“I’m the father of one of Violette’s friends,” Bish continued. “And my daughter’s desperate to know that your niece and the boy are safe.”
The man standing before Bish seemed a world away from the promising footballer he had been as a teenager. Back then, Jimmy Sarraf was the star of the England Under-17 team and sought after by a number of the big clubs. When Man United signed him up to their junior team, the headlines read LITTLE BIG MAN and Sky News did a feel-good piece on him. “He’s a cheeky bugger, that one,” Sarraf’s childhood coach in Shepherd’s Bush had said. When seventeen-year-old Jimmy was first interviewed on TV and asked what he’d do when he made it in the big league, tears had welled up in his eyes. “Buy me mum and sister a house each, as big as that mansion Posh and Becks have out in Hertfordshire.” Bish recalled the boy talking nonstop and at a speed beyond reckoning in that interview.
After the bombing, people wanted blood. Live blood. They wanted someone to hate, someone still breathing, and they got it when London police raided the Sarraf council flat and found evidence to suggest that Louis Sarraf had not acted alone. Jamal and his uncle Joseph had been caught on camera in the courtyard with Louis, arguing emphatically, all three agitated. The younger Sarraf had looked relieved when his father and uncle shook hands. He had embraced his father. To the authorities it was a deadly handshake, and it took longer than it should have to release Jamal and his uncle, even after his sister confessed.
“Can we sit down somewhere and talk?” Bish asked Sarraf, aware of the stares from the rest of the men.
Sarraf retrieved a newspaper from a nearby bench and threw it at Bish, who didn’t need to be fluent in French to understand it. The familiar photo of him standing behind Violette. Good to see that the British and French were united in something.
Jamal Sarraf walked out of the gym and into a back alley, and he followed.
“Is it true you’ve spoken to her?” Bish asked, and suddenly he felt a grip around his throat and found himself shoved against the steel fence. He saw rage in the man’s eyes, glimpsed a clenched fist.
“I don’t sit down and talk to cunts who lock my niece up in a storage cupboard.”
Sarraf’s face was menacingly close. Bish held up a hand of warning. Not that he believed it would be powerful enough to stop Sarraf, after seeing what he could do to a younger, fitter man in the ring.
“I removed Violette from that cupboard,” he said. “She’d tell you that herself if you asked her.”
Sarraf finally let go and shoved Bish away.
“She’s not here.”
“Where is she, then?”
“No idea.”
“I don’t believe you. You’d be out there looking for her otherwise. So that tells me you know exactly where she is.”
“It tells you nothing.”
“Did she say why she took the boy?”
“For a concerned father, you’re beginning to sound like a copper.”
“I’m both.” Bish took a business card from his pocket. One he currently had no right to hand out. He found a pen and crossed out his work’s landline and scribbled down his personal mobile number. “Bring her to me and she’ll be protected,” he said. “No one wants to hurt her or the boy. She’s just a kid.”
“Yeah, well, so was I,” Sarraf said bitterly, not taking the card held out to him. “And guess where I ended up when I was her age?”
In Belmarsh. Where good-looking boys like Jimmy Sarraf would have walked into a never-ending nightmare. Bish couldn’t help flinching at the thought.
“If you do know where they are, then God help you should something happen to them,” Bish said.
“If I knew where my niece was we’d be halfway down to North Africa by now,” Sarraf said before walking away.
9
Jamal watches Ortley drive away. He’ll be heading for the port, and it makes him heartsick just thinking of the trip home. On an honest day he’ll admit to himself that he chose to live in this town because he’s sentimental. He may have been denied entry into his own country, but it doesn’t stop him from yearning for it. When the weather is good, he can see England from the port.