Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil(77)

“Any requests?” he asks.

She looks at him and then suddenly laughs. “No way. Are you the piano man at that bar?”

Playing the piano and playing football. They were the two things that held his life together in Calais.

“Just on weekends. All my mother’s nagging paid off in a strange way.”

“Whereas my mother brings up the waste of money every time we have a family get-together.”

“Your mother was too tough on you,” he says quietly. “I could easily hate her for that, but then she went and nursed my mother while she died, didn’t she?” He concentrates on the keys because he can’t bear thinking of Aziza Sarraf dying without her family.

“They were a strange pair, our mothers,” she murmurs.

And then their eyes lock and he realizes they’ve both avoided that for the past twenty-four hours, with one of them looking away just in time. But not now.

She reaches across and touches the scar above his eye, a souvenir from Belmarsh. And the rest is inevitable. Has been from the moment he stood outside her door waiting for her to come home. One minute they’re at the piano, the next they’re in the bedroom, hardly making it to the bed. And all through the night a harmony of cries and skin against skin cutting through the stillness. Beyond exhaustion but they can’t stop. She’s crying real tears. He’s crying himself. Because what Ortley has given them is a tease. A glimpse of what could have been. In Calais it’s easier to pretend he isn’t sick at heart for home. For Layla. She doesn’t just remind him of who he was back then, but of who he wanted to be. Thought he would be. If he was a selfish man he’d beg her to cross the Channel with him, but he knows it would be a fake life for her. She’s been second-best all her life, had told him that often enough. He can’t stomach being responsible for her having a second-best future.





35



The shakes of the previous day had made way for a full-blown migraine. It pounded Bish’s brain every step he took. He knew he wouldn’t make it to the end of the day without succumbing to a drink, and between now and that moment there was Holloway.

First the brisk, forced cheerfulness at the visitors’ center. Then the ever-hostile Gray and his colleagues. And then, for the prize, Noor LeBrac, who looked far from impressed when she was finally delivered to the room and buzzed in.

“You gave my brother a two-day visa but I can’t see him again?” she said before she had even sat down.

Bish wanted to believe that antagonism would give way to thanks after Jamal Sarraf’s visit. Not when it came to this woman.

“The reason he’s in London is to find Violette and Eddie,” he said. “Not to have a daily reunion with you.”

“Yet you’re the only adult who’s spoken to her for two weeks. The fool who found out nothing.”

Bish’s headache didn’t like the word “fool.” The pain pounded back its response and made him giddy. Pity she didn’t appreciate that her daughter trusted Bish enough to ring him. He opened the file Grazier had given him. “There’s been a development,” he managed to grind out. He filled her in on the driver of the French bus.

“That’s all you’ve got?” she said. “The fact that he’s Algerian? Would he be a suspect if his name were John Smith and not Ahmed Khateb? Would a German bus driver arguing with a Spaniard be a suspect?”

“He was caught on CCTV arguing with your daughter and now he’s disappeared. That’s why he’s a suspect.” Bish handed her a photograph of Khateb. “Do you recognize this man?”

She shook her head in disgust. “I married an Australian whose mother is Algerian and you think I’m going to know every one of her countrymen? You people are so ignorant.”

He counted to three, to stop himself from telling her to f*ck off. “Just look at it, please!”

She looked at it again and pushed it away. “Yes. The spitting image of the Algerian spice man at our Saturday markets. Has to be him.”

Bish’s hand snaked out to grip her wrist across the table, dragging her closer.

“A bit of f*cking humility would work a charm here.”

“I don’t do humility,” she said, pulling free of him. “Because I’ve met very few people in the past thirteen years who have humbled me.” She stood up. “And I won’t tolerate the profanities.”

“You’re in a f*cking jail, Noor. You take whatever is dished out to you. Including profanities.”

“I think we’re finished here,” she said.

“Off you go, then. Let someone else take care of your kids. You should be used to it by now.” He stumbled out of his chair.

“You’re going to faint,” he heard her say.

“I’m not prone to fainting.”



He came to, lying on the floor with his feet up on something soft. Her face was the first thing he saw. During his sleepless moments deep in the night he often thought of her mouth. The freckle on her bottom lip. What he’d like to do with it. And here he was laid out on the ground like a pathetic drunk at her feet. His humiliation could get no worse.

Gray was beside LeBrac. “Keep the ice pack on the bump and don’t let him fall asleep. His mother’s coming to collect him,” he said before disappearing from view.