Necessary as Blood

by Deborah Crombie

  Could Sandra have come here that day, from Columbia Road? Could Pippa have told her something, out of spite, that had made her run away? Or what if they had argued, and Pippa had killed Sandra?

  Although Gemma could have sworn, on her first visit, that Pippa’s grief over Sandra’s disappearance had been genuine, theirs had obviously been a complicated relationship, and love and jealousy had brought about stranger things. But even if the slender Pippa had been able to kill Sandra, could she have disposed of her body-and so efficiently that it had not been found? And then killed Naz Malik? For Gemma was now utterly convinced that Sandra’s disappearance and Naz’s murder were connected.

  She shook her head, staring absently at the front of the Rivington Street Health Clinic a few doors down. No, she was spinning theories out of air, and they wouldn’t wash. Pippa’s little display of spitefulness had been directed at Lucas, not Sandra. Truman, the vet, who was more than likely to have known Sandra, and who had easy access to the ketamine that had been found in Naz’s system, seemed a more likely prospect. Maybe-

  Gemma’s speculations came to an abrupt halt. A young woman wearing jeans and a T-shirt, her dark hair pulled up in a haphazard ponytail, had stopped in front of the clinic, glancing up and down the street before slipping inside. The profile had been familiar, although recognition took Gemma a moment, because the last time she had seen the young woman, she’d been wearing a head scarf. It was Alia Hakim, Charlotte’s nanny.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Traffic in children has been going on for as long as mankind has been sinning and suffering. Josephine Butler (1828-1907) writes in her journals, pamphlets and diaries of the second half of the nineteenth century about seeing thousands (yes, thousands) of little girls, some as young as four or five, in the illegal brothels of London, Paris, Brussels and Geneva.

  – Jennifer Worth, Farewell to the East End

  Doug Cullen yanked the copy of Melody’s e-mail from the printer tray on Kincaid’s desk and stared at it. “Where the hell did she get this?”

  “Let me see.” Kincaid got up and took the pages from him. When he had read through the list of names, he said, “I’m not sure I want to know. It’s called deniability, Doug. But this could prove very useful.”

  For all their digging, they had not been able to come up with anything dodgy on Lucas Ritchie or his club, and they had been warned off interviewing him again by powers higher than Kincaid’s guv’nor.

  “What I would like to know,” Kincaid continued, “is what Gemma’s up to. Melody was a bit cryptic when she rang. Something about the vet on the list…” He scanned the page again. “Truman, John. RCVS. Look him up, why don’t you?”

  Cullen did an Internet search and read off an address. “I would guess it’s this one, in Hoxton. You’re thinking a vet would have had access to ketamine? But did he have any connection with Naz Malik?”

  “Worth talking to him.” The staff at Bethnal Green was keeping a phone line available for calls from the public notice board. But as no new information had come in, there had been little else for them to do, and Kincaid had returned to the Yard. He was still thoroughly blocked from pursuing the one lead into Naz Malik’s murder that had looked most promising: Kevin and Terry Gilles.

  Now he grabbed his jacket, adding, “We’ve got eff-all else to go on with, and this case is getting colder by the minute.”

  Gemma’s first response on seeing Alia’s furtive entrance into the clinic was that the girl was in some kind of trouble. Needing contraceptives, or worse, pregnant. She didn’t like to think how Alia’s father would respond to either alternative, but she was certainly going to have a word with the girl and see if she could help.

  Slipping her phone back into her bag, she walked the few yards to the clinic and pushed the entry buzzer. But much to her surprise, when she entered the small reception area, she found Alia not in the waiting area, but sitting behind the reception desk.

  “Alia! You work here?”

  “Miss-it’s Miss James, isn’t it?” Alia looked pleased to see her, then alarmed. “Is Charlotte okay? How did you-What are you doing here?” She dropped her voice, even though there was no one else in the room. “My parents didn’t-”

  “No, no, don’t worry. Charlotte’s fine, and I haven’t spoken with your parents. I was just on the street and I happened to see you. Do your parents not know you work here?”

  “I volunteer,” Alia said defensively. “I don’t work for pay. But no, they don’t know. My dad, he’d go ballistic, like.”

  “Then why do you do it?”

  “Because it’s important. And because she did.”

  Following Alia’s glance, Gemma turned and saw two of Sandra’s collages on the wall above the slightly tatty sofa and magazine table in the waiting area. They were smaller works, but beautifully textured and colored, and in this room they looked like peacocks among sparrows.

  “Sandra donated her collages?” she asked.

  “Not just that. She worked here, too. She was really good at getting the women to talk to her. They trusted her, like. She said they needed a voice, didn’t she?”

  Voice and faces, thought Gemma. She studied the collages. One conveyed hints of shops in a tumble-down street, their windows filled with multicolored bolts of cloth. Women in fluttering sari silks and head scarves clustered in the doorways like bright jewels. In the background rose the now-familiar shape of the Gherkin, 30 St. Mary Axe, and a building like a shard of glass.

  The other collage was darker, the feel more Georgian, the women’s clothing suggested by bits of silk and lace, and all seemed to be engaged in some kind of manual labor. One scrubbed a doorstep, one hung up scraps of washing, one, glimpsed through a loft window, worked at a loom. And integrated throughout the piece were bits of paper covered with ink-blotted script, and scraps of old, yellowed maps.

  Still gazing at Alia, she asked, “What do they mean, these pictures?”

  “She didn’t like to say. She said the point was, the piece would tell you a story, same as it did her, but you would hear it in your own way. For every person it was different.”

  Hearing the quaver in Alia’s voice, Gemma turned. The girl’s eyes were red. “You miss her, don’t you?” she said gently.

  “I thought she’d come back, see. She said I could do anything, be anything, and I believed it. But now”-she shook her head-“it’s not true, is it, or she wouldn’t never have left.”

  Alia looked as if she had lost weight since Gemma had last seen her, less than two weeks ago, and there were dark hollows under her eyes.

  Gemma played a hunch. She sat down in the chair across from the desk so that she was close to the girl and on her level. “Alia, you knew about Sandra’s brothers and the drugs. What else did you know?”

  The girl’s reaction was immediate. Her eyes widened, pupils dilating, her mouth tightening. “Nuffink,” she said, her Estuary accent suddenly thicker. “Don’t know what yer on about.”

  Gemma pulled her chair a little nearer. “You can talk to me. I won’t tell your parents.”

  “If my dad even knew I was here, he’d kill me.” Alia cast a furtive glance at the door. “Only reason the women who come in here don’t tell is that they don’t want nobody to know they was here either.”

  “There’s a coffee shop down the street. Let me take you for something-”

  “I can’t leave. The regular girl’s on lunch, and so’s the doctor. There has to be someone here, ’cause of the drugs and things.”

  “Well, that’s perfect, then. There’s just the two of us. We can talk before anyone comes back. Don’t the women mind seeing a doctor?”

  “It’s a lady doctor, miss. He don’t come in to see the clients. He just oversees things, like.”

  “He?”

  “Mr. Miles. But it’s his own money that runs the place.” There was a note of hero worship in her voice. “We give women advice about contraception, and sexually transmitted diseases and stuff, and what to do if
they’re pregnant.” She was back on more comfortable ground, the stress gone from her voice, although she pronounced the clinical terms with studied nonchalance, as if she’d practiced.

  “That’s brilliant, Alia. I can see why Sandra cared about the clinic. But you were her special friend, weren’t you? She told you things she didn’t tell anyone else. You’d have known if something was worrying her.”

  Gemma could see from Alia’s expression that she was wavering, and made herself keep quiet. The girl had wanted to talk before, in fact, had defied her father to come after them and tell them about Sandra’s brothers. Would she have said more that day, if her parents hadn’t been hovering? Or if Gemma had been alone?

  “There was something,” Alia said at last, with a glance at the door. “One of the girls that came in…afterwards Sandra was all quiet, like. Even at home the next couple of days, when I was looking after Char.”

  When Alia stopped, Gemma said very quietly, “But Sandra told you, didn’t she? About what was bothering her. She needed someone to confide in.”

  “Yeah.” Alia kept her gaze on her hands. “One day when Charlotte was asleep. Sandra said the girl that came in here, she was Bangladeshi, like, and just a kid. Younger than me. She was all crying, and Sandra took her into the little conference room.

  “This girl, she told Sandra-she said that some man had married her in Sylhet, paid her father a lot of money. He got papers and he brought her here, but then he never let her out of the house. He-” Alia picked at her cuticle, her face suffused with red. “He did-” She met Gemma’s eyes for a moment, then looked away. “If my dad knew I was repeating these things…” She swallowed. “This man, the girl said he did-did things to her. Then, when she-when she started her periods, like, he didn’t want nothing more to do with her. He sent her to another man, who liked girls that little bit older, a man who didn’t mind about…women’s things. She wasn’t supposed to go out of this house either, but that day she did. She was scared of what would happen if she got caught.

  “Sandra asked her why she didn’t tell no one, and she said because the man would do bad things to her. And even worse, she’d be sent back to Sylhet, where her family wouldn’t have nothing to do with her and she’d be cast out on the street.” Alia looked up at Gemma. “It’s true. It’s what my father would do. She’d be unclean, like, and it wouldn’t matter that none of it was her fault.”

  “So what did Sandra do?” Gemma asked, trying to keep the horror from her voice.

  “She told the girl to come back, that she’d help her work out something. But the girl never did.”

  Gemma took a breath. “This man, the one who brought the little girl in from Bangladesh. Was it Mr. Azad?”

  “Oh, no.” Alia looked shocked. “Mr. Azad wouldn’t do nothing like that. He and Sandra, they were friends. No, this bloke, the girl never told Sandra his name. Just that he was rich, and white.”

  “And that’s all you got out of her?” Kincaid said when Gemma rang him from the car and related her conversation.

  “The regular receptionist came back from lunch. And I think that’s all Alia knew. Except she did say she thought this happened two or three weeks before Sandra disappeared.”

  “And she was adamant that it wasn’t Azad?”

  “I asked her twice. She insisted that Sandra told her the girl had said the guy was white.”

  “Well, either the girl lied because she was afraid or…if she was telling the truth, that makes Lucas Ritchie the obvious candidate,” Kincaid said. “Although there’s nothing in the checks we’ve done that suggest he’s ever been to Sylhet. And if he killed Naz Malik, he must have been able to teleport, because everyone at his niece’s birthday party swears he was there the whole time.”

  “Back up a bit.” Gemma had been thinking furiously. “Granted, Ritchie’s club seems the perfect vehicle for moving on trafficked girls. But look at ‘rich white guy’ from the point of view of a girl who came from a village in Sylhet.”

  “Ah.” Kincaid was following her. “That broadens the spectrum a bit, doesn’t it?”

  “Any male with a reasonable income would do. A professional, say. I think we should check out the vet, John Truman. Pippa Nightingale says he probably knew Sandra, and might very well have been one of her clients.”

  “You’re thinking about the ketamine?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe.” Kincaid sounded only partially convinced. “But if the girls are passed on, there must be a network that allows it, some way that men who like little girls contact one another, some environment that makes them feel safe. And Ritchie’s club would be the obvious place such an environment connected with Sandra Gilles. But I’ll have to have something a lot more concrete before I can question him again.”

  Gemma realized she’d been hearing traffic sounds in the background. “Where are you?”

  “City Road.” There was the faintest trace of amusement in Kincaid’s voice.

  “You’re already going to interview the vet, Truman.”

  “Spot on, Sherlock.”

  “Give me the address,” said Gemma. “I’ll meet you there.”

  The Georgian elegance of the terrace near Hoxton Square was rather marred by the shop at its end advertising “cheap booze.” Gemma had no need to search for the address, as Kincaid and Cullen were already there and waiting for her in their car.

  They got out and came over to her as she parked. “That was good timing,” Kincaid said, opening her door. He brushed his fingers against her arm as he reached to help her out, a discreetly affectionate gesture. “A minute more and we’d have roasted.”

  Cullen gave her a smile that just missed being a grimace, letting her know that he was tolerating her presence because he had no choice, and the three of them walked to the door. The only indication that the house was a veterinary surgery was a discreet brass plaque beside the bell, bearing Truman’s name and professional qualification.

  Cullen rang, then held the door for them when the lock clicked open. They entered a hall, its style much grander than Naz and Sandra’s entry. But like the Fournier Street house, there was a central staircase, and a reception room on the right that faced the street.

  The woman at the reception desk-which looked as if it had started life as a Georgian dining table-looked up as they came into the room. Her expression was more puzzled than welcoming. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but Mr. Truman sees clients only by appointment.” She was middle-aged and well, if not stylishly, groomed, and her accent was posh enough to make well-to-do urban pioneers in the East End feel at home. Gemma doubted Mr. Truman ministered to many puppies and kittens from council estates.

  The chairs and settees were formal, and the walls were hung with gilt-framed, dark-hued oil paintings featuring dogs, with the occasional cat in the shadows. Gemma thought she much preferred the cheap and cheerful posters and cluttered atmosphere of their veterinary clinic in All Saints Road. There was no sign of a Sandra Gilles collage, and she began to wonder if Pippa had been wrong.

  Kincaid had shown the receptionist his warrant card, and she said frostily, “I’m afraid that’s quite irregular. Mr. Truman can’t see you. He’s having his lunch, and his afternoon appointment will be here any moment.”

  “His afternoon appointment may have to wait.” Kincaid’s smile conveyed more threat than charm. “I’m afraid we will have to insist.”

  The staring match lasted a moment, then she got up, her mouth pinched with disapproval, and said, “I’ll just see if he’s finished his lunch.”

  “These paintings look the kind of thing you’d pick up at a market stall,” Kincaid murmured in Gemma’s ear as the receptionist left the room. “If he has a collage, I doubt he displays it for the paying customers.”

  They heard a door opening and closing nearby, and after a moment the receptionist returned. “Mr. Truman will see you in his office. Next door on the right.” She dismissed them with a nod and turned back to her computer.

  It
seemed to Gemma that the woman’s lack of curiosity at the advent of three police officers demanding to see her boss indicated a profound lack of imagination. Perhaps that was why Truman employed her.

  Kincaid knocked on the door the receptionist had indicated, then opened it and went in, followed by Gemma and Cullen.

  John Truman didn’t bother to get up from behind his desk. A pudgy man, perhaps in his forties, he boasted thinning hair combed artfully over his scalp. He was straightening a stack of files, and his hands seemed unnaturally pale, the fingers sausagelike. His small mouth was pursed in an expression that managed to combine indignation with self-satisfaction.

  Gemma found him instantly repellent. She couldn’t imagine turning her dog or cat over to his care, and the thought of a child-

  “This is very inconvenient,” Truman said in a high, slightly breathy voice. “I can’t imagine why you want to speak to me.”

  Gemma saw Kincaid’s mouth twitch with annoyance. He wasn’t much for standing on rank, but the man’s behavior towards a senior police officer was appallingly rude. “It’s Detective Superintendent Kincaid, Mr. Truman, Scotland Yard. And this is Detective Inspector James, and Detective Sergeant Cullen. We understand that you knew Sandra Gilles. I believe you own some of her work.”

  “Sandra?” Truman looked genuinely shocked. “I have a collage, yes, in my house. They’re very collectible. But what has that to do with you?”

  “You do realize that Sandra Gilles has been missing for months?”

  “Well, yes, but as you said, it’s been months. I still don’t see-”

  “And where did you learn that Sandra was missing, Mr. Truman? Would that have been at the club in Widegate Street?”

  Truman stared at him. His fat white fingers moved convulsively. “That’s not-How did you-I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”