Necessary as Blood

by Deborah Crombie

  The cup of colored pencils stood on the worktable, just where she had remembered. Looking round for a box or a bag, or even an elastic band to contain them, she was struck once more by the beauty of the collage Sandra had left unfinished.

  The Caged Girls, as she had come to think of it. The shrouded, unfinished faces of the girls and women were haunting, and she wondered what story had motivated Sandra to design this piece-and who had been the intended recipient.

  Still searching for an elastic band, she moved to the desk and rifled through the drawers. The shallow one held the flotsam and jetsam that accumulated in desks as if drawn by magnets-broken pencils, defunct pens, paper clips, and pennies. There were a half-dozen colored elastic bands, but they were too small for the bundled pencils. Pulling the drawer all the way open, Gemma saw a bit of paper crumpled at the back. She fished it out and smoothed the crinkles. It was a receipt, written out to Sandra Gilles for one pound, in payment for an unspecified work of art, and stamped with the name and address of the Rivington Street Health Clinic.

  Gemma remembered seeing a clinic on Rivington Street when she’d gone to Pippa Nightingale’s gallery-was it the same place?

  On an impulse, she took out her notebook once more and found the page on which she’d written Pippa’s number. As she looked in her bag, she found one of her own elastic hair bands, which she thought would do quite nicely for the pencils.

  Bundling up the pencils, she put them in her bag, then took out her mobile and rang the number for the Nightingale Gallery. It was late, and Gemma had begun to think it a wasted call, but after a few rings, Pippa answered the phone.

  Gemma identified herself, then asked about the Rivington Street clinic.

  “That was one of Sandra’s good-works projects,” Pippa said with asperity. “I told her she couldn’t just give things away, but she wouldn’t listen.”

  “They paid her a pound. I found the receipt in her desk. What sort of clinic is it?”

  “That sounds about par for Sandra’s record keeping. At least she left a proper paper trail for the Internal Revenue.” She gave a derisive sniff, then went on. “The place is a free sexual-health clinic that caters mostly to local Bangladeshi women.”

  Gemma had been gazing at the piece on the worktable. She described the piece in progress to Pippa, then asked, “Do you suppose she was thinking of the women who go to this clinic? Or that she was making it for the clinic?”

  “It’s possible,” Pippa said thoughtfully. “But it sounds as if the piece has a very strong Huguenot theme, which was something Sandra came back to again and again. She was fascinated by the lives and history of the French immigrant weavers, and she felt a personal connection-she wanted there to be a personal connection. Gilles is a French Huguenot name, and because Sandra never knew her father, I think it was important to her to try to find something meaningful in her mother’s lineage. Not that her mother knew or cared.” Pippa sighed. “You might look at her journals.”

  “Journals?”

  “Sandra kept scads of them. Black, artists’ sketchbooks, filled with notes and drawings. That was where she worked out her ideas. They may be worth a good bit of money if she-” There was a pause, then Pippa said, “Look. I’ve got to go. But if you find those books, you’d better make a note of it for the estate. And have whoever’s in charge contact me.”

  Clicking off the phone, Gemma looked round the room, thinking that Pippa Nightingale might be grieving for Naz and Sandra, but she was not about to let it interfere with business.

  Gemma moved away from the desk and worktable. Hadn’t she seen black notebooks somewhere, when she was here before? Yes, there, on the shelf with the boxes of buttons and ribbons and the other objects Sandra used in the collages-at least a dozen identical black books.

  Lifting the top one from the stack, she opened it and thumbed carefully through it. Notes, in many colors, the tiny script crammed into margins and any vertical and horizontal space not filled with drawings. And the drawings…Gemma looked more closely, fascinated. There were designs; some looked like bits of fabric, others seemed to be architectural details-Gemma thought she recognized the ornate curved lintel from a house opposite, and the Arabian curves of the decorative arches in Brick Lane. There were even tiny reproductions of some of the street art Gemma had seen sprayed along Brick Lane. And there were portraits. Asian women, young and old. A grizzled, shabby man under a striped market awning. A drawing that suggested, in just a few deft lines, the sweet face of a young Asian girl.

  Gemma closed the book and held it, thinking. This was Sandra Gilles-here, in these pages-or at least all that Gemma, or Sandra’s daughter, might ever know of her. Pippa had suggested that the notebooks would be valuable, objects of desire for collectors, but what about their value to Charlotte? Surely, that was more important.

  Setting aside the notebook, Gemma rummaged in her bag until she found her own little spiral notebook, and the list she had been making for Louise. She stared at the page for a long moment, then put the notebook back.

  Carefully, she gathered all the black sketchbooks from the shelf, added the bundle of pencils from her bag, and left the studio.

  On the way down the stairs, she retrieved Charlotte’s flowered holdall and tucked her acquisitions inside.

  Reaching the ground floor, she turned out the lights and locked the garden door, then let herself out of the house and locked the front door as well.

  She glanced up and down, as was her habit, but the street was empty. Walking quickly to her car, she opened the rear door and leaned in, meaning to place the bag securely on the floorboard.

  Then, a hard shove slammed her forwards, cracking her head against the Escort’s roof.

  Staggering, shaking her head, she instinctively dropped the bag, clenched her keys in her fist, and spun round.

  There were two of them, crowding her, so close she could smell the mingled odors of sweat and beer.

  They must have been waiting round the corner in Wilkes Street, to have come on her so fast. One man was bigger, heavier, with pouches under his hard blue eyes; the other was thinner, acne scarred, jittery.

  And she knew them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The streets of the East End were awash with heroin, or smack, which was no longer the exclusive junk of emaciated squatters with puncture marks running the length of their arms. Although as addictive as ever, the new improved heroin came in an easy-to-smoke brown resin at a vastly reduced price…In the East End, smack was now easier to obtain than marijuana.

  – Tarquin Hall, Salaam Brick Lane

  Sandra Gilles’s brothers. Kevin and Terry.

  “Get the hell away from me,” Gemma spat, but they were too close-her back was against the car. She clutched her keys tighter, thinking she could hit only one, and that she’d have no time to react against the other.

  “We saw you,” said the bigger one. “Didn’t we, Ter?”

  Acne scar nodded.

  “Snooping at our mum’s,” continued the big one. Kevin. “And now you’re at our sister’s ’ouse. You some sort of spy for them social workers?” He jabbed a finger at her collarbone and Gemma smacked it away, her reaction automatic.

  “Keep your hands off me. Back off,” she said, cold with fury. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Just told you,” said Kevin, but he moved back a few inches. “This ’ouse”-this time he jabbed the sausagelike finger towards the house across the street-“belongs to our sister”-jab-“and our niece”-jab-“and you got no business ’ere.”

  “Neither”-Gemma jabbed a finger back at him-“do”-she jabbed again-“you. Now bugger off before I call the police.” It was pure bravado-her mobile was in her bag, on the floor of the car.

  Kevin ignored the threat. “Who gave you our mum’s address?” Gemma glanced at Terry, wondering if he could talk. Kevin pulled her attention back. “You after our sister’s money or what?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She glared
at him. “And I’m leaving now. Bugger off.” She tensed, wondering what she was going to do next.

  Then a voice, male, vaguely familiar, came from behind her. “You heard her. Move it.” She turned her head a fraction, saw a man in a T-shirt and jeans. Dark, spiky hair, olive skin, green eyes. Rashid Kaleem, the pathologist. He had his mobile in his hand. “I’ve called the cops,” he said. “They’ll be here any second.”

  Kevin’s eyes darted one way, then the other. A couple turned the corner from Brick Lane into Fournier Street, walking towards them. Somewhere in the distance a siren sounded. He stepped back, grabbing Terry by the shoulder. “Come on,” he said to his brother. Then he fixed Gemma with a hard stare. “You remember what we said.” He glanced at Rashid and spat. “Paki scum.”

  With his brother in tow, he turned and moved quickly away. The two men passed the shadow of Christ Church and disappeared into the bustle of Commercial Street.

  Gemma turned to Rashid. She realized her legs were shaking. “Did you really call the police? Where did you come from?”

  “I was coming from the mosque, and I saw you. I live near here. What are you doing here? Who were those guys?”

  “The police?” she said again, urgently. “Did you call the police?”

  “No. No, I didn’t take the time. I was afraid they were going to hurt you.” He lifted the phone. “I’ll ring now. We’ve got a good description-”

  “No. Wait.” Gemma leaned against the car, pushing her hair back from her face. She was suddenly aware that she was drenched with sweat, and her head was pounding.

  With a look of concern, Rashid Kaleem reached out with gentle fingers and moved her hair just enough to examine the bump at her hairline. “You’re going to have a goose egg. Did they do that to you?” At her nod, he dropped his hand and began to key the phone.

  “No, wait,” said Gemma. “It’s complicated.”

  Rashid looked up, his fingers still, his face closing.

  “I’m not protecting them,” Gemma hastened to explain. “It’s something else. It has to do with Naz Malik, the man you examined in the park.”

  “Malik?” Slowly, Rashid’s distant expression relaxed into curiosity. He studied her more closely. “You need to sit down. Let me take you for a coffee.”

  He led her round the corner into Brick Lane and up to the Old Truman Brewery. There was a coffeehouse in the back, behind the trendy shops and artists’ studios. Rashid ushered her inside and sat her down on one of the hard wooden benches, saying, “Wait here.” He disappeared towards the back.

  It was only then, as she sank onto the bench, that Gemma realized just how shaken up she was.

  Good God, what might those two have done to her if Rashid Kaleem hadn’t come along? She told herself that it had still been daylight, that it had been a residential street, that the Gilles brothers were bullies and had only meant to frighten her, but none of those logical reassurances helped.

  She’d seen too many knife crimes and muggings; she knew how quickly things could flare out of control and how badly people could be hurt.

  And now she knew how it felt to be a victim.

  The rage that shot through her was so intense it made her feel sick. The pain in her head grew worse. She forced herself to breathe, to focus on something besides the nausea. She gazed out, watching the patterns of sunlight made by the leaves of a tree in a planter, and after a moment she realized she was looking out into the old brewery yard.

  On the expanse of concrete stood a double-decker bus, an old Routemaster, with tables and umbrellas in front of it, and the name ROOTMASTER painted cheerfully across its side.

  The pun made her smile, in spite of her anger and her headache, and then she remembered where she had heard the name before.

  This was where Naz was supposed to have met Sandra and Charlotte that Sunday afternoon, the afternoon Sandra had disappeared. This was where Naz had waited for the wife who had never come.

  Rashid returned, and she tore her gaze from the bus, glancing at the mug he’d set down on the table before her. She groaned. “That’s not coffee. Don’t tell me-it’s hot, sweet tea. I hate sweet tea.”

  “I didn’t think coffee was a good idea with that bump on your head. You’ve got enough bruising without a big jolt of caffeine increasing your blood flow. So, tea”-he held out his other hand-“and ice.” He’d cadged a plastic bag filled with ice cubes and wrapped it in a somewhat bedraggled tea towel. “Put this on your head, and drink up. Believe me, they didn’t like parting with the ice, but I know the owner.”

  Gemma obeyed, finding that the searing heat of the tea was comforting, and the ice felt good on her pounding head.

  “Now,” said Rashid as a waitress in shorts and a midriff-baring T-shirt brought him a cup of espresso, “tell me about those unsavory characters.”

  “Unsavory?” Gemma suppressed a slightly hysterical laugh because it hurt her head. And suddenly she realized what a fright she must look, damp and shaky, with a lump on her forehead and water dripping down her face.

  The thought of Kevin and Terry sobered her quickly enough, however, and as she drank a little more of her tea and held the ice pack to her head, she told Rashid as much as she dared about Charlotte and about her visit to Gail Gilles. She left out any mention of Kincaid and the Narcotics investigation, finishing with, “So, you see, I can’t report them, because if I do I’ll have to identify myself, and I’ll be admitting that I visited the grandmother under false pretenses.”

  “But you didn’t actually lie.”

  “No, but I’m afraid my interference will bugger up the custody issue.”

  “And you don’t think the caseworker needs to know that those louts threatened you?” Rashid’s dark eyebrows were drawn together in a scowl. “This little girl is mixed race, then? The father was Pakistani, the mother white?”

  Gemma nodded, not adding the speculation that Sandra’s father had been at least partly Afro-Caribbean.

  “You know those two will use her as a punching bag, if they get their hands on her.” Rashid’s face was hard. “And from what you’re telling me about the family, no amount of oversight is going to keep them from having contact with their mother.”

  “I have been trying to convey that,” Gemma said, attempting to keep her frustration in check.

  “And the scrawny one is a user,” Rashid added. “You see it on every Bangladeshi estate. After a while you can’t miss the signs, whether the kids are white, black, or brown. Acne. Twitching. That charming, vacant stare.”

  “Dealers aren’t usually users, though,” said Gemma, thinking about the Narcotics investigation.

  “Not if they’re any good at it. But I wouldn’t discount the other brother. The talker.”

  “Kevin.” The thought of Kevin’s face made Gemma press the ice pack to her head again.

  “You okay? Any dizziness?” Rashid was half out of his seat, looming over her.

  Gemma inched back on her bench. “You should work with live people. Great bedside manner.”

  Rashid subsided onto his own bench, looking sheepish. “Sorry. Too many years of looking after neighbors and aunties and cousins who don’t take me seriously.”

  “But you’re a doctor,” Gemma said, surprised.

  “I’m a snotty-nosed kid from a housing estate.” For just an instant, Gemma could see the boy Neal Weller had described.

  “Not anymore.” Gemma smiled at him, and he returned it. Then she asked, “Do they come to you for advice, these neighbors and aunties and cousins?”

  “Only in a very roundabout way. Medical degree or not, I’m still a male, and they’re not comfortable talking to me.”

  She thought about the clinic in Rivington Street. “Would they talk to other women?”

  “Maybe. If they felt safe.” Rashid finished his coffee, then cast a disapproving glance at her half-drunk tea. “You should finish that. And it might not be a good idea for you to drive. I should see you home.”

  There was somethi
ng so charmingly old-fashioned in the way he phrased it that Gemma found herself beginning to blush. “No, really, I’m fine. My head just hurts a little.”

  “They don’t know where you live, those two? You shouldn’t be on your own.”

  “No. I’ve got kids-and my partner-waiting at home for me.” She felt stupidly awkward, wondering why she’d felt the need to explain her situation, and the flush intensified. “I really should go. Thanks for your help.”

  Tentatively, she felt the tender spot on her forehead. It had just occurred to her to wonder how on earth she was going to explain what had happened to Duncan. He would want Kevin and Terry Gilles’s heads on platters, and that would not be good at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  One of the few sentiments which unites all generations of the Bangladeshi community is the feeling that white families fail to protect the interests of needy members… Even though their successful children may now want to live separately from their parents when they marry, and even leave home when single in a few cases, most still believe in the moral solidarity of the family and the importance of putting family interests before those of the individual. Indeed, in most situations individual interests are seen as best served by the family.

  – Geoff Dench, Kate Gavron, Michael Young, The New East End

  It was Toby who noticed it first. “Mummy, what happened to your head?”

  She was putting away the groceries she had picked up at the supermarket on her way home, having taken advantage of the fact that she had the car, but now she felt a little queasy at the thought of eating.

  Kit looked up from the fantasy novel he was reading at the kitchen table. “Ow. You do have a lump.”

  “I went to get some things for Charlotte, and I bumped my head in the loft.”

  “What did you get for her?” asked Toby, who was picking through her shopping bags like a puppy looking for treats.

  “Some art pencils.”