Necessary as Blood

CHAPTER TEN

…the land which is now Bangladesh was part of India until the partition in 1947, then it was East Pakistan from 1947 until the 1971 war of liberation, which saw the birth of Bangladesh as an independent nation.

– Geoff Dench, Kate Gavron, Michael Young, The New East End: Kinship, Race and Conflict

Another weekend spent finding excuses to come in to work. Worse still, Doug Cullen had even managed to get his guv’nor in on a Sunday afternoon, which hadn’t earned him any scout points. Sitting at his desk in his office at the Yard, Kincaid had pushed the printouts aside, steepled his fingers, given him a look worthy of the chief super, and said, “Just how bored are you, Doug?”

“Don’t know what you mean, guv,” Cullen had said, but he’d colored, knowing full well.

“This report could have waited until tomorrow morning.”

“But I thought if the chief had it first thing…” He’d sounded lame even to himself.

“Get a hobby, Doug. Check out the joys of Facebook or something.” Kincaid stood and stretched. He’d come to the office in T-shirt and jeans, hair rumpled. “I’m going home. And the next time you call me in on a Sunday, it had better be life or death.”

Cullen had stayed for a bit in the empty office, but not even the Yard’s air-conditioning had kept up with the heat of the afternoon. The room was stuffy, and the building had that stale, dregs-of-the-week feel that came with Sunday afternoons. When the janitors came through, he’d switched off the computer and left them to it.

The guv was right, he thought as he rode the stifling tube back to Euston Road. Since his break-up with his ex-girlfriend, she of the hyphenate, Stella Fairchild-Priestly, he’d become a mole. Cullen had always been focused on work-one of the reasons behind the failure of the relationship-but lately he’d become obsessive, and he’d read enough pop psychology to know such single-mindedness wasn’t healthy. Not to mention the fact that he wanted above all to succeed at his job, and pissing off the boss was not the way forward.

But nothing else seemed to motivate him. Social networking was not his cup of tea, although he’d lurked on Internet sites. It was an easy habit to acquire when part of your job was finding out things about other people, but that made him even less likely to want to put information about himself in the public domain.

As the train lurched into Euston Square station, he waited, sweating, as he listened to the carriage creak and groan. He hated the tube, even when it wasn’t sweltering. It occurred to him that he could buy a car and avoid public transport altogether-that would be something new to occupy him for a bit. But then parking near his flat would be a nightmare, and as he often had access to transport pool cars during an investigation, it seemed a pointless expenditure.

He climbed the stairs to the street and walked east, his steps slowing as he neared his building. He hated his flat, a boring gray cube in a boring gray building near Euston Station. Stella had liked to say that he lived on the edge of Bloomsbury, but that was stretching it, in terms of style as well as geography. She’d always wanted to make him sound cooler than he was. Hell, that was an understatement-she’d always wanted to make him cooler than he was.

As part of her “fix Dougie” mission, she’d done the flat up for him in a trendy minimalist style that he’d hated from the first minute. But he’d not wanted to hurt her feelings, and since they’d split, he’d never found the energy or the imagination to change it. He’d bought some nice audio equipment, but Stella had made fun of his music collection so often that he was reluctant to share it with anyone else, and in truth he listened to his iPod most of the time.

And then, after Stella, there had been Maura Bell, the prickly detective from Southwark, and that little interlude had put paid to any remaining self-confidence. He tried not to think about that disaster.

Entering his building, he took the elevator to his floor and unlocked the door. The place was tidy, at least, but roasting. He pulled open the sitting room window as far as it would go, letting in a faint current of exhaust-scented air, then looked round the flat in increasing dismay.

Why did he stay? His lease was coming up for renewal next month, he realized, and he hadn’t yet signed the papers. The flat had been the best he could afford before he’d been promoted to sergeant, but he’d had several pay rises since then. He even had some money in the bank-aside from splashing out on electronics and decent clothes for work, he didn’t spend much, and he’d paid off all his university debt.

An exhilarating sense of freedom swept through him. He could go…anywhere. Someplace nearer work. Someplace near the river, maybe. Kincaid was right, he needed a hobby. He’d rowed at school, and it had been the only athletic thing he’d ever been halfway decent at. Maybe he could find a flat in Fulham or Putney, near the rowing club.

He booted up his computer, then checked the fridge. One beer, but that would do for now. He sat down again and typed in “Flats to Let.”

The next morning Cullen went in to work early, excusing his further zealousness on the grounds that he wanted to take some time off at lunch. He’d not slept much, lying awake with visions of flats dancing in his head, knowing it was unlikely any would live up to their adverts, but unable to resist the siren lure of fitted kitchens, power showers, and hardwood floors. One flat even claimed to have a view of the river, and although he knew that probably meant standing on a box in a room the size of a postage stamp, he’d put it first on his list.

Schooling himself to take care of business before calling estate agents, he shut himself in Kincaid’s office with the assistance requests that had come in overnight for the murder investigation teams. He’d make a start on assignments, then Kincaid could check them when he came in.

He was happily humming something by Abba when he stopped dead, staring at the monitor with wide eyes.

“Gemma’s name on an incoming-case file?” Kincaid asked, frowning. He loosened his tie, which he never managed to keep properly knotted once he got in his office, and took the printout from Cullen, scanning for essentials.

He recognized the name of the victim, Nasir Malik, found dead in Haggerston Park, and tried to remember what Gemma had told him about yesterday’s events. She and the boys had come in after he’d got home from the Yard, and the evening had passed quickly with the Sunday family routine: dinner, discussing the boys’ plans for the week, finishing up the laundry, weekend chores.

In a lull during the washing-up after the meal, when the boys were out of earshot, they had talked about Gemma’s mum. And then Gemma had told him a little about her day. Tim Cavendish’s friend had been found dead, and she’d been called to the scene by the investigating officer. Afterwards, she said, she’d managed to have the victim’s little girl placed in foster care with Betty Howard. She’d talked about the child with such concern that Kincaid had wondered if she was displacing her worry over her mother.

But before he’d had a chance to ask her more about the case, Toby had come in wanting a story, and by the time the boys were tucked up, they had fallen into bed themselves, exhausted, and he had given it no more thought.

Now, pulling out his mobile, he rang her. “Didn’t you say the pathologist thought Tim’s friend’s death was suspicious?” he asked.

“Yes, that was my impression,” she said. “But there was no sign of trauma, and they won’t have the tox results yet. Why?”

“Tox results or not, the DI in charge”-he peered at the page, wondering if he was going to have to give in to reading glasses-“Neal Weller, his name is, has sent us the case. You said you met the pathologist. Any good?”

“He seemed very thorough. But Weller, he’s a bit of a bulldog. I’d not have thought he’d hand it off so easily. He argued with Dr. Kaleem.”

“Well, it looks like something’s spooked Weller. What’s your gut feeling on this?”

He waited, listening to the hum of activity on Gemma’s end of the line.

“I’m in the CID room. Give me a sec.” Then he heard a door shut and the background sound vanished as if a switch had been flipped. “Um, I think I’m inclined to agree with the pathologist,” Gemma said from the sanctity of her office. “Something didn’t feel right.”

“But on Saturday, you said Tim was worried about his friend. I gathered he thought he might be suicidal.”

“Tim was worried, but he’s adamant that Naz didn’t kill himself.” She paused, and Kincaid heard the tap of a pencil on her desk, her habit when she was thinking. After a moment, she said, “It’s a dodgy case, any way you look at it. And Weller was the one who investigated the wife’s disappearance.”

Kincaid picked up a pencil himself and doodled interlocking circles. “Then Weller’s treading on eggshells now, I would guess. Afraid he missed something. Could be a right balls-up, and he’s getting out while the getting’s good.”

“I’d guess he’s close to retirement,” said Gemma. “He wouldn’t want to finish his career on a black mark. So…” She hesitated, and Kincaid grinned at her restraint. “So, if you think the case merits reassignment, will you take it yourself?”

“Would you kill me if I didn’t?”

“Oh, worse than that. Much worse,” Gemma answered, and he heard the smile in her voice.

“And where would you start?” he asked. “If it were your case.”

“You’ll want to see Weller, of course. And Tim. And the pathologist. But if it were me, I think I’d start with Naz Malik’s law partner. She’s bound to know more about Naz and his wife than anyone else.”

Kincaid flipped through the case notes, saw the name and address of Naz Malik’s firm.

“You’ll keep me in the loop?” added Gemma.

“Have you ever known me to overlook a valuable resource?” he asked, and smiled as he clicked off. Cullen was staring at him, his lips pursed as if he’d just eaten a lemon.

“We’re going to take this one?” Cullen repeated Gemma’s question, but with much less anticipation.

Kincaid’s sergeant tended to be territorial, and wouldn’t care for Gemma’s involvement in the case. That alone was enough to make Kincaid want to stir the pot. “You have any objection?”

“I-I was going to look at flats at lunchtime,” Cullen said, and Kincaid had the distinct impression he’d been about to say something else.

“Good for you,” Kincaid told him with cheerful bonhomie. “About time you made a change, Doug. But I think you’ll have to do it another day.”

After a more thorough look through the case file, Kincaid had rung DI Neal Weller. A brusque message on Weller’s voice mail informed him that Weller was in court and would return calls as soon as possible.

“Court,” Kincaid said to Cullen, who grimaced.

“That might take him out all day. Or longer.”

“Might not be a bad thing.” Kincaid didn’t mind gathering his own impressions of the case before he discussed it with Weller, starting with the crime scene. Not that he expected to find evidence that the SOCOs had missed, but he always liked to see where a death had taken place, even if he was coming into a case after the fact. It helped him organize his mental landscape.

“We’ll start with Haggerston Park,” he told Cullen. “Call down for a car, and I’ll clear things with the guv’nor.”

“Will your personal connection cause any conflict of interest?” his chief superintendent, Denis Childs, had asked when Kincaid was shown into his office.

“Not unless our friend Tim Cavendish starts to look like a suspect,” Kincaid had answered. In fact, the personal connection might give Kincaid an advantage denied another detective. “I’ll let you know if I think there’s a problem,” he’d assured Childs.

Once he’d finished his meeting with Childs and found the car ready, he had Cullen drive them east, skirting round the top of the City, through Shoreditch and into Bethnal Green.

Haggerston Park looked benign, if a little faded by the August heat. Young Asian parents strolled with babies in push chairs; a passing jogger swigged from a water bottle; an elderly white couple walked arm in arm, soaking up the sun.

As they drove past Hackney City Farm, Kincaid caught the unmistakable whiff of manure. The smell, etched into the sensory circuits of his childhood, triggered a spasm of longing for the dairy fields of Cheshire. And then the thought of home led him to wonder what he would tell his mother the next time she asked about plans for the wedding.

Gemma had been more and more evasive on the subject, not to mention prickly in general, and now there was the business with her mother…Not that he wasn’t concerned about Vi, but it worried him deeply that family stresses seemed to make Gemma pull away from him, rather than drawing her closer. At least she’d been voluble enough in talking to him about this case. Perhaps the investigation would give him an opportunity to get her to open up about whatever was bothering her. If formalizing their relationship was going to change things between them, he’d rather go on as they were.

Checking the map against the case report, he directed Cullen into Audrey Street, where they parked and got out. The scene had been cleared. A strip of crime scene tape hung limply from the iron gate at the park entrance, and a placard to one side held the previous day’s date and asked that anyone having seen suspicious activity at that location report it to the police help line.

Kincaid followed the path, taking in the details, until he reached the section of broken fence still marked off-limits by tape-not that a strip of tape would keep kids and curiosity seekers at bay.

“A good spot for a rape or a mugging, at least after dark,” said Cullen, studying the terrain. “Or a drug deal gone wrong, a gang knifing. But odd for a suicide.”

“Or a murder.” Kincaid walked farther along, until the trees thinned and he could see the land curving away towards Hackney City Farm. He then went back and examined the taped area, thinking about the scene photos included in the file. “What was this guy doing here?” he mused. “Meeting someone?”

“And then he just dropped dead?” Cullen tested the fence a few feet outside the taped area. “I don’t think the weight of a body falling would have broken the fence.”

“Unless it was already damaged. We’ll have to check with the groundskeepers. And I want to talk to the pathologist myself. But first let’s have a word with Mr. Malik’s partner.”

“It’s not far,” said Cullen, having taken over navigation while Kincaid drove. “Just this side of Bethnal Green Road.”

“That might make a bit more sense of Malik being found in the park.” Following Cullen’s directions, Kincaid pulled up in front of an undistinguished building in a side street off Warner Place. It was the second house in a rather grimy terrace. Gray-brown brick, blue door and blue trim work. Lettering over the ground-floor windows read MALIK PHILLIPS, SOLICITORS, and to one side, a little more discreetly, there was a phone number.

Kincaid pulled into the curb and got out. Studying the shop front while waiting for Cullen to come round the car, he peered through a gap in the miniblinds, but saw nothing but shadows. He pressed the buzzer, and after a moment the door released. He pushed it open and entered a small hallway, Cullen close on his heels. To their left, an open door led into the reception area he’d glimpsed through the blinds.

The room was empty, but it looked more inviting from the inside than it had from the window. Comfortably worn brown leather chairs and sofa, a serviceable desk, an industrial-grade Berber carpet, but the room was clean, and the freshly painted cream walls held imaginatively hung canvas reproductions of Banksy street art. An interesting choice for a solicitor, Kincaid thought, the ultimate outlaw artist.

A female voice called from upstairs. “Naz, you forget your keys again? Why the hell didn’t you ring me-” A woman peered down at them from the first-floor landing. “Sorry. I thought you were my partner. He’s late, and the receptionist isn’t in today. Can I help you? We usually see clients by appointment.” The tone was slightly disapproving. She started down the stairs, and as she came into the light cast by the glass transom in the front door, Kincaid saw that she was dark skinned, and West Indian rather than Asian. She was a little too thin, and wore a navy business suit with a plain white blouse. Her dark hair looked as if it had been straightened, and was pulled back in an unflattering knot. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, he caught the reek of stale cigarette smoke.

“You’re Louise Phillips?” He held out his warrant card. “Superintendent Kincaid. Sergeant Cullen. Scotland Yard.”

“Scotland Yard?” She stared at him. “If this is about Azad, you know I can’t talk to you. Unless”-she took a sharp little breath and her eyes widened-“is it Sandra? Are you here about Sandra?”

So she didn’t yet know what had happened. Naz Malik’s death had made a paragraph that morning in one of the tabloids, but it was probably not the sort of paper Louise Phillips read, and Naz’s death hadn’t been violent enough to get more mention. “Mrs. Phillips, is there somewhere we could talk?” he asked.

“It’s Ms.,” she corrected. “I’m not married. Not that my marital status should be anyone’s business.” The little speech seemed rote, tossed off while she gathered her thoughts. She glanced into the reception area, then shook her head, rejecting it although it looked the obvious spot. “Come upstairs, then. I suppose we can talk in my office.”

Turning, she led them up the stairs. The cigarette smell intensified as they climbed, and as they entered the first-floor office, Kincaid saw why. A plastic pub ashtray held place of honor on the cluttered desk. It was filled with cigarette ends, and one lipstick-smeared specimen had burned to ash in the slotted edge. The room was not much more attractive. Scuffed and untidy, it lacked any of the reception area’s charm, and in spite of the heat, its two windows were shut.

Louise Phillips waved an ineffective hand at the fug in the air. “Naz is always getting on at me, but it’s my office and I don’t know why I should have to be politically correct.”

Kincaid managed a smile, wondering how much exposure to secondhand smoke it took to contract lung cancer, and sat in one of the metal and faux-leather chairs that fought to occupy space between boxes stuffed with files. Cullen freed another chair, and Phillips sank down behind her desk with the apparent relief of one returning to charted territory, or at least escaping from a smoke-free zone.

“Are you sure you don’t want to wait and talk to Naz?” she said. “Whatever it is-I can’t imagine why he’s late. He’s never late-”

“Ms. Phillips,” Kincaid broke in. It was always better to get it over with quickly. “We can’t talk to your partner. I’m sorry, but Naz Malik is dead.”

“What?” Phillips stared at him, and her dark skin seemed to go slightly gray. “You’re joking.” She swallowed, pressing her fingers to her lips as she shook her head. “No. You said ‘police.’ You don’t joke. But I don’t understand. When? How? Was it an accident?”

“We think not.”

“But-” Reaching for a packet of Silk Cut on her desk, Phillips fumbled a cigarette free and lit it with a cheap plastic lighter. Through an exhaled stream of smoke, she squinted at him. “No, it wouldn’t be, not if you’re Scotland Yard. And you said you were a superintendent. Major crimes unit, I should think.”

Kincaid fought the impulse to cough as the smoke reached him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Cullen, who had got out his notebook, glance at the window. Giving Cullen an infinitesimal shake of the head, he said, “Ms. Phillips, when did you last talk to your partner?”

“Friday. Friday afternoon. We’ve been working on a case that goes to trial next week. We had a meeting with the barrister in his chambers. Naz was-” Her voice wavered. “I can’t believe it.” She ground out the barely smoked cigarette, then lit another. “I’d been trying to ring him since yesterday. Couldn’t figure out why his phone was turned off-it went straight to voice mail. I left him a message this morning. I couldn’t believe he was late.” She looked at them in appeal. “What’s happened to him?”

“We’re not sure, Ms. Phillips,” Kincaid answered. “Do you know of any reason why your partner would have been in Haggerston Park?”

“Haggerston? No. Except Naz and Sandra used to take Charlotte to the farm sometimes, or for walks…”

“Did the park have any special significance for them?”

“No, not that I know of. They often had family outings to places in the area. But Naz isn’t really the nature type on his own…” Louise Phillips stood and began to pace in the small space behind her desk. “Look, you’re absolutely sure it’s Naz? There could be a mistake-”

“Detective Inspector Weller, who investigated Sandra Gilles’s disappearance, identified the body.”

“Weller.” Phillips grimaced. “Yes, he would know Naz. But why are you asking about Haggerston? Is that where he was…found? What happened to him? You still haven’t told me.”

Patiently, Kincaid said, “Mr. Malik left his daughter with her nanny on Saturday afternoon, saying he would be back shortly. His friend Tim Cavendish reported him missing when both he and the daughter’s nanny began to worry. Mr. Malik’s body was found by a passerby in Haggerston Park yesterday morning. The pathologist has not made a ruling on the cause of death.”

“Yesterday?” Louise Phillips whispered. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“I believe you’re ex-directory, Ms. Phillips? Unless DI Weller had your home number?” Kincaid remembered Gemma telling him she’d tried without success to find Phillips’s home number.

“Oh, no. Weller never asked. It never occurred to me that he’d need it. And I-I never imagined…I never imagined anything happening to Naz…”

“Did your partner seem particularly upset about anything the last time you spoke?”

She hesitated. “I wouldn’t say upset. We’d been…It’s this case.” Phillips sat down again and lit another Silk Cut. With an apologetic glance at Kincaid, Cullen set his notebook on a file case and went to the window.

“Do you mind?” he asked Phillips.

“Stuck shut,” she answered. “Naz was…Naz nagged at me to get it fixed, but I-I didn’t want-I don’t know why I was so bloody-minded about it.” She stubbed out the cigarette, and Cullen retreated to his chair, having scored at least a minor victory.

“The case?” Kincaid prompted.

“We’re representing a Bangladeshi restaurant owner named Ahmed Azad. He owns a curry house just off Brick Lane. He’s accused of importing young people and forcing them to work without pay in his home and restaurant.”

“House slaves?” Cullen looked surprised.

“Well, the home charge will be harder for the prosecution to prove. He’s sponsored these young men and women-they would have to testify that he’s forcing them to work without pay, and not allowing them to seek employment elsewhere.”

“But they won’t?” guessed Kincaid.

Phillips rolled her eyes. “It’s alleged that he threatened to rescind his sponsorship, which would result in their deportation. And it’s alleged that if they seek other employment, he threatens to harm their relatives back in Sylhet. Of course, they’re not going to talk.”

“But somebody did.”

“A couple of ex-employees from the restaurant. They seem to have a grudge against him over some back wages. And there was a young man, a second cousin, I think, who was working as a dishwasher. He agreed to testify that Azad refused to pay him, and had threatened them. But he seems to have, um, disappeared, so the prosecution’s case is looking a bit weak.”

“The man sounds an obvious crook,” said Cullen.

“He’s our client,” corrected Phillips wearily. “If we only represented model citizens, we’d soon be out of business.”

“A witness disappeared, Ms. Phillips?” Kincaid asked sharply. “When?”

“Two weeks ago. We only learned about it when Customs and Immigration questioned Azad. They’d been keeping this boy, the cousin or nephew or whatever he was, under wraps.”

“Apparently with good reason.”

Phillips shrugged. “He probably just decided that getting his own back against Azad wasn’t worth deportation.”

“And you don’t think that Customs and Immigration will have offered him a deal?”

“We’re not privy to that information,” Phillips said rather primly. “But…Naz wasn’t happy. It was too close to home, the disappearance. We’d had-Things had been a bit tense in the office lately. Friday…”

Leaning forwards, Kincaid schooled his face into a sympathetic expression, concealing his interest. “You had a row?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it a row.” She reached for the cigarettes, then stopped, as if making an effort to control the urge. Kincaid wondered how much of her smoking was due to nicotine addiction and how much was nervous habit, merely something to do with her hands. Without the easy prop, she resorted to twisting the ring she wore on her right hand. Her nails were short, the cuticles ragged, as if she bit them. “A disagreement, if that. It was just-Naz wasn’t sure he wanted to go on representing Azad. I told him that was bollocks. We were committed, and we needed the money. We couldn’t afford his scruples. He-” She clamped her lips tight, hands suddenly still.

“He what, Ms. Phillips?” Kincaid tone was firm.

“It’s just that, since Sandra disappeared, Naz has been…different. Well, naturally you’d expect that, but…We’ve known each other since law school. We’ve been partners for ten years. We were good together. But lately…Naz had been something of a liability. He couldn’t concentrate. Anything would send him off on a tangent, get his hopes up about Sandra. Or make him unreasonable, like this business with Azad. But I thought he’d adjust, somehow…”

“You thought he’d adjust to the loss of his wife? You didn’t think she’d come back?”

“No.” Phillips’s answer was flat. “Sandra Gilles wasn’t the type to walk away from everything she’d worked for. We had that in common, Sandra and I.”

“Not even if she’d had an affair?” Kincaid asked.

“An affair? No.” Phillips shook her head. “There was speculation, of course, when she disappeared, that she’d run off with a man, but I never believed it. Sandra was no saint, and I’m sure she and Naz had their differences over the years, but she’d never have left-Oh, God.” She stared at Kincaid, wide-eyed. “Charlotte. What’s happened to Charlotte?”

Gemma popped a CD of Handel anthems in the little player she kept in her office, hoping the music would propel her through the Monday-morning deluge of reports on her screen. But as the voices soared, she closed her eyes, mouse in hand, and let the music wash over her.

It made her think of Winnie, and of the small and perfect wedding she’d imagined, with Winnie officiating, and for a moment she indulged in the daydream. Then she opened her eyes and turned down the volume, chastising herself for her selfishness in putting her wishes over concern for Winnie’s health. She would ring Glastonbury this evening and check up on her, and that, she realized reluctantly, meant she’d have to tell Winnie and Jack about her mum as well.

She’d rung her mum at the hospital last night and first thing that morning, getting the chipper I’m just fine, dearie speech both times. She’d just made up her mind that as soon as she could decently duck out of the office, she was going to see for herself, when there was a tap on her door and Melody Talbot came in. They’d spoken only in passing at the department briefing that morning, a busy one, as intense heat always seemed to increase their caseload, and the buzz of excitement over the approaching carnival had added to the ferment.

“Boss,” said Melody, closing the door, “got a minute?”

Gemma glanced down at the report she’d been reading. A boy had been knifed near the Ladbroke Grove tube station on Saturday night, and although he’d survived, he was refusing to name his attackers. She sighed, sympathizing with the investigating officers’ frustration, and with a click reassigned the case to a team who were working two similar incidents. They might very well be connected.

Then she smiled at Melody, blanked the computer screen, and switched off the CD. “I’m all yours. What’s up?”

“Um.” Melody hesitated, unusual for an officer who was usually the model of efficiency. Curious, Gemma nodded towards a chair. Melody sat, looking deceptively demure in her navy skirt and white blouse. She’d already shed her suit jacket. Not even Melody could keep up her standards of crispness in this heat. “It’s about Saturday night,” she said, still not meeting Gemma’s eyes.

“Melody, what on earth are you talking about?” asked Gemma, baffled.

“I missed your call, and I never rang you back. It was a family dinner. I had my phone turned off, and then didn’t think to check messages.”

“Oh, that. I’d completely forgotten.” Gemma realized she was sweating and shrugged out of her light cotton cardigan. “You weren’t on duty, Melody. There’s no need to apologize. You have a right to personal time.”

“But if you’d needed me…”

“As it turned out, I don’t think there was anything you could have done.” She told Melody about Tim’s call and what had followed, but even as she reassured Melody, she felt a flicker of doubt. If Naz Malik had still been alive when she’d rung Melody, was there some way they might have found him in time? She shook her head, telling herself that was useless speculation, and finished her story.

“You got the little girl placed with Wesley’s mum?” said Melody. She was sitting forward, on the edge of her chair now, interest apparently having banished her momentary awkwardness. “Brilliant. How’s she doing?”

“As well as you could expect, I think. Although I’m not sure what you would expect.” Gemma thought of Charlotte as she’d left her yesterday afternoon, sobbing in Betty’s arms, and remembered how she had hated to let the child go. “She’ll be all right,” Betty had reassured her. “It’s just she’s had a long day, and she feels safe with you.”

“I’ll come see you tomorrow,” Gemma had promised Charlotte, kissing her damp, sticky cheek.

“I’ve promised to visit her again today,” she told Melody. “And I’ve got to check on my mum. She’s in hospital since yesterday.”

“I’m sorry, boss,” Melody said quickly. “Anything I can do?”

The flash of concern in Melody’s eyes made her feel a surge of panic. “No. No, it’s nothing major,” she said. “She has a little low-grade infection. Her immune system’s depressed from the chemo. And they’re putting in a port for the treatments-” She stopped, aware that she was rattling on to reassure herself rather than Melody. “I’m sure she’ll be fi-”

Her mobile rang, rescuing her. But when she saw Betty Howard’s name on the caller ID, she excused herself, feeling the same instant prickle of worry she got when one of boys’ schools rang. “Betty, hi,” she answered quickly. “Is everything all right?”

She listened for a moment, frowning, tapping a pen on her desk, then said, “Let me check into it. I’ll ring you back.”

“Is something wrong?” asked Melody when Gemma ended the call.

“I don’t know.” Gemma frowned. “Betty says she got a call from the social worker, Janice Silverman. Silverman said she contacted Charlotte’s grandmother, who told her she wanted nothing to do with Charlotte. But later this morning, Sandra’s sister, a woman named Donna Woods, rang her up. She says she wants to take Charlotte.”

“But surely that’s a good thing,” said Melody. “The child should be with family.”

“Yes, well, maybe,” Gemma said slowly. “But it depends on the family.” It occurred to her that the idea of Toby and Kit in her own sister’s care horrified her-although they wouldn’t be mistreated, they wouldn’t be cared for the way she would look after them. And a blood relationship was certainly no guarantee of love, as Kit’s experience with his grandmother had taught them all too painfully. “According to Tim, Naz and Sandra were adamant about not wanting Charlotte to have any contact with Sandra’s family,” she continued. “And we don’t know anything about this sister.”

“We?” Melody looked at her quizzically.

“The police. Social services. You know what I mean,” she added, a little exasperated.

Melody scrutinized her a bit longer, as if debating, then said, “Well, what it sounds like to me is that you don’t want to let Charlotte Malik out of your sight.”