Necessary as Blood (12 page)

Gemma digested this, feeling ice down her spine. “He?”

“Grammatically speaking.”

“A man is more likely, if Kaleem believes Naz was walked or carried into the park.”

“Malik wasn’t a particularly large man. A strong woman might have managed. Or two people.”

“But how would you get the drugs into an unwilling victim?” she asked.

“I’d assume the Valium could have been administered in drink or food, at least enough to make the victim compliant,” Kincaid said. “I don’t know about the ketamine. We’ll have to talk to Kaleem again.”

“We?” said Gemma with a little jolt of excitement.

Kincaid responded with a question of his own. “You’re planning to visit your mum this afternoon, right? So you’ll be in the East End. And you’ve met the nanny—” She heard a rustle of paper, as if he
were checking notes. “Alia Hakim. I’ll need to interview her, and I thought it would be helpful if you came along.”

Kincaid had given Gemma the address of the council estate in Bethnal Green where Alia lived with her parents. It was not a high-rise, Gemma saw with relief, and the brown brick blocks were interspersed with panels of turquoise plaster. If the council had intended to add a note of cheer, it seemed the residents had responded in kind. There was an unusually well-kept common lawn. Flags of laundry hung bleaching in the sun on balconies and the ground-floor patios, amid hanging baskets and the inevitable chained bikes.

The Hakims lived in a ground-floor flat at one end of a unit, with access through a gated front patio fenced with eight-foot-high chicken wire. Shrubs had been planted outside the fence, and beside the gate, a half whisky barrel planter held a large palm. A framework of wooden slats had been built over the garden to hold a canvas canopy, now rolled back, and the garden itself held flowering plants, clotheslines, and a motley collection of children’s toys. The Hakims had extended their living space quite efficiently, Gemma thought as she waited for Kincaid to join her.

Watching him cross the lawn, she saw that he’d discarded his tie altogether and had rolled up the sleeves of his pale pink dress shirt. He wore sunglasses, and the sun sparked gold from his chestnut hair.

“It’s blistering,” he said when he reached her, tucking the sunglasses into his shirt pocket.

“You look like you should be in Miami,” she said, repressing the sudden desire to touch his face. “I like the glasses.”

“If it were Miami, there would be ocean. And we would be in it.” He studied her. “Not looking forward to this, are you? I spoke to Mrs. Hakim on the phone. She said Alia’s very upset. Her father’s taken off work.”

Gemma frowned, thinking of the offhand comments Alia had
made about her parents. “Not necessarily a good thing, I suspect,” she murmured. “But best to get on with it. Where’s Doug?”

“Gone back to the Yard to do some research on one of Naz Malik’s pending cases. I’ll fill you in later.”

Both the gate and the flat’s front door were open, the doorway protected by a swinging curtain of beads. Gemma and Kincaid entered the garden, but before they could ring the bell, the beads parted and Alia came out. Today, although dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved yellow blouse, she wore the hijab. Her face looked pale and puffy against the head scarf, and the heavy frames of her glasses didn’t quite disguise the fact that her eyes were red from weeping.

“Alia,” said Gemma, “this is Superintendent Kincaid. We just need to talk to you for a bit.”

The girl glanced at Kincaid, then ducked her head and whispered to Gemma, “Is Charlotte okay? I’ve been so worried.”

“She’s fine,” Gemma assured her. “She’s with a good friend of mine.” She didn’t mention Sandra’s sister’s petition. “How are you doing?”

Alia touched Gemma’s sleeve and dropped her voice further. “I didn’t tell my parents I was keeping Charlotte on Saturday. They don’t like—my
abba
—”

“Alia,” called a man’s firm voice. “Bring your visitors inside.”

“Coming, Abba.” To Gemma, she whispered, “Do I have to—”

“Yes, I’m afraid you do,” Gemma said.

With a resigned nod, Alia held the curtain aside, and Gemma and Kincaid entered the flat.

Except for a box of toys, the sitting room reflected none of the jumble of the front garden. There was a three-piece suite in a floral print and a coffee table made from a brass tray on a stand, and center stage against the far wall an enormous flat-screen TV played a Bollywood channel with the sound off. Gemma wondered if the flat had been tidied especially for their visit.

Shelves held colorful Eastern knickknacks, but there were no
visible books or magazines. On a side table, a rotating fan pulled in warm, sluggish air and feebly distributed it round the room. Gemma saw that Alia’s upper lip was beaded with sweat, but didn’t know if the girl was suffering from nerves or the heat.

The woman sitting on the sofa was an older, rounder version of Alia. She, like her daughter, concealed her hair with a scarf, but she wore a matching orange
salwar kameez
rather than Western dress. As she gave them a shy smile, a man Gemma assumed must be Alia’s father came into the room from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a tea towel.

“Mr. Hakim?” Kincaid held out his hand. “I’m Superintendent Kincaid. This is Inspector James. Thank you for seeing us.”

“It is our duty.” Having draped the towel over a chair in the small dining area, Mr. Hakim grasped Kincaid’s hand, but appeared not to see Gemma’s. Short and stocky like his wife and daughter, he had thick, dark hair going gray, and a severe mustache. His white shirt was neatly tucked into dark trousers. “Will you sit, please? My wife will bring tea.” Like Alia, he wore thick glasses.

Alia’s mother nodded and slipped soundlessly from the room. As Gemma and Kincaid sat side by side on the sofa, Mr. Hakim remained standing, his hands clasped behind his back. He continued, “This is a very bad thing. It is bad for our daughter to be associated with this, and I am hoping your questions can be answered quickly.”

Perching on the edge of one of the overstuffed armchairs, Alia tapped a sandaled toe against the carpet. Her toenails were painted a bright coral with pink polka dots, a surprisingly feminine contrast to her plain, un-made-up face. “Abba—”

“Mr. Malik was a man of good character, although we did not think it right for our daughter to be in his house with his wife away. I cannot think how this thing can have happened.”
When his wife was away?
Gemma wondered if this was a euphemism, or if Mr. Hakim didn’t know that Sandra Gilles had gone missing months earlier.

“Abba,” Alia said more forcefully, and this time her father looked at her. “I’m trying to tell you. I was there on Saturday, taking care of Charlotte. I know you don’t like me to be there on the weekends, but Naz—Mr. Malik—asked me to come for just a few minutes while he went out.” Her accent, in contrast to her father’s singsong lilt, seemed even more nasally Estuary than Gemma had noticed before. “I might have—maybe I was the last person to see him alive.”

Mr. Hakim’s mustache turned down at the corners as he tightened his lips. “You, Alia. If this is true, you have been very disobedient. I think you will have to pay a visit to your auntie in Sylhet if you cannot show respect for your parents’ wishes. We have had enough of this nonsense about lawyer school, this going and doing without any sense of what is proper. Your sisters—”

“My sisters have married totally boring men and lead totally boring lives,” Alia said vehemently as her mother came back into the room with a tea tray. “All they think about is babies and sweets and the latest Indian pop song—”

“Alia.” The sharpness of Kincaid’s tone stopped her midword. “You may not have been the last person to see Mr. Malik alive. We think Mr. Malik may have been murdered, and I need you to tell me anything you can remember about that day.”

The shock was mirrored on the faces of parents and child, but it was Alia who spoke. “Murdered? Naz murdered? But how—Why—”

“The police pathologist thinks someone gave him drugs and he suff—” Kincaid hesitated, and Gemma guessed he was searching for a more palatable description. “He stopped breathing.”

“Drugs?” said Mr. Hakim. “Alia, for you to be involved—”

“I am
not
involved,” Alia snapped at him. “And neither was Naz. Naz wouldn’t have anything to do with drugs.” She turned back to Kincaid and Gemma. “Why would someone do this to him?”

Out of courtesy, Gemma accepted a cup of the tea Mrs. Hakim had poured, sipping gingerly. It was lukewarm, tasted of cardamom,
and was teeth-achingly sweet. “Did Naz say or do anything that was different on Saturday?” she asked, glad for an excuse to set down her cup.

“No.” Alia shook her head slowly. “But he was…distracted. I told him I’d made samosas, and he—he didn’t thank me.” She carefully avoided meeting either parent’s gaze. “He was usually very polite.”

Gemma suddenly wondered if there were more to Mr. Hakim’s disapproval than fatherly overprotectiveness. Perhaps not on Naz Malik’s part, but it was only natural that this rather awkward girl might have developed a crush on her employer, especially if she had romanticized Sandra’s disappearance in some way.

“Did he mention anything about a case he was working on?” asked Kincaid. “He was defending a Mr. Azad, a restaurant owner.”

“No. Naz—Mr. Malik—never talked about work. Well, only a little, when I’d have questions about my law texts, but then it was only, you know, general. It would have been unethical for him to discuss his clients.”

Definitely an echo of hero worship in the slightly prim reply, thought Gemma, but she said, “Alia, did Mr. Malik ever mention a man called Ritchie? Lucas Ritchie?”

“No.” Alia frowned. “Who is he?”

“Someone Sandra might have known. Did Mr. Malik ever talk to you about what he thought had happened to Sandra?”

“No. No—well, only at first. The same sort of things you’re asking me. ‘Did she say anything?’ or ‘Was there anything different?’”

“Do you know why Naz and Sandra didn’t get along with Sandra’s family?”

“I—No, not really,” said Alia, but her covert glance at her parents was unmistakable. “It wasn’t my business,” she added, making Gemma even more certain that she had absorbed every detail of Naz Malik’s and Sandra Gilles’s lives.

“And it is no longer her concern,” Mr. Hakim broke in, address
ing Kincaid. “I think my daughter has nothing more to tell you, and I must get back to my work.”

“Mr. Hakim, we can interview your daughter here, or we can talk to her at the police station. A murder investigation does not revolve around your convenience. And Alia is of age—your presence is not required.”

“But I don’t know what else I can tell you,” said Alia, with another anxious glance at her father, and Gemma thought they’d get no more out of her in these circumstances.

“We appreciate your time, Alia.” Having apparently come to the same conclusion, Kincaid stood and pulled a card from his pocket. “If you think of anything else or need to get in touch—”

Alia plucked the card from his hand before her father could reach for it. “I’ll walk you out. I’ll only be a moment, Abba.” She obviously intended to forestall her father with speed, and Gemma just had time to say a quick good-bye to Mrs. Hakim, earning another shy smile. As she followed Kincaid and Alia from the flat, she wondered how much of the conversation Alia’s mother had understood.

Alia led them out through the patio garden and onto the lawn, then, when she was out of earshot, turned back so that she could survey the flat. “You have to understand about my father,” she said quietly, vehemently. “I don’t want you to think badly of him. He is not an uneducated man. In Bangladesh, he had a university degree. And he’s a good businessman—he owns a call center in Whitechapel Road. But he works all day with immigrants. He sees himself as an immigrant. His dream is to make enough money to retire in Bangladesh, and he wants…” She frowned, as if struggling to work out the words. “He doesn’t want anything in
this
life to—to stain
that
one.” Alia took a breath and went on, more hurriedly, “But me—I’m British first and Bangladeshi second. It doesn’t mean I disrespect my parents or my culture, but it’s different for me.”

Mrs. Hakim came out of the flat and began hanging laundry on the patio, glancing over at them as she lifted a sheet from her basket.

“Alia,” Gemma said urgently, afraid they would be interrupted, or that Alia would lose the nerve to make the confession she was obviously trying so hard to justify. “What is it that you don’t want your father to know?”

“My father—he disapproved of Naz and Sandra’s marriage, even though Naz was not Muslim. In Abba’s eyes it’s not right for an Asian to be with a white person. And Sandra—if he knew about her family—he would think I’d disgraced him, just by my connection with them. Even though I don’t know them personally.” Alia cast a wary eye towards her mother and ran a finger between her chin and the hijab. “It’s—what do you call it? Guilt by association.”

“What? How?” asked Gemma. “What could be that bad?”

“Drugs,” Alia whispered. “Sandra’s brothers do drugs.”

Kincaid raised an eyebrow. “Alia, half the city does drugs. Surely that’s not so unusual—”

“No.” Alia shook her head. “You don’t understand. I don’t mean they smoke a bit of weed or pop X at a party. I heard Naz and Sandra arguing, before Sandra disappeared. Sandra’s brothers deal heroin.”

“I have to ring the social worker.” Standing in the street with Kincaid, beside their respective cars, Gemma fumbled in her bag for her mobile.

“Slow down, love,” Kincaid said. “We have no idea if it’s true, to begin with. Could be just a rumor, or could be the girl misheard or misunderstood, or she might even be making things up for a bit of drama. It sounds as if her life is going to be pretty grim without Naz Malik in it.”

“Yes, well, maybe so. But I don’t think she’s making it up. Tim said Sandra didn’t get on with her brothers at all.”

“That’s hearsay, and even if the brothers are involved with drugs,
that doesn’t mean Sandra’s sister is as well. I’m sure the little girl will be fine.”

“Charlotte. Her name is Charlotte,” said Gemma, and was surprised by her own vehemence. “And you can’t know that she’ll be all right. She’s already lost both parents, at least as far as we know.”

He sighed. “Okay, you’re right. Call the social worker. But those decisions are hers to make, not yours. And—” He held up his hand like a traffic cop to stop her interrupting. “And I’ll see what I can dig up on Sandra Gilles’s brothers. According to the reports, they did have alibis for the time Sandra Gilles disappeared. But we don’t know yet about the day Naz was killed. Now”—he glanced at his watch, which suddenly seemed to Gemma an infuriating habit—“I’ve got to get back to Bethnal Green. I’ll ring you if we come up with anything concrete.” He kissed her cheek. “Go see your mum.”

Gemma watched as he got in his car, waving to her as he pulled away. She suddenly felt ridiculous, standing in the sun in the middle of a street whose name she didn’t remember, feeling angry with Kincaid for no reason other than that he had been bossy and slightly patronizing. If she were going to get her knickers in a twist any time a man behaved like that, she’d long ago have given up her job. It must be the worry over her mum getting to her.

She would go to the hospital, of course. But first she was going to ring Janice Silverman. And then, after she’d seen her mum, she was going to pay another visit to Tim Cavendish. Tim had been reluctant to tell them about Sandra’s rumored relationship with the mysterious club owner because he was protecting Naz. And if he’d held back one thing, were there others? Had Naz told him about Sandra’s brothers?

“Okay, what have we got?” Kincaid looked round at the occupants of the incident room at Bethnal Green station, who looked as bedraggled as the room itself. Polystyrene cups and plastic sandwich
boxes littered the tabletops; papers had drifted out of folders and onto the floor; articles of clothing had been draped over chair backs—all signs of what Kincaid hoped had been a productive afternoon. While he’d been out someone had got the whiteboard organized and tacked up a set of the crime scene photos.

He cleared space to sit on one of the tables as the female constable who’d been taking the public calls said, “Nothing on the phones, sir. A couple of nutters—we’ll check them out just in case—but nobody who sounds reliable has reported seeing anything in the park. I’ve pulled a photo of Naz Malik from the Gilles file and had it copied. We’ll get it posted round the park, and will have someone take it door-to-door in the nearby streets as well.”

“Nice initiative,” Kincaid said, trying not to notice that the constable had stripped down to the barest of tank tops and didn’t appear to be wearing a bra. “And you’re—”

“Ashley, sir.” She pushed a damp wisp of hair into her glossy brown ponytail and smiled. “Detective Constable Ashley Kynaston.”

“Newly promoted to CID,” put in Sergeant Singh, with the emphasis on
newly
, apparently not disposed to tolerate grandstanding by another attractive female officer.

“I’m beginning to think this is better than working at the Yard,” Kincaid murmured to Cullen, who had just come in, but Cullen looked at him blankly. Kincaid sighed. No wonder the poor bugger couldn’t get a date.

He addressed the group again. “Okay, no joy there. Anything from forensics?”

“Nothing immediately useful from the park,” said Singh, briskly taking charge. “But they’ve filed samples for comparison in case they’re needed later—a few unidentified shreds of cloth as well as the soil and leaf mold. It was too dry for prints. Nor was there anything of note in Mr. Malik’s personal effects. The techies have turned the mobile over to us, and I’ve got someone going through the numbers. All the most recent calls were from his friend Dr. Cavendish, his
nanny, and his partner.” She spoke without notes, and Kincaid guessed he had her organizational skills to thank for the whiteboard and photos.

“And the house?” he asked.

“Still working on it. We’ll need prints for comparison, but there’s nothing obvious. They’ve taken two computers in for analysis.”

“All right. They can carry on, but I’ll want to have a look myself at anything interesting in the house—papers, diaries, photos.” These were the items he always preferred to see himself, as it was often the things you weren’t looking for that turned out to be the most helpful. And in this case, particularly, when they might be dealing with not one crime but two, he wanted to get a sense of this couple, this household.

Gemma had seemed to feel a connection with them, and with their child—perhaps too much of a connection, he thought, remembering their last conversation. “Sergeant Singh, when you investigated Sandra Gilles’s brothers after she disappeared, was there any suggestion that they were involved with serious drugs? As in dealing?”

“I can tell you that.”

Turning, Kincaid saw a man leaning against the doorway, hands in the baggy pockets of his trousers. He still wore the jacket of his gray suit, which stretched across his broad shoulders, but the tail end of his tie hung from the jacket pocket. His graying hair was buzzed short, accentuating the pouches under his eyes.

“DI Weller,” said Kincaid.

“Got it in one.” Weller came into the room, propping himself on the edge of Singh’s table, and Kincaid sensed a subtle shift in the room’s alliances, a withdrawal. None of the Bethnal Green crew would want to be seen sucking up to Scotland Yard in front of their boss.

“Kevin and Terry Gilles are not the brightest clams in the pail,” Weller went on. “I can’t see them doing more than threatening kids
for their lunch money. One of them, Kevin, I think it is, has been taken in a few times for disorderly conduct, had his driving license suspended. Apparently has a bit of a problem with his drink, but that’s a long way from drug kingpin.”

“Duncan Kincaid, by the way. Scotland Yard,” Kincaid said, ignoring Weller’s slightly mocking tone. The DI was doing a fairly good job of playground bully himself, but they were all going to have to get along nicely if they were to get anything accomplished. “And this is Sergeant Cullen,” he added, and Cullen gave Weller a wary nod. Kincaid glanced at his watch, smiled at the rest of the room. “Long day, everyone, and good job. Let’s reconvene first thing in the morning, shall we?” He turned back to Weller. “Inspector Weller, can we buy you a drink?”

They sat at one of the few tables squeezed onto the pavement outside a pub in Commercial Street. Kincaid had chosen the establishment because it was within spitting distance of Naz Malik’s Fournier Street house and he wanted to check on the forensics team afterwards. Weller had chosen the table on the pavement because he wanted to smoke.

“I quit for six months,” Weller admitted when Cullen had gone for their pints. “But my son got married this weekend, and then this case…” He shrugged and lit a Benson & Hedges. Squinting past a stream of exhaled smoke, he held out a hand to Kincaid. “It’s Neal, by the way. Sorry if we got off on the wrong foot. Bad day.”

Cullen returned with three carefully balanced pint glasses and managed to set them down with only a slight slosh. Weller nodded his thanks and held out a hand to him as well. “Neal.”

“Doug.”

Proper introductions settled, Weller drank, then wiped the foam from his lip. “I was saying. Didn’t get a conviction today on a bastard we’re certain is a serial rapist. Jury considered the evidence
circumstantial and the judge couldn’t convince them otherwise. Eighteen-year-old kid looks like a choirboy, and then there was me. Who’re they gonna believe?”

“Tough luck,” Kincaid agreed.

“For the next woman he lures into an alley.” Weller crushed out his cigarette with unnecessary force, then sighed. “But that’s neither here nor there, is it? You want to talk about Naz Malik.”

“First, I want to talk about Sandra Gilles,” Kincaid said. “What do you think happened to her?”

Weller shrugged. “What are the options? One—the most likely—domestic row turned ugly, husband got rid of the evidence. But within an hour of her leaving the kid at Columbia Road, Naz Malik was seen very publicly waiting for his family in a bus-turned-restaurant in Brick Lane. What could he have done with her in that hour? His office wasn’t far, but we went over every inch of the place and found nothing. And if she were meeting her husband, why leave the kid? And why not tell the friend at Columbia Road that she was meeting her husband?” Weller drank more of his pint and Cullen shifted in his chair, as if anticipating being sent to fetch the next round.

“So maybe she went home for something, caught her husband unexpectedly in the house with someone else,” Cullen suggested.

Weller shook his head. “Again, not enough time. Malik went straight from the restaurant to Columbia Road, took the kid home, and when his wife hadn’t turned up by dark, he called the police. When would he have disposed of a body? And there was no evidence in the house. Same as the office, it was clean as a whistle. So, option two.” He shook another cigarette from the pack and lit it.

“Sandra Gilles decided she was tired of being a wife and mum and simply disappeared from her life, either on her own or with someone else. It happens. Maybe she hitched a ride and is working as a fry cook at a Little Chef halfway to Scotland. I’d like to think so.”

“But you don’t,” Kincaid said, knowing the answer. “And option three?”

Weller’s eyes hardened. “Somebody snatched her off the street in broad daylight. Somebody like that psycho who got off today. Maybe he pulled over in a car, asked for directions, and dragged her in. Maybe everyone just happened to have their lace curtains closed at that very moment. And if that’s what happened, God help her. I hope it was quick.” He finished his drink in one long draft and Cullen stood up obligingly.

“Guv?” Cullen nodded at Kincaid’s glass, but Kincaid shook his head.

When Cullen had gone inside, Kincaid said. “What about her brothers? Apparently Naz thought their alibi was dodgy.”

“They were drinking in a pub near the Bethnal Green tube station. Not a nice place, to put it politely. Clientele mostly drunks and punters, and yes, some of them were mates of Kev and Terry. But the landlord didn’t care for the brothers, and he vouched for them regardless. And even if their alibi hadn’t checked out, what would they have done with her? Kev’s car, a clapped-out Ford, was up on blocks on the council estate, and they live with their mum, so it’s not likely they took her home.”

Cullen came back with a new pint for Weller and a glass of what looked suspiciously like tonic water for himself. “A scrum in there,” he said, edging his way past two standing drinkers to slip back into his chair.

The after-work crowd had now spilled out of the pub’s open doors. Most of the men and women wore suits, but Kincaid spied a patron or two in jeans and T-shirts, and one girl in full Goth regalia, black fingernails included.

“The City is moving in.” Weller eyed the suits with obvious distaste. “I suppose that’s a good thing—lowers the crime rate anyway, less work for us. But most of them are bloody wankers. They get
jobs at some City bank, buy some overpriced tarted-up flat that’s barely been cleared of rats, and they think they belong here.”

“So who does belong here?” Kincaid asked, thinking about their earlier conversation with Alia Hakim. “The Bangladeshis? The Somalis? The artists?”

“There is that,” Weller agreed. “Not very many true Cockneys left—but what were Cockneys but poor immigrants who shoved out the immigrants who came before them?”

“Must have been a bit glamorous in its day, though, the old East End,” said Cullen. “The Kray twins—”

“Vicious bastards. I worked with blokes who’d seen the Krays’ handiwork up close—they had stories would make your hair stand on end. No”—Weller glanced round at the crowd—“good riddance to the Krays and their ilk, but just because the villains are less visible doesn’t mean they aren’t there.”

“What about this Ahmed Azad that Naz Malik and his partner were defending?” Kincaid asked.

“Ah, he’s a villain, all right, although certainly more civilized than the old-style gangsters. A first-generation immigrant as a teenager, he worked his way up in a relative’s restaurant while taking night classes in English and accountancy. Now he owns the restaurant and runs it well. He’s a wily old sod, with a foot in both communities.”

“Sounds like you know him well.”

“He’s been the complainant more often than not, when the white gangs have wreaked havoc in Brick Lane. And while it’s rumored he has a finger in a number of questionable operations, I haven’t heard him linked to murder.”

“Louise Phillips told us that the prosecution’s star witness in a trafficking charge against him has vanished. If Azad was responsible, and Naz Malik found out—”

Weller shrugged. “If Naz thought Azad had removed a witness, he might have declined the case, but I can’t imagine Azad taking out
his own lawyer. Might damage his prospects for future representation just a bit.”

“What if Naz thought Azad was involved in Sandra’s disappearance?”

“Sandra Gilles had no connection with Azad.”

“That you know of.” Kincaid locked eyes with Weller. “You didn’t know about Lucas Ritchie either.”

“We questioned everyone who had an immediate connection with Sandra Gilles. But we had no evidence that a crime had actually been committed. We had no reason to go through the woman’s client list.”

“If you didn’t think you had missed something, or that there was a connection between the wife’s disappearance and the husband’s murder, you wouldn’t have called us in.”