Necessary as Blood

by Deborah Crombie

  A hour later, she sat back, not certain if she was more satisfied or puzzled, and rang Gemma.

  Gemma was picking up bits of Lego from the sitting room floor when her mobile buzzed. Recognizing the number, she tried tucking the phone between ear and shoulder as she tossed what she thought was a dinosaur-Toby having decided that pirates would most definitely encounter dinosaurs-towards the toy basket at one end of the sofa. The basket at the other end held dog toys, and she often wondered how the dogs managed to tell which assortment was which. If anyone transgressed, it was more likely to be Toby.

  “Melody?” she said. “Hang on.” Transferring the phone to her hand, she threw a questionable stuffed teddy into the dog basket, then wandered into the dining room and sat down on the piano bench. “Okay, sorry about that. What’s up?”

  She listened, idly picking out one note, then another, on the keyboard, a frown beginning to crease her forehead. “Ahmed Azad? You’re certain?”

  Duncan came in, a bottled beer in hand, an eyebrow raised in query. He’d been in the study, rereading the reports on Naz Malik. His mood, touchy since the warning-off passed down from Narcotics, had improved since Gemma had told him that the Gilles brothers had borrowed a van on the afternoon and evening of Naz’s death, and he’d been looking for any mention or sighting of a van.

  “Yeah, I’ll tell him,” Gemma said, glancing at Duncan. “Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  As she ended the call, Duncan pulled a chair up beside the piano bench. “It’s too hot for wine.” He waved the beer bottle, displaying the already-forming condensation. “Want one?” When she shook her head, he asked, “Who was that? And what’s this about Azad?”

  The office door opened just as Melody clicked her phone closed and her father came in, his tan face split in a grin.

  “Melody, darling. George said you were here. Why didn’t you ring me? I’d have stayed and taken you to dinner.”

  “Just doing a bit of research, Dad. No fuss.”

  “Is it a case?” He came round to stand behind her before she had a chance to blank the computer screen. She couldn’t fault his reporter’s instincts. “‘Bangladeshi businessman protests vandalism by white toughs; criticizes the Met’s failure to take action,’” he read. “Don’t tell me you’re looking into your own organizational failures.”

  Melody ignored the barb. “No, Dad. I was just curious about this guy. I saw him today at a club in Spitalfields. A very posh club with no name, managed by a man named Lucas Ritchie.”

  Ivan looked thoughtful. “I know a place like that in Notting Hill. Four-hundred-pound bottles of wine, and beautiful, but unattainable, hostesses.”

  Melody swiveled to look up at her dad. “So what does Mum think about you going to these places?”

  He gave her the shark grin. “Oh, I’ve taken her with me once or twice. These sorts of clubs are the evolution of places like Annabel’s and Mark’s Club-at Annabel’s and Mark’s, only the elite can get in, but at these new places, only the elite even know about them. The anonymity is part of the pull.”

  “The Secret Seven factor?” Melody had loved the Enid Blyton stories as a child.

  “Every grown-up’s fantasy,” Ivan agreed. “Their own secret society. So, do you think this club is involved in something dodgy?”

  “No reason to think so.” Melody had begun to wish she hadn’t offered even a minimal explanation. Her father was like a ferret once he got on a scent.

  She exited the online archives, wishing she’d had a chance to print the story she’d found, but unwilling to arouse her father’s interest any further.

  “Thanks, Dad,” she said as she stood up. “I’ve got to go.”

  “Why don’t you stay? I just came in to check on tomorrow’s leader. I could take you to that café you like down Abingdon Street for a glass of wine.”

  Melody gathered up her shopping bag from Whole Foods. “Sorry, Dad. I’ve already bought something, and it won’t keep.” She kissed his cheek, still smooth even at this time of evening. She’d discovered years ago that he kept an electric razor in his desk drawer. Not for Ivan Talbot the stubbled look. Where he had grown up, in working-class Newcastle, that had meant you were poor or a drunk.

  “Your mother’s expecting you on Sunday,” he said as she reached the door.

  “I know. I’ll be there.” She turned back, giving him a quelling look. “But this time, Dad, no blind dates.”

  “That was Melody.” Gemma hesitated. “I think I might like a glass of wine, if you wouldn’t mind? It’s been chilling since I got home.” On her way back from Spitalfields, she’d stopped at Mr Christian’s for cold meats and salads, and popped into Oddbins for a bottle of wine. At home, she’d shucked off her work clothes and put on shorts and a tank top.

  While Kincaid went into the kitchen, Gemma picked out a few more notes, and found she was playing “Kip’s Lights,” from Gabriel Yared’s score for The English Patient. It was one of her favorite pieces when she wanted to think, and good practice for her rusty fingers.

  Although she’d told Kincaid about her visit to Gail Gilles, they’d got caught up in the melee-dinner and time with the kids, and she hadn’t mentioned the unplanned call on Lucas Ritchie. But now that the boys were upstairs she had no excuse for not coming clean.

  “I like that bit,” Duncan said when he came back with her glass. He touched her bare arm with his fingertips, cold from the wine bottle. “Can you play and talk at the same time?”

  No avoiding it now. Gemma took a fortifying sip of a Pouilly-Fumé she’d found in the sale bin and slid halfway round on the bench so that she could face him. “Melody met me in Spitalfields today. We had lunch at the market, and afterwards, we walked round to Lucas Ritchie’s club. I thought he might know more about Sandra than he told you. And I was curious.” Before he could interrupt, she added, “I identified myself, but told him it wasn’t official. I more or less implied I didn’t know you from Adam.”

  “Thanks. I think.” His gaze grew a little more intent. “So how did you say you tracked him down?”

  “Through Pippa Nightingale. She said it was Lucas who told her about Naz.”

  “Okay.” He considered that for a moment while he drank some of his beer. “And were your charms any more effective than mine on Mr. Ritchie?”

  “He’s a bit slippery,” Gemma admitted, “but he seemed to want to talk. I got the impression that he and Sandra were lovers before she met Naz, although he never quite came out and said so. He did say that when she first started going out with Naz, he thought Naz had beat her up. But when he confronted her, she was furious with him for suggesting it. She was still living at home.”

  Duncan frowned. “Kevin and Terry, then?”

  “Could be. Although Melody suggested it might have been one of Gail’s boyfriends, or even Gail.”

  “Gail? Do you think that’s possible?”

  Gemma thought of the undercurrent of viciousness she’d heard in Gail’s voice when she talked about Sandra, and of Charlotte, defenseless, and couldn’t repress a shudder. “Yes.”

  “But Ritchie couldn’t confirm what had happened.”

  “No. And he wouldn’t make a commitment to speak up for Charlotte either.” Gemma brought her hand down on the keys, sounding a dissonant note.

  “I can’t say I’m surprised. And I doubt it would do much good. So where does Ahmed Azad come into this?” Duncan asked.

  Suspicious-sounding thumps were coming from upstairs and Gemma cast a worried glance at the ceiling. “Melody saw him going into the club,” she said a little hurriedly. “She didn’t know it was him, just that he looked familiar-she thought she’d seen him in a news story. Then when she tracked it down-he’d complained publicly that he’d been vandalized by white gangs and that the Met had failed to investigate properly-she recognized his name from what I’d told her about the case. Azad didn’t mention to you that he knew Lucas Ritchie?”

  “No.” Duncan ran a hand through his hair, pushing
damp locks back from his forehead. “But then I didn’t ask. And I certainly didn’t think to ask Lucas Ritchie if he knew Azad. This puts rather a different slant on things. We knew that Sandra and Naz knew Azad, and that Sandra and Naz knew Ritchie, but not that those two had a connection.”

  “There was something else-” A loud crash from upstairs interrupted what Gemma was going to say about Ritchie and Pippa Nightingale.

  “Mummy!” came Toby’s wail.

  “Oh, lord.” Gemma handed Duncan her glass with a sigh. “He’s been practicing jumping ship from the bed again.”

  On Thursday afternoon, not having found any mention of a van in either the statements or the witness reports relating to Naz Malik’s case, Kincaid had put Sergeant Singh and her team at Bethnal Green on to tracking down any known associates of the Gilles brothers with a vehicle fitting that description.

  “Just a van?” Singh had asked, a bit dubiously. “Like a transit van?”

  “All I know is it had to be big enough to transport a full-size sofa, a loveseat, and an armchair,” Kincaid told her.

  Singh gave him a look through narrowed eyes. “And you know this how, exactly?”

  “A completely reliable source.” He tried his best grin on her, but she looked unconvinced.

  “And how do you suggest we do this without stepping on Narcotics’ toes?”

  “Some discreet inquiries, to start with. Ask the officers who were watching the brothers’ purported places of work, and the sister’s flat, if they saw anything. You’re inventive, Sergeant. I’m sure you’ll come up with something.”

  “Maybe they really did move furniture,” she said.

  “I think it’s likely they did,” he agreed. “But if that’s the case, they also had access, through the afternoon and evening, to a vehicle in which they could have held Naz Malik and then transported him to Haggerston Park. And I want it found. Now.”

  Singh got the message. “Sir.” She had charged into the incident room, figurative guns blazing, and Kincaid had gone to look for Neal Weller, stopping off at the canteen to pick up a cup of execrable coffee.

  Weller was in his office, suit jacket off, reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. He took them off, rubbing at his eyes, when Kincaid came in. “You’ve put a serious dent in my manpower, you know. And now what’s this about a van?”

  “News travels fast.” Kincaid didn’t sit down.

  “I have my means. Just what do you intend to do with this van if you find it? You can’t order a search based on unsubstantiated information from an unidentified source. And even if you could, Narcotics would have your bollocks.”

  “There’s always a traffic stop,” Kincaid said. He’d had to take Weller into his confidence, but they weren’t broadcasting information about the drugs investigation to the rank and file. “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.” Now he perched on the arm of the spare chair, looking round for a place to set the undrinkable liquid in his polystyrene cup. He squeezed it into a bare spot on the edge of Weller’s desk. “Did you know that Ahmed Azad knew Lucas Ritchie?”

  “Ritchie of the mysterious club?” Weller looked surprised.

  “Azad seems to be a member of the club, as a matter of fact. And Ritchie had an employee who’s gone missing, like Azad’s nephew. I’ve got Cullen working on tracing her.”

  “A woman?”

  “A young woman named Kylie Watters.”

  Weller shrugged. “Never heard of her. But you’re stretching a connection, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe.” Kincaid straightened the crease in his trouser leg. “Or maybe Azad had the ability to help Ritchie get rid of an inconvenient employee. Or Ritchie had the means to help Azad with a more than inconvenient nephew.”

  “What does any of this have to do with Naz Malik or Sandra Gilles?” asked Weller. He didn’t, to Kincaid’s relief, ask how Kincaid had come by the information.

  “I don’t know, except that they all seem to be connected. But I think I’d like to have another word with Mr. Azad.”

  “I’ll come with you.” Weller dropped the reading glasses on top of a stack of reports, looking like he was glad of an excuse to escape.

  But Kincaid stood quickly, retrieving his cup. “I think I’ll go on my own, if you don’t mind. Just for a friendly chat, this time without the lawyer. I thought I might catch him at the restaurant. I might even have a curry.”

  “Good luck with that.” Weller sat back in his chair, his expression making it quite clear he knew Kincaid had just pulled rank, and that he was not pleased. “And you can drop that swill in the bin on your way out.”

  Gemma tucked in on Thursday, determined to set things right on her own manor. Not only was she behind in her work, but she felt guilty for having taken advantage of her guv’nor’s goodwill the day before. Still, she thought what she’d learned about Gail Gilles had made her dereliction worthwhile, if only she could figure out what to do with the information. And if nothing else, the tip about Gail’s furniture-shopping expedition might move Kincaid’s investigation forward.

  By late afternoon, she had made a dent in things. She was opening up the last case report in her inbox when Betty Howard rang her mobile.

  Picking up the phone, she said, “Hi, Betty. Is everything okay?” Her instant fear was that Betty had had another call from the caseworker.

  “Oh, everything is all right, Gemma,” Betty said softly. Gemma could hear the music from an afternoon children’s program on the telly in the background. “It’s just that little Charlotte keeps asking me for her ducky pencils, and I’m not rightly sure I know what she means. I’ve given her every pencil in the house, and none of them will do. I can’t console the poor thing, and I’m that worried.”

  Casting her mind back over the things she’d seen in Sandra’s studio, Gemma thought she remembered a cup of colored art pencils in a mug on Sandra’s worktable. “I might know the ones she means. They were her mum’s. Maybe Charlotte was allowed to play with them.”

  “Is there any way you could get them for her? And she’s needing some more clothes, too. I’d be glad to buy some things for her, and I’ve got the allowance from the social, but it might be better for her to have her own things. Something familiar, you know.”

  “Let me see what I can do. I’ll ring you back.”

  The Fournier Street house was no longer officially a crime scene-had the investigating team turned the keys over to Naz’s executor, Naz’s partner, Louise Phillips? And if so, would Phillips give Gemma permission to go in the house and get some things for Charlotte?

  She pulled out the little notebook she kept in her handbag and flipped back through the pages until she found the number she had written down for Naz and Louise Phillips’s office that first night. Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was not yet five-hopefully Phillips would not have left for the day.

  She punched in the number. A woman answered on the first ring with a brusque, “Malik and Phillips.”

  “Could I speak to Louise Phillips, please?” asked Gemma.

  “Speaking.” The voice was no less brisk. “Receptionist’s gone home for the day. What can I do for you?”

  Gemma explained who she was and what she wanted. “I wondered if you could meet me at the house? Of course, I’d need your approval for anything I took for Charlotte.”

  There was such a long pause that Gemma thought Phillips meant to refuse her request altogether.

  Then Louise Phillips said, so slowly that Gemma thought the brusqueness had been a cover for exhaustion or grief, “I haven’t been in the house. I just-I couldn’t-Why don’t you meet me at my flat, in an hour or so. I’ll give you the keys. You can pop them back through my letterbox when you’re done. And you can make a list of anything you remove, for protocol’s sake, but I’ll assume you’re trustworthy. You’d better be”-she gave a hoarse laugh-“because at this point I’d be none the wiser if you walked off with the entire contents.”

  Phillips gave Gemma an address
, then added, “You’ll find the place easily enough. It’s just off Columbia Road.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  So the house has a mission, and it believes that the natural state of human intelligence is not-like a painting-flat or square, but like this room it extends out and all around us. The house plots to work its magic to ensure that each visitor goes away with that perception. It may already have begun to happen to you.

  – Dennis Severs, 18 Folgate Street: The Tale of a House in Spitalfields

  Although the sun was far from setting, the neon signs burned over the curry palaces of Brick Lane. Many of the restaurants advertised air-conditioning, but the doors stood open, and the pervasive smell of Indian spices mingled with the dust and petrol fumes of the street.

  Some of the less prosperous places had touts outside to lure tourists in with practiced patter, although Kincaid seriously doubted whether the restaurants ever gave the refunds so persuasively offered.

  Ahmed Azad’s place, however, was easily picked out by its sleekly modern frontage. The closed front door hinted at real air-conditioning, and the interior Kincaid glimpsed through the window was minimalist, with brick walls, gleaming wooden tables, and sculpted leather chairs. There was the barest hint of an Indian theme in the deep orange-red patterned place mats and coordinating linens. The prices posted on the menu in the window were a little high, but not stratospheric, and there were quite a few diners, even at the early hour.

  Sergeant Singh had told him that there would be queues later in the evening, even on a weeknight, and that the food wasn’t “half bad.” He guessed that coming from her that counted as a compliment. “Angla-Bangla, of course,” she’d added, “but they do it well, and they manage to sneak in a few more authentic dishes.”

  Most of the diners, Kincaid saw, were in Western dress, but there were very few women. When he stepped inside, he was met by a blast of cool air, and then by a barrage of aromas that made his mouth water.

  The waiters looked as sophisticated as the interior, all young men dressed in black shirts and trousers. Kincaid wondered if there had been anything about Azad’s great-nephew that made him stand out of the mix.