Deborah Crombie - Necessary as Blood

“Will he be blackballed, do you think?”

“I doubt he’s broadcast his legal troubles, so the charges may come as a shock to the other members, if not to Ritchie. It might make Azad the odd boy out at school for a while. But he’s a wily sod; I expect he’ll recover. If he doesn’t go to prison.”

Gemma was studying the paper again. “That’s not looking very likely, is it, with the prosecution’s star witness still missing?” She looked up at him, rubbing her aching head. “Bloody hell. I should never have gone to the club. What if Lucas Ritchie mentions me? It’s all going to come back on you. I-”

Kincaid didn’t give her a chance to finish. “I think Ritchie will be keeping his head down. And there’s no reason why Ritchie, or anyone else, should connect your visit with this story. I doubt Ritchie or Azad will complain to the Met, although Azad may raise hell with the newspaper.” He studied her more closely, really focusing on her face for the first time. “Is that a bruise?” His brow creased. “What on earth happened to your head?”

Now Gemma wished she had waited up to explain the night before, but she hadn’t felt well and had had trouble staying awake. “I had a little run-in with Kevin and Terry Gilles yesterday,” she said reluctantly, then went on to explain what had happened, including Rashid Kaleem’s part in her rescue.

Kincaid had come in glowering. Now he looked volcanic. “Those bastards!” He stood up, pacing in her small office. “Fucking lowlife slime.” He didn’t swear often-not as much, Gemma hated to admit, as she did-and when he did, it was usually for effect in interviews. “I’ll have them in, whether Narcotics likes it or not, and I’ll have their balls in a vise. They’re not going to get away with making threats and laying hands on you, for God’s sake.” He clenched his fist. “Those little shits-”

“They didn’t actually hit me,” broke in Gemma, trying to calm him down. She had known he’d be upset, but she hadn’t expected him to be quite so angry. “They just pushed me into the car. And you absolutely cannot jeopardize the drugs investigation. You can’t let Kevin and Terry Gilles know that I’m a police officer, or even that I have any connection with the police. Or with you. It will make any information I got from Gail Gilles suspect, and put both our jobs at risk. And it might seriously endanger Charlotte.”

Kincaid stared at her. “Damn it to hell and back. I sent you in there.” He jammed his hands in his pockets, as if he didn’t trust himself not to hit something. “ I put you at risk.”

“You couldn’t have known. And I wanted to go. You just have to be prepared to throw everything you’ve got at the lovely Kev and Ter, once the Narcotics investigation is over.”

“That could be months,” he protested. “Narcotics won’t give me a timeline.”

“I don’t think Narcotics would be so touchy if the operation wasn’t coming to a head,” Gemma said thoughtfully.

Kincaid continued his pacing. “Even if it’s only days, every shred of evidence I have linking them to Naz Malik’s murder is going to go cold. And there’s something else. Azad told me that it was Kevin and Terry Gilles heading the mob that fire-bombed his restaurant. He didn’t tell the police, maybe out of a desire not to make more trouble, or maybe from some sort of loyalty to Naz and Sandra. But if Naz knew…”

“Kevin and Terry might have thought that shutting Naz up would guarantee Azad’s silence,” Gemma suggested. “Or maybe Naz threatened to turn them in.”

“Or it might be more complicated than that.” Kincaid stopped at the desk and turned the paper back in his direction. “This piece suggests that Azad owns businesses that are less aboveboard than his restaurant. Low-rent housing for illegals, sweatshops. Maybe he didn’t give up the Gilles brothers because Naz, or Sandra, had something on him.”

“Tit for tat? You’re assuming that Sandra would have protected her brothers?”

“No. I’m thinking that Azad might have assumed that Sandra would protect them.”

Gemma shook her head. “I thought you’d pretty much ruled Azad out.”

“Maybe I didn’t look closely enough.” Kincaid leaned across the desk and brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “And in the meantime, I want you to promise me you won’t go near Brick Lane, or Bethnal Green, or anywhere in the East End.” Although his touch had been gentle, his voice was grim. “Not until this drugs investigation is over with, and I have a chance to deal with Kevin and Terry Gilles.”

No sooner had Kincaid walked out of Gemma’s office than Melody walked in, carefully closing the door behind her. Her face was white as chalk. “Boss-”

“Melody, are you okay?” said Gemma. “Whatever is the matter? Sit down, for heaven’s sa-”

“Boss.” Melody stood at attention. Her crisp navy suit might have been a uniform, and she didn’t meet Gemma’s eyes. “Boss, I want to tender my resignation.”

I am very proud of my cockney background and have many memories of my East End childhood. I wanted to record the stories about that way of life before they were forgotten…Many families have roots in East London or in similar close-knit communities, and I wanted to preserve their stories, too.

– Gilda O’Neill, East End Tales

“Don’t be daft, Melody,” Gemma said. “Sit down.”

As Melody walked stiffly to the chair, she looked as if her limbs belonged to someone else. She sat and nodded towards the paper. “It’s my fault. That story.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My father. My father owns the Chronicle .”

“What?” Gemma wondered if her headache was making her hear things. “You’re having me on. This isn’t fun-”

“No. Oh, I’m serious, all right. I wish I weren’t,” said Melody. “My dad is Ivan Talbot. That Ivan Talbot. The newspaper baron.”

“But-But why did you never tell anyone?” asked Gemma, feeling thoroughly gobsmacked.

“Because I thought no one would ever trust me if they knew who I was. And they would have been right. None of this”-she prodded the paper with a scowl of distaste-“would have happened if it hadn’t been for me.”

“But surely you didn’t deliberately-”

“Of course not. But when I saw Ahmed Azad in the club, I couldn’t resist using the newspaper office to do the research. It was too easy, and it’s not the first time I’ve used the Chronicle’s morgue when I needed information that I thought would help solve a case. I thought I could have my cake and eat it, too, more fool me. Because this time, I blew it.

“I thought my dad had gone for the day. I used his office, and he came back when I still had the file on Azad open. He saw what I was working on. And then”-Melody shook her head, as if astounded by her own folly-“and then I was stupid enough to ask him if he knew anything about Ritchie’s club. That was all it took for him to put the pieces together.”

“And he didn’t tell you he was going to run the story?”

“You don’t know my dad. Nothing is more important than a story. Nothing. I could kill him.”

So that was how the paper had connected the police, the club, and Azad, thought Gemma.

“I should have known better,” Melody went on. “I should never have trusted him. And you should never have trusted me.”

“Melody, this wasn’t a self-fulfilling prophecy,” protested Gemma. “Maybe you shouldn’t have done the research at the paper-”

“But this is just the tip of the iceberg, don’t you see? You know what the papers are like, and my dad’s is one of the worst. Oh, he wants a shred of truth to a story, but given that, he can spin straw into gold. If he knew I was involved in a sensitive case, he’d watch me like a vulture. And if anyone in the force knew my connection with him, they’d never let me near anything high profile. Didn’t you wonder why I’d never applied for promotion? I couldn’t risk it. I couldn’t risk anyone taking an interest in me.”