Deborah Crombie - Necessary as Blood

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.”

In its heyday, the pub [the Bethnal Green Arms] had been the haunt of the Kray twins and various other East End underworld figures and thugs. But since then, its popularity had dwindled, possibly because the décor and ambience dated back to the same period.

– Tarquin Hall, Salaam Brick Lane

“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.