Tell the Truth, Shame the Devil (28 page)

It’s dark by the time Layla gets home from a booze-up at the Defector’s Weld. The first of her university friends are finally engaged, and although she doesn’t feel left behind, she was hoping for good news of her own that day. The junior partnership was within her reach, but those hopes are down to nothing now. The mood has changed around her during the week. Elliot and Ortley’s visit didn’t help, but it’s more than that. Once or twice she’s seen Jemima in Frank Silvey’s office, and her manner with Layla has gone from indifferent and unimpressed to awkward and slightly guilty. It means Jemima knows something, as office spies usually do.

And yet it isn’t the inevitable failure to get junior partnership that is humiliating so much as the realisation of what she’s allowed herself to become this past year. A yes person. The sort who doesn’t question anything. Who checks her tone and volume when speaking to the partners. Who lets them believe they’re teaching her something she doesn’t already know. Layla’s greatest regret is that she has sold a piece of her soul and still missed out.

It’s rare that she switches on the main light in the staircase, even when she’s back late. Most of the time it turns itself off when she’s halfway up the stairs, which frightens her more than the dark. But tonight she wishes she had switched it on. She feels a quick thump of fear when she sees the shadow at her door.

‘It’s just me.’

Him.

‘I need a place to stay for the night,’ Jimmy says softly, as if it hasn’t been twelve years since they last saw each other. He has nothing with him. No overnight bag, just the clothes he’s wearing.

‘Are you legal?’ she asks. ‘Because I don’t need trouble.’ She doesn’t care if that sounds harsh. After Calais all those years ago, she owes Jimmy Sarraf nothing.

‘I’ve got two days,’ he says, and she’s reminded of how much pleasure his voice always brought her. Unlike Noor, educated at the best schools on scholarship, Jimmy would always sound like the neighbourhood.

‘They think Violette might show her face if she knows I’m in London,’ he says.

Layla unlocks the door and lets him in. Already he fills the space of the room. ‘Have you seen Noor?’

He nods, looking around.

‘How is she taking it?’ Layla is trying to ignore how uncomfortable she feels having him look at everything she owns. The art on her walls and the flawless cream furniture suddenly look pretentious. When they were teenagers they knew each other’s interests by heart. Layla knows nothing about him now.

His eyes settle on the piano in the corner. It’s ridiculous to have one in a flat this size but it belonged to his family. Both their mothers forced them to learn to play. Layla failed miserably. Jimmy never failed at anything, and had shown as much talent for the piano as for football. When Etienne sold off everything belonging to Noor and her family to pay the lawyers, people were getting their belongings for a steal, so Layla’s mother bought the piano to stop others from taking it.

‘Does my mother know you’re here?’ she asks.

‘I rang Jocelyn.’

‘She’ll want to see you. My mother.’

There had always been a complicated but profound relationship between their mothers. Especially at the end.

Layla walks past him into the kitchenette. ‘I know who Eddie is,’ she says, sensing him close behind her, and when he doesn’t respond she figures that if he hadn’t trusted her enough to tell her about Noor’s pregnancy all those years ago, then he wouldn’t want to speak of it now.

‘Do you want a drink?’ She’s desperate for another herself.

‘I don’t drink.’

To the point. She feels judged. ‘The couch turns into a bed,’ she says, and without a second thought walks out of her flat.

She flags a taxi and tells the driver to take her to St John’s Wood. Jocelyn phoned earlier that day. ‘School’s starting soon, the kids need to be home,’ she said. ‘And Mum was driving me insane.’

When Jocelyn opens the door she doesn’t ask any questions. Gigi’s the only one of the kids still up. Sulking.

‘She didn’t come home until an hour after I told her to,’ Jocelyn says. ‘She’s angry because I checked in on her a couple of times last night.’

‘You think Violette and Eddie are hiding in her closet?’

‘I don’t know what to think any more.’ Jocelyn is watching her closely. ‘Is he staying with you?’

‘I don’t want to talk about him.’

‘Good,’ Jocelyn says. ‘You can stay up with Ali and smoke your lungs out. He doesn’t want to talk to me either. I’m going to bed.’

‘You don’t have to be so judgemental!’

‘What do you want me to say, Layla? Go home. Deal with Jimmy so you can get on with your life.’

Layla ends up on the back balcony with Ali, smoking a couple of cigarettes and arguing about Jocelyn.

‘She shouldn’t have lied to me.’

‘She shouldn’t have had to, Ali.’

‘My business will survive this. So will the family name. But do you honestly think that Jocelyn is going to be everyone’s favourite fundraiser, or playdate mum?’

Layla grinds out her cigarette. ‘You’re going to lose her if you’re a dick about it, Ali. Fix this up before she packs her bags for good.’

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 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 travelled 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 now 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 him.’

‘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 recognised 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 sent 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 behaviour. 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 chambers a short while later. He had asked Elliot and Bish to join him after Charlie was 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 defence 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 had always been ahead of his time, the first openly gay head prefect at his school.