The old guy is close behind. Jamal stops and waits.
“People around here talk more now,” Bill says in a low voice. “It’s not that they’ve forgotten the dead, but some people…some people say the coppers shouldn’t have gone for the whole family. Some’d bet their life you had nothing to do with it.”
“Would you?”
Bill’s eyes are watery with age and emotion. “My opinion’s not worth much.”
“It’s worth everything.”
The old guy gives a smile. “Then I’d bet my life.”
Layla is in her bedroom when he gets back. The door is open so he takes a step inside. There isn’t much in the room apart from the bed, a print on the wall, and a dresser, but it all speaks of class. The Bayat sisters always liked beautiful things and they can spot a bargain from across a marketplace. Jocelyn taught Layla to be frugal but to choose well, the approach she took when she chose Ali Shahbazi to marry. It was her only way out of the council estates. Layla’s way out was her brains.
She looks up from where she’s sitting on the bed. Her eyes are swollen, as if she’s been bawling all afternoon. Beside her is a cardboard box of stuff that she’s sorting through.
“Did you go down to Haversham Park?”
He nods. “No one speaks normally,” he says. “It’s always a whisper. Noor’s name. Etienne’s. Now Violette’s. They’ve all become a whisper. Am I one?”
“You’re the greatest whisper of them all,” she says. “It’s human nature. You make people feel good about their lives. Because whatever they’ve experienced, it can’t be worse than what happened to Jimmy Sarraf.”
“I don’t want my niece to be a whisper.”
He takes the envelope of money from his pocket and holds it up. “Alfie and the lads. Can you get it back to them somehow?”
She gets off the bed. “That Brackenham lot don’t part with their money too easy. If they’ve given it to you, they mean you to have it.” She brushes past him.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“Rough day,” is all she says.
He follows her into the kitchenette, where she puts on the kettle.
“Do you know the guy who owns the Algerian restaurant on the corner?” she asks.
“No, but he’s watching me.”
“His name is Bilal Lelouche and he stopped me tonight because he’s one of the hundreds of people who know you’re staying with me.”
She doesn’t seem happy about that fact.
“He asked if you could drop in for supper. He knew Noor and Etienne, apparently.”
Jamal gives a shake of his head. It sounds like a setup.
“I’ve never heard anything bad said about him,” she says. “Great restaurant. People come from all over to eat there.”
“No clean clothes.”
“I’ll find you something.”
“No thanks.”
He hadn’t meant it to sound judgmental. He just doesn’t want to be wearing some other guy’s clothing.
“I’ve got some stuff of Ali’s that Jocelyn wants me to give to a Brackenham charity,” she says.
He has no excuse now. “Will you come with me?” he asks.
The restaurant is packed but there’s a table set for them down the back. Jamal and Layla exchange a look and follow the waiter. The moment they sit down the food comes, and doesn’t stop coming for the next hour.
“Love the French,” Jamal says, wolfing down the best kefta he’s ever eaten. “Hate their food.”
Layla laughs and it’s a good laugh to hear, and even better to see. “My favorite treat is a French restaurant,” she says.
“Hate the food with a passion,” he says.
With a meal this good, there’s no room for being polite. It’s the survival of the fastest and Layla likes her food as much as he does. There’s less room for talk too, which is fine, because he has to accept that they’re strangers now. She’s guarded and it makes him tense; he wants to be anything but. When he brings up her work she dodges the subject. Asks about his instead. He tells her about the gym, and working at one of the bars downtown.
“As a bouncer?” she asks, soaking up the last of the chakchouka with her pita bread.
“Not a bouncer.”
“You work behind the bar?” she says.
“Who said I was working behind the bar?”
He reaches over and finishes the eggplant dip on her plate. They eye each other. The old Jimmy and Layla always ate from each other’s plates. There was an intimacy to it.
“You’re not a bouncer and you’re not behind the bar,” she says, trying to work it out. “So you’re running the place?”
“Not running the place.”
By ten thirty Bilal Lelouche still hasn’t come over for a chat, and Jamal is surprised when a waiter puts the bill on the table. Not that he’s complaining, but Layla made it sound as if the meal was on the house. She reaches for the bill before he can and takes out her purse.
“Put it away,” he says gruffly.
“We’ll go halves,” she says, looking at the bill, and her expression changes at once. Her eyes meet his as she hands it over.
Breakfast tomorrow 9 a.m. Lette Le-Hyphen and a friend.