Necessary as Blood (21 page)

Having had much practice, she made a beeline for the ready-meals case at the rear of the store. After a moment’s consideration, she chose a carton of carrot and coriander soup, and a small plastic tub of pomegranate salad—and on second thought, she went on to the wine section and picked up a bottle of pinot grigio.

After her late lunch with Gemma, that should be supper enough, and her shopping was a delaying tactic as much as a necessity. As she walked back through the store, she passed the oyster bar and the champagne bar, and tried to imagine a life in which she would waltz up to either and order without guilt. Maybe the next time she came in, she would live a bit more dangerously.

The DJ at the mixing station near the front entrance looked up as she passed and smiled at her, cueing Corinne Bailey Rae’s “Put Your Records On.”

She smiled back, an indulgence she usually didn’t allow herself, and tried not to bounce to the beat.

But her temporary buoyancy evaporated quickly when she reached the street. She walked on, her purchases heavy in one hand, still mulling over what she had seen that afternoon in Lucas Ritchie’s club.

She’d thought she recognized a man who had come in, not as someone she’d met, but from a photo she’d seen in a newspaper, and fairly recently.

Well, she had an archive at her fingertips, almost literally, and this evening she couldn’t resist the temptation to take advantage of it, in spite of the attendant risks.

Turning the corner, she looked up at the great Art Deco building
that housed one of the country’s most blatant purveyors of tabloid news, the
Chronicle
. Then she used her pass card in the door.

“Evening, Miss Melody,” said the guard at the main desk as she crossed the lobby towards the lifts. “Your dad’s just left.”

“Just as well, George.” Melody stepped into the lift and pressed the button for the top floor.

Melody had to skirt the editorial room. She passed by quickly, nodding at a few familiar faces but not stopping to chat, and hoping that she wouldn’t have the bad luck to encounter her erstwhile blind date Quentin.

She slipped into her father’s glass-fronted office suite, glad to see that his über-efficient personal assistant, Maeve, had gone as well.

There must not be any major breaking news—or a juicy scandal—to keep the
Chronicle
’s owner late at his desk.

No one had questioned her right to be here—no one would dare question Ivan Talbot’s only child. This had been her world through childhood, the humming heart of the great newspaper, with its adrenaline yo-yo of breaking stories and frantic deadlines, countered by the desperate tedium of filling space on dead-news days.

This could be her world still if she chose, and her father had never given up hoping that she would give up this silly policing idea and put her talents to proper use. But even if she started as a junior reporter, she would always be the boss’s daughter, and she would never believe she stood on her own merits.

The skills she’d absorbed by osmosis, however, often proved extremely useful. Availing herself of Maeve’s desk and computer station, she accessed the system, typed in the paper’s internal password, and began to search.

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 inter
rupted 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.