Bish had done his research before the visit. Noor LeBrac’s former best friend was stunning, her children picture-perfect, her house on Avenue Road tasteful. And she had the Hello! photographs to prove it. Jocelyn’s daughter was Bee’s age, and the photographs from the magazine had the girl in a white dress identical to her mother’s, contrasting with their rich black hair. Good genes, his mother would say. Bish was surprised by the friendship between Jocelyn Bayat and Noor Sarraf. Where Noor was brilliant, Jocelyn was slightly superficial. Bish knew this from her responses in Hello! But he supposed she wasn’t given too much opportunity to convey her smarts when someone was asking about bathroom accessories and the possibility of cosmetic surgery in the future.
She led them into the drawing room, where Bish saw a Chagall which he assumed was an original. He tried not to be impressed.
“Layla had the good sense to warn me,” she said coolly as she sat down.
“Warn you about what?” Elliot asked.
“A visit from an idiot and a slob. My sister’s always had a great eye for detail. So, ask what you need to ask.”
“Where are they?” Elliot asked. “That’s all we need to know.”
“I have absolutely no idea.”
“Violette and the boy were caught on CCTV coming out of the tube station down the road. We can’t think of any reason why she’d be in this area if not to see you.”
She gave them both a look of disbelief. “You’re lying.”
“Why would we do that?”
“You ask that of someone who watched what you people did to that family.”
“When was the last time you saw Noor LeBrac, Mrs. Shahbazi?” Elliot asked.
There was a sound of keys opening the front door, a number of voices and footsteps in the foyer.
“Could you invite your husband in here to speak to us?” Elliot asked, getting to his feet.
“My husband won’t want to get involved in this.”
But Ali Shahbazi was standing at the door with his four children, ranging from age five to seventeen. “What’s going on?” he asked. He was looking at Bish and Elliot but his question was directed to his wife.
“They’re here to ask about Violette Zidane,” Jocelyn said.
A flash of fury crossed Shahbazi’s face. “My family has nothing to do with the Sarrafs or the LeBracs. Do not come to my home making trouble.”
“Nothing to do with them?” Elliot asked, in a tone Bish recognized. It meant Elliot knew something to the contrary. Which he had failed to pass on.
“Then you’ve never visited Jamal Sarraf in Calais, Mrs. Shahbazi? Or Joseph Sarraf in Alexandria? He was one of the Brackenham Four, wasn’t he? Louis Sarraf’s brother?”
“We have friends in Alexandria,” Jocelyn said in a bored tone. “And if I visit Calais, it’s for quick duty-free.”
“In 2010 you made a trip to Australia with your daughter.”
Ali Shahbazi made a sound of irritation. “My wife has family there.”
“In the Riverina?” Elliot asked. “A town called Coleambally? Violette LeBrac’s hometown?”
Neither Jocelyn nor Ali had a response for that.
“Because we do have evidence of you being there, Mrs. Shahbazi,” Elliot continued. “Not to mention your visits to Holloway every month under your maiden name.”
Ali Shahbazi stared dumbfounded at his wife. “What’s he talking about, Joss?”
“Daddy!” The cry came from the daughter.
“Go upstairs,” Jocelyn ordered her kids. “Now.”
None of them moved.
“Jocelyn?” Her husband pressed for a response.
“I don’t know where Violette is!” she said. The kids were staring from one parent to the other, and Bish was imagining the next Hello! photo shoot: Jocelyn Shahbazi bringing up her kids on her own. Had this been a contentious issue throughout their marriage?
“Do you honestly think I’d keep Violette’s whereabouts from Noor?” she asked her husband.
“You’ve been in contact with her all these years?” he asked. “What the fuck, Joss?”
The youngest child was crying now and Jocelyn stood up. “You’re scaring the kids, Ali,” she hissed. “Take care of these idiots. I’m going to my mother’s.”
“Mrs. Shahbazi—”
“Go do your job and find them,” she shouted, ushering her children out of the room.
That night Bish took a call from another blocked number.
“A twenty-year marriage with not a sniff of infidelity and from what I know, they’re still having sex at least twice a week, and you’ve managed to ruin it.”
Layla Bayat.
“Well, it can’t be that great a marriage if she’s lying to him and he’s telling her what to do.”
“What’s this CCTV bollocks?”
“Truth. Those kids were there. Let me talk to your sister, Layla. Is she there?”
“She’s at my mother’s. The kids are hysterical. Do you know how scary divorce is to them? My niece Gigi fainted. Fainted. She’s petrified.”
Bish felt grateful for his stoic daughter. There’d been no fainting from Bee when she heard about his and Rachel’s divorce.
“Look, if you let me see Jocelyn, I’ll keep Elliot and the Home Office out of this.”
“I’m going to really believe you now,” she said.
“Was I the idiot or the slob?”
Layla Bayat hung up on him.
20