Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil(62)

Sarraf stiffened. He stared at Bish with disbelief. Or was it fury?

“What are you playing at, Ortley?”

“Go get your passport,” Bish said. He put five pounds on the counter and heard an irritated sound from the barman. Sarraf swapped the pounds for euros and gave him back some change.

“This better not be a joke,” Sarraf said.

“Lost my sense of humor when someone put a bomb on my daughter’s bus.”





28



Bee sees them as soon as she steps out of Mile End tube station. Violette, Eddie, and that annoying Gigi Shahbazi. They’re across the road, standing in front of the bus stop. Bee hasn’t realized until now how much she’s been hoping Violette and Eddie will turn up in her life again. She hasn’t known them for long but she’s felt bereft without them. Violette is wearing a sundress, of all things. She’s cut all the blonde out of her hair and Bee can’t get over how short and dark it looks. Eddie is dressed in skinny long shorts and expensive runners. They could be a couple of rich kids out on a sunny London day.

Bee crosses the road and Violette’s watching her all the way. Eddie grins when she reaches them, and Bee sees her own brother sitting next to him. She sees Stevie everywhere these days.

“Lots of CCTV around here,” she tells Violette, while eyeing Gigi. It would have been her dumb idea to pick Mile End tube station.

“Yeah, but also a lot of people who look like us, so we don’t stand out.”

Gigi gives Violette a droll stare. “We do not look like these people.”

“What’s with the dress?” Bee asks. Up close, she notices that Violette is wearing a small satchel purse across her body. No backpack. She wore a canvas bag in France that said: WORLD CHANGE STARTS WITH EDUCATED CHILDREN. Bee googled it when she got back to Ashford.

“What’s wrong with the dress?” Gigi wants to know. So it’s hers, Bee thinks. Eddie’s and Violette’s upmarket clothes make more sense now.

“Where are you guys heading?” Bee asks Violette, ignoring the question.

When Eddie goes to speak, Violette nudges him to silence and Bee hates her for it. Brainless Georgette Shahbazi, who caved after a minute of interrogation, can be trusted, but not Bee.

The poser in question does that ridiculous thing that vain, vacuous girls do with their hair. Bee recognizes her own Arctic Monkeys T-shirt. “I can’t believe you gave that to her!” she tells Violette.

“I can’t believe she gave you my skirt,” Gigi says to Bee.

“I can’t believe you sent it to me, Geej,” Violette says. “Did you honestly think my grandmother would let me wear that around the farm?”

“It doesn’t look bad with UGG boots, like she wore the other night,” Gigi says.

“That’s a Gigi compliment, Bee,” Violette says. “She knows her stuff.”

The poser nods in agreement. Of course she would.

“My mum and Aunt Layla have only one fashion rule: as long as they can’t see arse cheeks.”

Bee doesn’t want to give her the satisfaction of saying it’s her mother’s rule as well.

“I’d better go before everyone at home has a cow,” Gigi says to Violette and Eddie, as if Bee isn’t there.

“Is it true your dad split her parents up?” Eddie asks Bee.

“And she called me Beirut Barbie.”

“Gigi’s three-quarters Persian,” Violette tells Bee, “so you should have gone for Tehran Barbie.”

“Barbies are banned in Tehran,” Gigi says. She kisses Eddie and Violette, all noisy and dramatic.

“I’m going to get some chewy,” Eddie says. “You want some, Violette?” She nods and he’s off across the road with Gigi, following her into the tube station.

“I can’t believe you’re friends with her,” Bee says.

“She’s loyal. In my family that counts for everything.”

They’re awkward with each other. Some nights on the trip, when there was no Charlie or Eddie, they stayed up talking until God knows what time.

“What will you do when your cash runs out?” Bee asks. “They’ll find you the moment you use an ATM.”

“I don’t do ATMs. Not even back home. Still got a piggy bank.”

Violette is the weirdest person Bee has ever met. Who doesn’t carry plastic in their wallet, especially when they’re traveling?

“I saved ten thousand Aussie dollars back home,” Violette says. “For thirteen years. Money from relatives. Pocket money. Working on the farm. Didn’t spend a cent of it until I bought that airline ticket.”

“Please tell me all that cash isn’t on you now,” Bee says.

“As if.”

“Where’s your gear?”

“Gigi’s next-door neighbor’s garage. They’re in Turkey for the holidays. Gigi’s brother has to feed the fish.”

“You’re sleeping there?” Bee says. Shahbazi was a fantastic liar.

Violette is offhand. “We’re laying low before we can take off. Gigi just got her license so she’s been driving us around when she can.”

They fall silent for a while. A couple of police officers are hassling some kids their age wearing hoodies.