Deborah Crombie - Necessary as Blood

But Gail Gilles seemed unable to resist the temptation of a sympathetic ear, however unlikely its appearance on her doorstep. Pulling the door wide, she said, “That’s the truth, innit? I always say as kids should be with family. It hain’t natural otherwise. Why don’t you come in and ’ave a cuppa? What did you say your name was?”

“The kettle just boiled,” said Gail. “Should still be ’ot enough. Have a seat and I’ll bring something in.” Glancing in the kitchen, Gemma saw on the work top an open takeaway pizza box, a shiny new espresso machine, and beyond that, an old plastic electric kettle. The flat smelled faintly of bad drains, or perhaps rotting garbage.

As directed, she sat down gingerly on the edge of a new, overstuffed, cream-colored leather sofa, taking advantage of the opportunity to check out her surroundings. Her first impression was that the flat was the center of an ongoing jumble sale. The sofa had both matching chair and loveseat, all squeezed together like puffy cream mushrooms, and every bit of space left in the room seemed to be crammed with something. Odd bits of furniture, some of it broken. Children’s toys. Piles of clothing. Even a rug, rolled up and stood on end in a corner.

The yellowed walls held a motley collection of cheap prints, Princess Diana portraits, and a few family photos depicting two chunky boys and a girl who slightly resembled Sandra. Her face was prettier than Sandra’s, but less interesting and intelligent. Sandra’s younger sister, Donna? In another photo, the same young woman appeared older, with three unnaturally stiff-looking little boys clustered round her. There were no photos that Gemma could see of Sandra-or of Charlotte.

“That’s my Donna,” said Gail, startling Gemma as she came back into the room. She carried two mugs of what Gemma soon discovered was tepid instant coffee. It had obviously been made with water from the old kettle, as bits of scale floated on the top.

“Um, thanks.” Gemma smiled and set the mug on the coffee table, trying to keep up a slightly vague expression. She had been thinking that if Gail’s sons were dealing drugs, they weren’t doing too well at it, when she caught sight of the large flat-screen television half hidden by a pile of moving boxes. Beneath the TV, a satellite box and DVD player sat on the floor, beside a Bose sound system. Plastic Guitar Hero guitars lay to one side, next to toppling stacks of DVD boxes.

Put those things together with the sofas, ugly but probably expensive, and the fancy coffee machine in the kitchen. All were items that could easily be bought with handy, untraceable cash.

“She’s a good girl, my Donna. And those are Donna’s kids,” Gail went on, sitting down on the bloated chair with her own cup. “She had ’em all fixed up for that portrait studio, you know, the one where you get all the different sizes and the little ones you carry in your wallet.”

Gemma noticed that she didn’t refer to the children as her grandchildren. “They’re very good looking. Like Charlotte.”

Her face clouding, Gail said, “That Charlotte. You said you seen her, so you’ll know. She’s a darkie. Still.” Gail gave a gusty, martyred sigh. “She’s my flesh and blood, and it’s my duty to take her in.”

“Will you be moving, then?” Gemma gestured at the boxes.

“Oh, no. Not me. It’s my boys. That social worker says they’ve got to move out before I can have my own granddaughter. My boys pushed out of their own ’ome, if you can credit that! I don’t know as what I’d do without my boys. Why just Saturday, they borrowed their mates’ van and took me to pick out this furniture. Brought it home that very night, too.” Gail shook her head and her blond hair wobbled. “They look after me, don’t they?” She gave Gemma a sudden fierce glare. “It hain’t your friend who told that social worker lady those bad things about my Kev and my Terry?”

“Oh, no. It can’t have been,” said Gemma, thinking it wasn’t an outright lie, as she had been the one who’d passed the drug rumors on to Janice Silverman. “Where will they go, your sons?”

“Well, they can stay with their sister until we get this sorted. Not that she ’as room, mind you, but she wouldn’t turn ’em away. She’s a good sister, our Donna, not like some who think they’re too good for their own.” Gail kicked her gold sandals off under the coffee table, wiggling her toes, and as Gemma glanced down at one toppled shoe she saw that the label read Jimmy Choo.

She had to stop herself whistling through her teeth and put on a baffled look instead. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand…Who-”

“Sandra.” Gail’s tone was venomous. “Always thought she was too good for us, from the time she was no bigger than that daughter of hers. And then she married that Paki, and he turned her. Bad enough we have to live here with ’em. God knows what ’e’s done to that little girl, but we’ll soon see about that. It won’t take me long to sort ’er out.”

The scummy instant coffee Gemma had been forced to taste for politeness’s sake came back up in her throat. She thought the fury coursing through her veins must be visible, throbbing in her face. Swallowing hard, she said, “I didn’t know your daughter, Mrs. Gilles-Gail-do you mind if I call you Gail?” Not waiting for an answer, she prattled on, “About your daughter-I never really heard-what was it happened to your daughter?”

“She run off.” It was aggravation, not grief, that colored Gail’s voice. “Just upped and run off. Probably to get away from that Paki husband of ’ers. How she could leave that baby, I don’t know. It’s unnatural, innit?”

“Oh, I-” Gemma stood up so quickly that the coffee she’d set on the table sloshed from the mug. Her anger boiled up, and she felt she might be physically sick. “Oh, I am so sorry,” she managed to mumble. She fished a tissue from her handbag, grateful that for a moment her hair fell forward to hide her face. Mopping at the brown liquid, she said, “I-I’m afraid all of a sudden I’m not feeling too well.”

“Not catching, is it?” Gail looked at her suspiciously.

“No, no, I’m sure it’s not. It’s just the heat. Listen, ta ever so much for the coffee. I hope things work out for you. And for little Charlotte.” She flashed Gail a sickly smile and headed towards the door, dodging round the packing boxes.

“You,” Gail called after her. “What did you say your name was? Gemma?”

She turned back, her heart thudding. “Gemma. That’s right.” She had blown it, and now she was going to have to bail herself out, somehow, and without blowing the narcotics op as well.

“You said you helped look after Charlotte before the social worker lady took her.” To Gemma’s surprise, Gail’s voice had taken on a wheedling tone. “So you know that Silverman woman. Any way you could put in a good word for me?”

Gemma clattered down the stairs, barely missing the tricycle, and cannoned out onto the patch of green lawn. She was breathing as if she’d been running a sprint, and it was only when she reached her car and pushed her hair back from her face as she fished for her keys that she saw them.

Two young men, one more heavyset than the other, both with heads shaved to a dark stubble, watched her from near the bottom of the stairwell. Although they were older than they had been in the photos, she recognized them from the family portraits in Sandra Gilles’s flat. Kevin and Terry Gilles, undoubtedly. Had she gone right past them? Did they know she’d come from their mother’s flat? If not, they would soon enough.

She glanced away, keeping her face deliberately blank, just as her searching fingers found her keys. Casually, she inserted the key in the lock, opened the door, and climbed into the Escort. The driver’s seat scorched the backs of her thighs even through her trousers, and the steering wheel felt molten, but she switched the blower on high and drove slowly, cautiously away, without lowering the windows, and without looking back.