Can you ask your frenemy what hospital her mum’s in?
Next stop, William Harvey in Ashford. Rachel Ballyntine smiles questioningly when Layla walks into her private room. She’s nursing a baby with a thatch of red hair much like its mother’s.
“Hi, Rachel. My name’s Layla Bayat. I’m Noor LeBrac’s solicitor. I know this probably isn’t the best timing but I’m wondering if we can talk about her case.”
Rachel is staring at her. The baby in her arms doesn’t seem to like the change in its mother’s mood. Badgering a woman while she’s breastfeeding her newborn is a bit on the low side, but Layla can’t back down now.
“I’ve just had a C-section and I haven’t slept for two days,” Rachel says coldly. “Can you please leave?”
Layla places the chocolates on the bedside table with her business card. At the door she stops and turns. “Did you know they forced her to confess during labor? She was giving birth to Eddie. They gave her forty-eight hours with him. Noor didn’t let go of him that entire time because she knew she’d never see him again.”
The baby is crying now and Rachel tries her best to comfort it. There are tears in her eyes. Angry ones. Full of sorrow.
“Oh Layla,” she says. “You don’t play fair.”
47
When Bish pulled up on Rue Delacroix on Monday morning, Sarraf was standing on the pavement looking annoyed.
“I meant nine a.m. in France,” he said. “Not nine a.m. in the UK.”
Bish wasn’t in the mood to apologize about the misunderstanding. Not on Sarraf’s turf. “So what’s going on?” he asked instead.
Sarraf got into the car. “Bilal found Khateb.”
That took some processing. “Lelouche did?” Bish asked. “He had no idea who Ahmed Khateb was when I spoke to him.”
“But he knows every wealthy Algerian within a radius of two hundred miles, which includes Paris, and wealthy French Algerians have staff. Khateb’s wife works as a live-in for a family in Paris. A cousin of a cousin of a cousin of Bilal’s, and if some fucker’s caught on camera arguing with my niece, we want to know why. Turn left at the bottom of the street.”
Bish pulled out but forgot where he was and had to swerve to miss a car coming from the opposite direction. He could feel Sarraf’s glare.
“I’m driving,” Sarraf said. “Pull over.”
“We should get Attal in on this,” Bish said when they’d swapped seats and set off again.
“Not happening. It was hard enough convincing Khateb to let you come along.”
“Good of you to trust me this time round.” Bish tried to keep the reproach out of his tone.
“I don’t,” Sarraf said. “But if I get caught speaking to a terror suspect, who knows where I could end up? You’re here to do the explaining if I do get caught, and Khateb’s agreed because you have no jurisdiction in France and can’t arrest him.”
“Always, always a pleasure to be useful,” Bish muttered.
Khateb’s hideout was a twenty-minute drive south of Calais, off the main highway and five miles down a gravel track not quite meant for a Renault 5. Bish couldn’t help wondering what his response would have been if someone had told him two weeks ago that he’d be letting Jamal Sarraf drive his car down a road that seemed to go nowhere. Just when he was beginning to think that Lelouche and Sarraf had been duped, they came across a dilapidated cottage, fronted by a rotting vegetable plot. Sarraf pulled up. The overripe produce had split open and the stench was overwhelming. A far cry from Monet country. Bish counted four children peering out at them from a cracked window, before disappearing from sight.
Inside the cottage, he and Sarraf sat on the only piece of furniture in the room, a two-seater with half its stuffing pulled out. A girl of about twelve wearing a hijab served them tea. She looked nervously from Sarraf to Bish. Khateb sat opposite them, his appraisal less nervous than hostile. He was surly if not rude, and refused to speak English although he admitted to knowing a little. He and Sarraf slipped from French to Arabic and back again. Bish had to trust that Sarraf was translating accurately.
The Algerian was clear about one thing: he would cut off his hand before he would hurt a child. He had five of his own, the oldest thirteen, the youngest two. His issue with the driver of the British bus had to do with the parking bays. Serge Sagur had been a stickler for assigned parking. Ahmed Khateb wasn’t.
Bish listened to Sarraf question the man about Violette. It was the only word he recognized in the quick exchange. Did English sound this fast to foreigners?