Necessary as Blood (20 page)

And they had seen her. She hadn’t identified herself, hadn’t given her last name, but would it be enough to make them, or their hypothetical bosses, suspicious?

And what if Gail hadn’t been fooled by her dithery act? What if Gail had been playing her, having marked her as an undercover cop? And a lousy undercover cop, at that.

Bloody hell. The worst thing was that she could not—absolutely could not—repeat anything she’d learned to Janice Silverman. Gail Gilles was vain, grasping, callous, bigoted, and still seemed to hold a vicious grudge against her missing daughter. Nor did she seem to feel an iota of genuine concern for her granddaughter. The thought of Charlotte being abandoned to the woman’s care—if you could call it that—made her feel ill again.

As she wiped her sweaty face with a handkerchief, trying to work out what to do next, her phone rang, and she saw with relief that it was Melody and not Kincaid. She wasn’t ready to tell Kincaid that she just might have made a balls-up of things.

“Boss.” Melody sound reassuringly crisp and cheerful. “You said to call if anything came in, so I am. There’s been a burglary, a hairdresser’s shop down the bottom of Ladbroke Grove. Last night, but they just now got round to reporting it. Manager apparently waited until the owner came in. Want me to put Talley’s team on it?”

“What?” It took Gemma a moment to make sense of what Melody had said. In the last two weeks, they’d had a string of nighttime burglaries of small shops, although the culprits usually didn’t manage to get much more than a little merchandise and some petty cash. “Oh, right,” she said, recovering. “Yes, Talley should take it. He’s been working the others.” A thought occurred to her. “Look, Melody, could you get away for a bit? I’m in Bethnal Green.”

Melody had suggested they meet at the Spitalfields Market. “There’s a good salad place there. I haven’t had lunch, and I’m watching my
calories.” If she was curious as to why Gemma was in Bethnal Green when she’d said she was going to Leyton to visit her mum, she kept it to herself.

Although Gemma hadn’t far to drive, it took her so long to find a place to park that Melody, having come on the tube to Liverpool Street, was there before her.

On this Wednesday afternoon, the vendors’ tables in the main arcade of the old market were stacked and folded, and the empty trading space seemed to echo a little wistfully under the great glass vault. She found the salad kiosk round the corner, across the arcade from some of the trendier cafés. It had a buffet line on the inside, and a few tables with umbrellas out in the arcade, as if it were a sidewalk café.

“I finally parked in the Bangla City carpark,” Gemma said when she reached Melody. “I hope I don’t get towed.” The Asian supermarket was at the Brick Lane end of Fournier Street, and she had walked past Naz and Sandra’s house on her way to the market. The house seemed to her to have taken on an indefinable air of desertion in the few days since she had seen it.

“What are you doing here?” Melody asked. “I thought your mum had been sent home.”

“She has. I—It’s…complicated.”

Melody looked at her critically. “Well, I’m starved, and you look positively knackered. Have you eaten?”

“No, but—”

“We’ll get something. And then you can tell me about it.” When Gemma started to protest, Melody overrode her. “You have a seat and I’ll choose. I know what’s good here, and I know what you like.”

Gemma sat down at one of the little round tables, willing enough to be managed for the moment. The shade and the drafts of air moving through the arcade were welcomingly cool, and by the time Melody came out, with plastic boxes of salad and cups of coffee, she had begun to feel a bit more collected.

The prospect of coffee made her quail, but then she thought per
haps she should approach it as if she were getting back on a horse—if she didn’t erase the taste of Gail Gilles’s horrible brew now, she might never be able to face coffee again.

Melody had brought her a plain latte, her favorite coffee drink, and the salad was a colorful mix of beetroot, carrot, chickpeas, and hard-cooked egg on greens. “How did you know about this place?” Gemma asked, finding as she tasted the salad that she was hungry after all. And the coffee was deliciously strong and mellow.

“Oh, I like to come to the Saturday market.” Melody shrugged offhandedly, displaying her usual reluctance to discuss her personal life. “It’s mostly touristy tat now, but there are still some good stalls. So, is this about the Malik case?” Melody asked, changing the subject before Gemma could question her further.

Gemma finished a bite of salad, considering. She badly wanted someone to confide in—but how much could she say without betraying Kincaid’s confidence?

And she was Melody’s boss, which made it even trickier to admit that she’d skived off work and lied about going to visit her ill mum, especially when the one thing she absolutely could
not
say was that she’d done it at Kincaid’s instigation. But then, Melody was so solidly dependable, and had never let her down. If there was anyone she could talk to…

“I went to see Gail Gilles,” she blurted out. “Sandra’s mother. I wasn’t supposed to, and I can’t talk about it. I can’t have been there, do you see?”

“Okay,” Melody said thoughtfully. “You weren’t there. I get that. So what didn’t you see when you weren’t there?”

Gemma pushed her salad away, her appetite suddenly gone. “Oh, Melody, she’s horrible. She doesn’t care anything about Charlotte—in fact, I’d say she actively dislikes her, or at least the idea of her. I don’t think she actually knows her at all. And I can’t imagine her looking after a child, although her own children seem to have grown up by hook or by crook. Crook being more like it.”

“The sons?”

Gemma nodded. “And I
cannot
talk to Janice Silverman about the things I saw that will probably be tidied up before social services make their first home visit, or about the things she said to me that she would probably never say to a social worker.”

“Eat,” Melody ordered, scooting the salad back in Gemma’s direction. “And let’s think about what else you can do. If she doesn’t want Charlotte out of grandmotherly concern, then why is she willing to take on a child?”

Picking obediently at the shredded beetroot, which had stained the hard-cooked egg a lovely pink, Gemma said, “It’s got to be money. If the house is unencumbered, it’s worth a lot. And Sandra’s unsold artwork—it may be valuable, too.” She thought of the prices she’d seen on the works in Pippa’s gallery. “I should have thought to ask Pippa Nightingale.”

“Nightingale?” Melody looked bemused, but waved her fork. “Never mind. Go on.”

“Duncan said Naz’s law partner is the executor of his will, but Naz and Sandra didn’t name a guardian for Charlotte.”

“But the estate will have to make provision for her care, so maybe Grandma thinks if she gets the kid, she’ll get a piece of it, or at least a regular allowance,” suggested Melody. “But I would think that the mother’s disappearance would complicate matters. Can you talk to the lawyer?”

“I don’t see why not,” Gemma said slowly. “As long as I don’t mention anything about…where I didn’t go.”

“That’s one avenue, then. So who’s this Pippa person? That’s a posh name if I ever heard one. Could she add anything you
could
repeat about Gail Gilles?”

“Pippa is—was—Sandra’s art dealer. Roy Blakely told me they’d had a falling-out, but Pippa says it was a disagreement over the way Sandra was marketing her art. She says she didn’t know Sandra’s family, and that Sandra never talked about them.”

“I’m beginning to see why,” said Melody.

Gemma grimaced. “That’s an understatement. But the odd thing was, Pippa said she and Sandra and Lucas Ritchie were all three friends.”

“Lucas Ritchie was the guy Naz Malik told Tim Sandra was rumored to have had an affair with—well, that’s a bit garbled, but you know what I mean.” Melody waved her fork dismissively. “Did you ask Pippa about the alleged affair?”

“No.” Gemma drank some of her latte, savoring it. “I was there as a friend, because of Charlotte, and Pippa seemed so upset about Naz’s death, and about Sandra…it just seemed…inappropriate. Duncan asked Lucas Ritchie, though, and he said he and Sandra had been friends since art college, and that Naz would never have believed such a rumor.” She went on to recount Kincaid’s description of the club. “It’s just round the corner here, in Widegate Street. And the interesting thing is that when Duncan asked Ritchie who started the rumor, he said it might have been a former employee, who is now conveniently missing.”

“So.” Melody tossed both their salad containers in the nearby rubbish bin and came back wiping her fingers with the paper napkin. “Is there any reason you can’t talk to Lucas Ritchie, as a friend of Naz’s?”

“I’d have to have got the information about the club from the police—”

“Tell him you got it from Pippa Nightingale.”

“But—”

“Or tell him you want to know if you can hire his posh club for your hen party. Ask him if he’ll allow a male stripper.” Melody grinned impishly.

Gemma groaned. “Don’t be absurd. And I don’t want to have a hen party. Why would you think I did?”

“Because some of the girls at the station have been talking about it.” Melody grew serious. “They think they’re being snubbed. That they’re not good enough for the boss.”

“Snubbed? But I haven’t even made plans for the wedding,” Gemma protested.

Melody hesitated, then said, “And I’m not usually one to repeat gossip or to pry, but tongues are starting to wag about that, too. Boss, are you and the super not getting along?”

Gemma gaped at her. She’d had no idea people were talking. “Of course we’re getting along. We’re fine. It’s just—it’s just that I don’t want a
wedding
.” There, she’d said it, and the world hadn’t fallen in. At least, not yet. “It’s turned out to be something for everyone except us, and I just hate the whole idea.” She thought of the way things had been the previous evening, with Duncan and the boys and Charlotte, and it was that…that
intimacy
she’d wanted to celebrate.

“Well, post banns and go to the register office, then,” Melody suggested. “I’ll be your witness.”

Touched, Gemma said, “Thanks, Melody.” Then she shook her head. “But my mum really wants this for me, and right now—I just don’t think I can disappoint her.”

Melody gave her a searching look, then shrugged. “It seems to me that you can either disappoint your mother or disappoint Duncan.” She stood. “So Duncan said this Ritchie guy is good looking? Come on, let’s go see for ourselves. I’ll be your partner in crime.”

To Gemma the street seemed like a canyon, a last bastion of the old London, close and crowded, steeped in the bustle of centuries, while beyond it the great towers of the modern City advanced inexorably, like armies of jagged glass shards. “I wonder why it was called Widegate?” she said aloud.

Melody, who was scanning the frontages as she walked beside her, answered absently. “These are eighteenth-century silk merchants’ houses, most of them. Maybe there was a gate into Spitalfields—literally into the fields, I mean. Look, this must be the club. It’s a new building, but very cleverly done.”

The building matched the description that Kincaid had given Gemma. She rang the bell, and after a moment, the door clicked open.

The girl who met them in the elegant reception area, however, was not the girl Kincaid had described. This one was a delicate blond, with a Nordic look that reminded Gemma of Pippa Nightingale, but Gemma’s gaze was held by the large fabric collage over the desk. Sandra’s work, undoubtedly, and as stunning as the pieces she had seen in Sandra’s studio.

They had no sooner asked to see Lucas Ritchie than a tall, fair man appeared from the small office area behind the reception desk. He came towards them with a hand outstretched, but his expression was a bit wary. “I’m Lucas Ritchie. Can I help you?”

“I’m Detective Inspector Gemma James, and this is DC Talbot. But I’m not here officially, Mr. Ritchie.” As Gemma shook his hand, she gave him the same explanation she had given Roy Blakely and Pippa Nightingale, and took the opportunity to study him. Good looking, yes, but—she couldn’t quite put her finger on what she found disconcerting. Perhaps he was just a bit too neat and perfectly tailored, although there was a suggestion of muscle under the fine fabric of his suit jacket. Or maybe it was the faintest hint of red to his fair hair, or the freckling on his lightly tanned skin—something she had a personal bias against. “Pippa said that you and Sandra went back a long way,” she went on, trying to mesh this very polished man with what she knew of Sandra. “I thought that if you’d known her family…”

Ritchie moved away from the desk, although the blond girl had disappeared into the office area. A pale, heatless flame flickered in the sitting-area fireplace, even on such a warm day. It was meant to invoke a cozy atmosphere, Gemma supposed, but Ritchie didn’t offer them a seat.

“I told your superintendent—Kincaid, was it?” Ritchie said, and Gemma nodded vaguely, as if she hadn’t a clue as to who he meant. She certainly wasn’t claiming possession at this point. “I told Superintendent Kincaid yesterday that I really didn’t know Sandra’s fam
ily.” Ritchie leaned against the back of an armchair, folding his arms. “You have to understand, when we first met, we were kids in art school. Those aren’t the sort of things we talked about. We were going to change the world, and we didn’t want any baggage while we were doing it.” There was a faraway look in his caramel-colored eyes. After a moment, he added reflectively, “Although I think you could say Sandra tipped the balance for the better. And she had more cachet than most of us, even in the beginning, being a genuine working-class girl, although she didn’t make stock of it.”

“Was she ashamed of her background?” asked Melody. In her tastefully pin-striped dark suit, she looked as if she belonged on the club staff.

“Sandra?” Ritchie laughed. “You didn’t know Sandra. She was proud of being an East Ender—a real East Ender, some would say now—although Sandra was never the type to exclude anyone. She was unusually touchy about prejudice against race or religion, even for the multicultural crowd we hung out with.”

“Mr. Ritchie,” said Gemma, trying to come up with a tactful way to say it, “were you and Sandra always…just friends?”

He gave her an assessing look, then shrugged. “I don’t know why it should be anyone else’s business. As I’ve said, it was a long time ago. But if you want the truth, I always fancied Sandra more than she fancied me. She thought I was all flash and no substance, and I have to admit my track record hasn’t been great, relationship wise. And then, when she met Naz, everyone else was history.”

“How did she meet Naz, do you know?”

“He bought flowers from her.”

The blond girl came out of the little office, carrying a tray set with a teapot and cups. “Sorry, Lucas,” she said. “Phone kept ringing.” She set the tray down on the coffee table in the sitting area, then hurried back to the desk as the front door buzzed.

“Thanks, Karen,” he called after her. Then, motioning them to sit, Ritchie joined them and poured the tea himself. Two men came in, greeting the blond girl. The doors behind the desk opened to reveal a lift, and a group of men stepped out, making way for the incomers. They nodded at Ritchie as they headed for the front door.

“Last of the lunch crowd clearing out,” Ritchie murmured. “It’ll be drinks soon.”

“So Sandra met Naz when she was working for Roy?” said Gemma, pleased by the idea.

“A bit fairy tale, but yes. I think he came every Sunday for a month before he got up the nerve to ask her for coffee.”

“You’ve known Naz for a long time, too, then.” Gemma balanced the fine white china cup on her knee. She wasn’t sure why Ritchie was being so accommodating—she had the sense that it was in some way a performance—but she wasn’t going to let an opportunity go by. “What was he like? It’s been harder to get a feeling for him, for what made him tick.”

“We all thought she’d gone bonkers at first. It wasn’t that he was Asian—if you were racially prejudiced you certainly didn’t admit to it—but he was a lawyer, for God’s sake. Older, sober, hardworking—none of those things was in our art student manifesto.” Ritchie drank some of his tea and stared into the cold fire. “It was only later, as I got to know him a bit better, that I saw the sense of humor beneath that serious exterior. But there was also a sort of rock-solid steadiness to Naz. They balanced each other, or maybe it was that he saw something in Sandra that no one else did.

“And they were both completely committed to being a family.” He frowned, as if testing his memory. “I don’t think Naz had any family left, and Sandra, well, it comes back to that, doesn’t it?”

He glanced at her, as if considering, then went on more slowly. “There was something that happened, I’d forgotten. In art college, when she first starting going out with Naz. She came to class one day with a black eye. She hadn’t tried to cover it up, she wasn’t like
that—there was always a bit of defiance to Sandra—but she wouldn’t talk about it either. If you asked something she didn’t want to answer, she would just give you a look that would freeze your marrow.

“But I asked her, because I didn’t know Naz well then, if it was this new guy, and she looked truly shocked. She said, ‘Bloody hell, do you think I’m some sort of slag?’ and she wouldn’t speak to me for a week.”

“Was she living at home still?” Gemma asked.

“Yeah. Dreadful council flat. I picked her up and dropped her off now and again, but she never let me come in.”

“So do you think someone in her family did that to her?”

“Well, if it wasn’t Naz—and I don’t believe it was—she had those two younger brothers. I got the impression she’d never known her dad, but then I suppose her mum might have had boyfriends…”

“Don’t discount the mum,” Melody put in. “It wouldn’t be the first time a mother lost her temper, even with a grown daughter.”

Gemma had considered that Gail might neglect Charlotte, or verbally abuse her, or expose her to bad influences, but it hadn’t occurred to her that Gail might physically harm her. But of course it was possible. She felt stupid, and more than a little horrified.

“Mr. Ritchie, would you be willing to testify in family court about the possibility that Sandra was abused by someone in her family?”

“Family court?” He stared at her as if she were the one who’d gone bonkers. “But it’s completely unsubstantiated. And it was years ago. I really don’t see—” He looked round and even though there was no one else in the reception area, lowered his voice. “I can’t afford to be involved in some sort of squabble that would damage the club’s reputation.”

“Squabble?” Now it was Gemma’s voice that rose. “Mr. Ritchie, a child’s well-being depends on—”

Melody touched Gemma’s arm, a definite back-off signal. “Boss, I think Mr. Ritchie’s been very helpful.”

Realizing that Melody was right, Gemma forced a smile. “Of
course. I understand your concerns, Mr. Ritchie. But if you think about Charlotte—”

“Look, I’m not much of a kid person. And Sandra didn’t bring Charlotte when she came to the club, so I suppose I haven’t seen her since she was in nappies—she’s not still in nappies, is she?” Ritchie looked a little dismayed at the thought.

“No. She’s almost three, and she’s a lovely, bright little girl.” Gemma leaned forward, at her most persuasive. “She is, I imagine, a lot like Sandra. And she’s missing her mum, and now her dad. Mr. Ritchie, I’ve met Sandra’s mother, and I don’t think anyone who cared for Sandra would want Charlotte to go there.”

“That’s straight-out blackmail, and you’re very well aware of it,” he shot back, but the animosity had gone from his tone. “Look, I want to help Sandra’s little girl. But it has to be something better than repeating a speculation about an incident that happened years ago. Are you sure Pippa can’t tell you anything more? She and Sandra were closer, in some ways.”

“Roy Blakely told me that Sandra and Pippa hadn’t been getting on. When I asked Pippa, she said they’d disagreed over the way Sandra was marketing her work, and that Pippa was no longer representing her. But she seemed very upset over Naz.”

“Put it down to a guilty conscience over being a bitch,” said Ritchie, with such unexpected bite that Melody, who had been watching a newcomer get into the lift, looked round, as startled as Gemma.

Seeing their faces, Ritchie shrugged and set his empty cup down on the tray. “You have to take anything Pippa tells you with a grain of salt. She disapproved of Sandra’s commissions for me, and for my clients. Those who can’t do have to find some way to criticize those who can.”

“Pippa was jealous of Sandra?” asked Gemma, thinking back over their conversation.

“Pippa would have killed for Sandra’s talent. Oh, I don’t mean that literally, of course,” he amended, seeming to realize what he’d
said. “And to give Pippa credit, she does have a gift for recognizing talent. But her own work was always derivative, all about following the latest trend rather than expressing any personal vision. Not that I was much better.” His smile was rueful. “But Pippa…Pippa couldn’t give up gracefully. If she couldn’t create art, she wanted to control it, and Sandra wouldn’t play. Sandra just wanted to do what she loved and make a decent living at it. Most of us should be so fortunate.” His eyes went to the collage hanging over the reception desk, and the emotion drained from his face. He stood. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got a club to run.”

Karen had been fielding a steady influx of members and had begun to cast harried glances Ritchie’s way.

Having obviously been dismissed, Gemma and Melody followed suit, and he walked them to the front door. As he opened it, he said, “Surely there’s someone looking out for Charlotte Malik’s interests.”

“Social services, Mr. Ritchie,” said Gemma, now more certain than ever that that wasn’t good enough. “And me.”

“What’s his game, do you think?” asked Melody as they walked back towards Spitalfields. “He never actually answered when you asked him if he and Sandra were lovers.”

“No, he didn’t, did he?” answered Gemma. “And I’m not quite sure why he would evade one way or the other. What does he have to lose? But I do get the sense that he and Pippa Nightingale aren’t on the best of terms.”

“Really?” Melody grinned at her. “So do you think this Pippa has the unrequited hots for him, and held a grudge against Sandra because he preferred her?”

Gemma considered as she walked. They passed the old nut-roasting warehouse, the lettering on the brick facade faded against the deep August blue of the sky. “Pippa’s a strange one. A bit fey…and I think Ritchie’s right about the controlling issue. She likes being the
center of the drama. And maybe there was more to her falling-out with Sandra than art.”

“Could she have been jealous enough to kill Sandra?” asked Melody.

“You’re assuming that Sandra is dead.” Gemma kept her voice even, and didn’t look at Melody.

“Aren’t you?”

“I don’t want to think so.” But Gemma recalled the short walk from Columbia Road Market to Pippa Nightingale’s studio, and she couldn’t shake the image of the monochrome paintings with the brilliant splashes of red pigment. What if Sandra had gone there that day to talk to Pippa, and they had argued? Gemma had sensed a ruthlessness beneath Pippa’s elfin looks, and Lucas Ritchie had confirmed it—if he was telling the truth.

They had reached Brushfield Street, and the permanent canopy erected over the west end of the Spitalfields Market looked jaunty, like a sail. A busker in bright African costume played the steel drums, and families congregated in the awning’s shade, talking and laughing and eating ice cream. Surely, Sandra and Naz had brought Charlotte here, Gemma thought, and she had had ice cream, too.

“I might want to have another chat with Pippa Nightingale,” she said to Melody. “But just now I want to go home, check on the boys, call Betty, see how Charlotte’s doing today. What about you? Can I give you a lift?”

Melody seemed to hesitate. “There was something…no, never mind.” She shook her head. “Thanks, but I’ll get the tube. I have an…errand…to do before I go back to Notting Hill.”

Melody got off the train at High Street Kensington, and walked—or rather shoved—her way down Kensington High Street the short distance to the Whole Foods Market, for it had just gone six o’clock and the pavements were teeming with shoppers and commuters.

The enormous natural foods store offered a respite from the heat as well as the crowds. It was an American chain, and Americans seemed to consider air-conditioning a religion, a quirk of national character for which Melody at the moment was profoundly grateful. She doubted there was a dry spot left on the once-crisp blouse beneath her suit jacket.