Charlie is irritated that she’s worked it out so quickly. ‘Violette made me clean it,’ he mutters.

‘Oh please. Don’t make me have to like this girl.’

Bee’s father is standing there staring at him, as if that will make him reveal what he knows. And in a strange way, Charlie wants to. Because every morning when he listens to the news he expects to hear that Violette and Eddie have got themselves killed. Like that time they found the body in the Channel. Charlie had been glued to his computer all day, waiting for news.

Once they’re downstairs, Bee’s father tells Charlie to follow him out to his car.

‘Where is she?’ he asks once they are on the street.

‘Don’t know. She’s not big on sharing her plans.’

‘I think you’re keeping something from me, Charlie.’

‘I don’t care what you think, Bish.’

‘One day Violette will forgive you for telling me where she is,’ Bee’s father says. ‘But she’ll never forgive herself if she puts Eddie’s life in danger.’ He gets into the car and shuts the door, and Charlie knocks at the window.

‘I got a call from one of the journalists who was at the courthouse. Sarah Griffith. Griffin. She contacted me through the rectory.’

‘What did she want?’

‘Most of the others want to talk about Violette. This one says she’s going public about Eddie. Wanted to know if I had anything to say.’

‘Did you have anything to say?’ And Charlie can tell that Bee’s father knows exactly who Eddie is.

‘Yeah, I told her to go fuck herself.’

Charlie walks back inside to where his mum and dad are watching Britain’s Got Talent. ‘You know the worst thing about the cheating, Charlie?’ his mum asks as he’s about to go back up to his room.

He doesn’t want to talk about the cheating thing. It always brings tears to his father’s eyes.

‘It’s that it makes me forget sometimes how decent you are deep down.’

He shakes his head. ‘Some people are born decent. I have it thrust upon me.’

‘They thrust you with decency?’ his father asks.

‘With a dual-edged blade, good man.’

Charlie catches a glimpse of a smile on his father’s face. It’s the sort of game they used to play.

‘I can’t understand how we turned into the sort of people who don’t know that refugees are hiding in their attic,’ his mother says.

‘They’re not refugees, Mum. They’re from Australia and Tonbridge.’

He knows it wouldn’t kill him to stay there in the living room with them, but all he can think of is people finding out who Eddie is. And how then the kid will never have a chance of winning Britain’s Got Talent.

It feels good to be back in a suit. Work clothes make Layla feel competent, unlike the tracksuit she’s been wearing while watching repeats of Made in Chelsea and feeling sorry for herself. Today is going to be a big gamble, but she’s determined.