Necessary as Blood

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

A trio of Bangladeshi girls came up the street towards us, chewing gum and smiling and chatting amongst themselves. They were dressed modestly in long black coats, loose trousers, and hijabs, but they also wore make-up and lipstick and their nails were manicured and polished.

– Tarquin Hall, Salaam Brick Lane

The enforced idleness had not been as bad as Gemma had expected, because either Betty or Wesley had managed to bring Charlotte for visits every day, and Melody had kept her updated on work. Her guv’nor had sent her flowers, and rung Kincaid to give him the mickey, threatening to run him in on assault.

But by Thursday she’d been chafing at the bit, and after getting a release from the doctor that afternoon, she charged into the office on Friday morning with a zeal that had her staff groaning in mock dismay.

At least she hoped it was mock. By midmorning, Melody came in with a sheaf of papers, reassuring her with a grin. “They’re all beavering away, determined to prove they haven’t been slacking in your absence. I think they missed you, boss.”

“Not enough to solve these damned burglaries,” said Gemma, glad for a break from the scrolling computer screen. Melody, she’d noticed, was wearing a bright pink T-shirt under her tailored black suit jacket, surely a sartorial statement of liberation. When they’d spoken on the phone during the week, Melody hadn’t said anything about how her meeting with her father had gone on Sunday afternoon, and Gemma hadn’t wanted to ask.

But now Melody nodded towards the chair and said, “Got a minute, boss?”

“Glad of it.” Gemma blanked her screen as Melody sat down, giving her her full attention.

To her surprise, however, Melody said tentatively, “I was just wondering if you’d ever told the super what I learned from Roy Blakely about seeing the bruises on Sandra’s arms the week before she disappeared.”

“No. I meant to, but-there’s been no word from Narcotics, and he hasn’t been able to get any more information on the whereabouts of Kevin Gilles’s mate’s transit van on the day Naz was killed. He’s even checked nearby furniture stores for a record of a purchase that day that matched the leather suite I saw in the flat, but no luck there either. And even that wouldn’t prove any connection with Naz’s death, only that they had the means to transport him.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised if the furniture fell off the back of a van.”

“More than likely,” Gemma agreed. “But there haven’t been any reported thefts, so everything is circumstantial. And after”-she didn’t want to mention the newspaper story-“and I hated for him to think I was meddling again,” she amended. Absently, she touched the bruise on her forehead. It had faded to an unattractive yellow and she’d done her best to cover it with a little makeup.

“What about Charlotte’s social worker?” Melody asked. “Did you speak with her?”

“She said even if Roy was willing to testify, it would still be an unsubstantiated allegation, and not likely to help in court. The next hearing is set for Monday, and so far Gail Gilles has apparently passed muster. I couldn’t ask if she’d moved all the loot out of the flat.”

“You’re worried, then, about the hearing.”

“Yes,” said Gemma, although worry didn’t begin to describe how she felt. The more time she spent with Charlotte, the less she could even bear to think about Gail Gilles getting her hands on the child.

“I’ve talked to Louise Phillips again, and she’s willing to tell the judge that Gail’s custody would have been very much against both parents’ wishes. Still…there’s no guarantee that will help if the judge is set on kinship care and Gail’s toeing the line.” She didn’t know what else she could do that might influence the court, and she had begun to feel sick with anxiety over Charlotte’s fate.

And although she didn’t share it with Melody, she was also feeling a little uneasy about Duncan. She’d tried several times that week to bring up the subject of the wedding again. As she’d begun to recover from the effects of the concussion, she felt she’d been a bit overwrought about the whole thing, and that maybe she could screw herself up to do something that would please her family. But he’d breezily told her not to worry about it-she just needed to get well-and had promptly changed the subject. Had he decided she was an emotional basket case and changed his mind?

“Well,” said Melody, “I don’t know what I can do to help with Charlotte, but I thought this might be useful on the investigation front.” Looking rather pleased with herself, she handed Gemma the top few sheets from the papers she’d brought in.

Scanning them, Gemma saw that the pages were a list of names. She glanced up at Melody. “What-”

“It’s the membership of Lucas Ritchie’s club. I told you my father owed me. Sometimes his connections are useful. And I told him that if he used this, or anything else he got from me, in a story, I would never speak to him again.”

“He believed you?”

“I think so. My mum had a word with him, too, and she’s the one person who can put the fear of God into him.”

Gemma looked back at the sheets, reading through the list more carefully. There was Azad. Another name, Miles Alexander, seemed familiar to her, but she couldn’t quite place it. Then she saw something that made her stop and check it again. John Truman, RCVS.

“There’s a vet on this list,” she said to Melody. “I wonder…The ketamine found in Naz Malik’s system is a veterinary drug. Do you suppose this John Truman had any connection with Naz or Sandra?”

“One of Sandra’s patrons?” suggested Melody.

“It’s certainly possible.” She thought about going to Fournier Street and looking through Sandra’s studio again, but she had promised Duncan she wouldn’t go there until some action could be taken against Kevin and Terry Gilles.

“Pippa Nightingale might know,” she said aloud. She still had the number for the Nightingale Gallery stored in her phone. But when she pulled it up and dialed, she got a voice-mail recording. Without leaving a message, she clicked off. “Bloody voice mail.” She tapped her finger on the phone while she thought.

After a moment, she announced to Melody, “I’m going to Rivington Street. There’s no reason Kevin or Terry Gilles should be there. And I’m going to camp out on the gallery doorstep, if I have to, until I can talk to Pippa. Can you send a copy of this list to Duncan? I’ll ring him once I’ve talked to Pippa.”

“Where do I tell him I got it?”

“You’re a crack researcher. Tell him you have your sources.”

When Gemma reached Rivington Street, the gallery looked just as it had the first time she’d visited, and when she pressed the buzzer, the door clicked open.

This time, however, Pippa Nightingale stood at the top of the stairs, watching her as she climbed.

“Is there any news?” Pippa asked when Gemma had reached the top.

“No. I’m sorry. But I was hoping you could help me with something.”

The same surreal monochrome works were on display in the long upper room, the scenes of snow and forest and nightmarish, enchanted creatures, all in blacks and whites except for the occasional shocking splash of red. Today Pippa wore red as well, a long, deep crimson dress, as though she dressed only to complement the art. She didn’t invite Gemma into her office.

“Lucas said you went to see him.” Pippa’s voice was neutral, and Gemma couldn’t tell if she approved or disapproved.

“Yes. He was very helpful,” she answered carefully.

Pippa shrugged. “When it suits him. I wouldn’t expect him to put himself out too much over Sandra’s daughter, by the way. And I’m afraid I don’t know anything that I haven’t already told you.”

“This is something else entirely.” Gemma had realized on the way to the gallery that she couldn’t very well show Pippa the entire list, not without more explanation than she was willing to give, considering Pippa’s connection with Lucas Ritchie. “Do you know if Sandra ever sold works to a man named John Truman, a veterinary surgeon?”

“Truman? If Truman bought Sandra’s work, it wasn’t through me. That little snake. He used to be one of my regular customers.”

Gemma thought she saw a hint of color in Pippa’s pale cheeks.

“But he is a collector?”

“In a small way. Nothing too expensive.” She frowned. “Although I had the impression that he liked to inflate the prices of the pieces to his wife. Maybe he needed to impress her.”

Or cover up what he was spending on something else, Gemma thought. “Did he know Sandra?”

“He might have met her at an opening…” Pippa’s eyes widened, and what Gemma saw in their ice-blue depths made her think that Pippa Nightingale’s unusual physical poise was a mask for suppressed rage. Pippa walked to the window and looked out. “That bastard,” she breathed, her back to Gemma.

“Truman?” Gemma asked.

“No. Bloody Lucas. Truman met Lucas here, at more than one opening. Of course Lucas would have recruited him for his club. It’s just the sort of secret thing that would appeal to a little snot like Truman, and if Truman bought Sandra’s work, it will be because Lucas displayed it in the club. John Truman never had any confidence in his own taste-he only bought things if someone he considered important had got in first.”

“Do you think Naz would have known Truman?”

“Not socially, if that’s what you mean. If he bought work from Sandra, he might have met Naz at some point, although Sandra did her best to keep her work separate from her personal life.” Pippa turned, and the flash of anger Gemma had seen had been replaced with amusement. “You could ask Lucas.”

Gemma knew there was something she was missing, some game between Pippa and Lucas Ritchie that she didn’t understand, but she thought it revolved around Sandra. “I think I’d do better to ask John Truman,” she said. “Do you know where I could find him?”

“Hoxton. His surgery’s not far from the square, and he lives above it.” She walked back to her office, checked a file, and wrote an address down on a note card stamped with the gallery name.

Gemma took the card and studied it, replaying her mental geography. “It’s quite near, then.”

“Oh, yes,” said Pippa. “A Georgian house, like Sandra’s, but butchered. I doubt Truman was inspired by the thought of the Huguenot silk weavers.”

Gemma thanked her and turned to go, but as she reached the top of the stairs she turned back. “You and Lucas. You seemed quite angry with him. Will you stay friends?”

Pippa smiled. “If you want to call it that. He always comes back to me.”

Gemma stood on the pavement just outside the gallery door as she pulled out her phone to ring Kincaid. He would need to pay an official call on this John Truman. Gemma had done as much as she dared. Any further action on her own and she would be seriously trespassing on a Scotland Yard investigation.

But she stopped, finger hovering over the keypad, as she thought about the implications of her conversation with Pippa. Had Sandra and Pippa become estranged, not because Pippa disapproved of how Sandra was marketing her work, but because a long-standing jealousy over Lucas Ritchie had come to a head?

Could Sandra have come here that day, from Columbia Road? Could Pippa have told her something, out of spite, that had made her run away? Or what if they had argued, and Pippa had killed Sandra?

Although Gemma could have sworn, on her first visit, that Pippa’s grief over Sandra’s disappearance had been genuine, theirs had obviously been a complicated relationship, and love and jealousy had brought about stranger things. But even if the slender Pippa had been able to kill Sandra, could she have disposed of her body-and so efficiently that it had not been found? And then killed Naz Malik? For Gemma was now utterly convinced that Sandra’s disappearance and Naz’s murder were connected.

She shook her head, staring absently at the front of the Rivington Street Health Clinic a few doors down. No, she was spinning theories out of air, and they wouldn’t wash. Pippa’s little display of spitefulness had been directed at Lucas, not Sandra. Truman, the vet, who was more than likely to have known Sandra, and who had easy access to the ketamine that had been found in Naz’s system, seemed a more likely prospect. Maybe-

Gemma’s speculations came to an abrupt halt. A young woman wearing jeans and a T-shirt, her dark hair pulled up in a haphazard ponytail, had stopped in front of the clinic, glancing up and down the street before slipping inside. The profile had been familiar, although recognition took Gemma a moment, because the last time she had seen the young woman, she’d been wearing a head scarf. It was Alia Hakim, Charlotte’s nanny.