.
“Can you bring me the file on the Carrington-King case?” Layla asks Jemima all the same. Because unknown men in suits means trouble, and Layla needs the office spy to reassure the partners that these men are part of everyday business.
Chances are Jemima will tell Layla to get it herself. On the younger girl’s first day two years ago, Layla told her she wouldn’t be there long. Jemima misunderstood, complained, and Layla was called in to explain herself to one of the partners and to Vera, the head of the admin girls. Layla couldn’t admit that she had meant Jemima would outgrow her typing and filing duties, because Vera was a world-class bitch and would make sure that Layla never got a document typed again. The pity is that Layla liked Jemima instantly. A working-class Hounslow girl, smart and thorough. It was hard shaking a council estate address when you were working in the city, regardless of your job, or your race. But Jemima decided that Layla wasn’t the ally she wanted. The antagonism festered, even though Jemima was the only girl Layla gave work to. Everyone else was lazy and thought they were above it. Rumor had it that Jemima would be in charge of the admin girls one day. Nothing wrong with that. But if Jemima had taken the time to listen, Layla would have told her to get herself a law degree.
After Jemima leaves the room, the two men seat themselves. Gut instinct tells Layla they’re government. Gut instinct has been talking to her since the bombing outside Calais made the front page four days ago.
“Carrington-King?” the shorter of the two asks, perhaps the Elliot one. Skinny, pale, with a perpetual “Who, me?” look on his face, as if he’s in the midst of doing or saying something wrong.
“Two people getting a divorce who don’t concern you,” she says flatly.
Jemima returns with the file as well as a quizzical look that can only mean she’s been questioned by one of the partners.
“Will you close the door on your way out?” Layla says. Jemima leaves and Layla studies the men. “What is it you want?”
There is hesitation, until the other one, a shaggy-dog type with a healthy head of golden-brown hair spliced with gray, stands, sifts through his pocket, hands over a messy business card. Chief Inspector Bish Ortley of the Bethnal Green police station. Now she’s confused. Calais is a long way from Bethnal Green.
“Have you been in touch with Jamal Sarraf lately?”
But not that far away.
“Last I heard Jamal Sarraf lived somewhere in France.” She’s pissed off. The men sitting at her desk know she’s pissed off. She presumes both of them have come across many pissed-off women in their lives.
“We’re here out of concern for Sarraf’s niece,” Ortley says.