Necessary as Blood

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

“When you are on the streets in Brick Lane the interior spaces are external to you. There aren’t many reasons to go inside the buildings and get into these private spaces that hold their time in a different way to street time, which is always contemporary.” [Iain Sinclair]

– Rachel Lichtenstein, On Brick Lane

Doug Cullen came into Kincaid’s office and laid an evidence bag containing a familiar-looking, gold-stamped leather folder down on Kincaid’s desk. “Forensics just delivered Alexander’s passport. Makes for very interesting reading.”

“I bloody well hope so,” Kincaid said, with feeling. It was Monday morning and he had been up most of the night. Miles Alexander had been singularly uncooperative, either sneering or silent, and Kincaid was tired and frustrated. “We’d better come up with something that will make the child-trafficking charges stick like glue, because we haven’t got enough so far to sell the prosecution on a single homicide, much less a double one. And I do not want to let this bastard go.”

He felt quite sure that if Miles Alexander walked out of Scotland Yard, he would disappear, just like his friend Truman.

He still had hopes that the lab would find fiber transfer that would place Naz Malik in Alexander’s house or car, but even that might be too little and too late. Alexander could argue that Naz had visited him, or ridden in his car, at any time. What they really needed was to match Alexander with hair or fiber that had been found on or around Naz Malik’s body. But the processing of trace evidence took time, and he doubted he’d get a result soon enough to allow him to keep Alexander in the nick.

“What about Gemma’s project?” asked Cullen, his face schooled into a neutrality Kincaid was sure he didn’t feel. “I hear the super’s not best pleased at the expense.”

Kincaid knew Cullen was less than enthusiastic about Gemma’s suggestion that they excavate Alexander’s garden. “Slow going. They’ve got the fountain moved and the pavers up, but apparently it’s teaspoon digging from now on. They can’t risk disturbing any evidence.”

“If there’s any evidence to disturb.”

“Gemma’s right, Doug,” Kincaid said, his patience fraying. “If Alexander killed Sandra Gilles, he had to put her body somewhere, and the garden is as good a place to start as any.”

He took Alexander’s passport out of the bag and flipped through it, raising an eyebrow as he read. “Quite the traveler, I see. Regular trips to Thailand and Bangladesh, as well as visits to Spain, favorite holiday spot of his mate Truman.”

Cullen pulled a chair up to the desk. “And quite the serial monogamist, too, if you believe the records.” His face lit up with a self-satisfied grin. “I’ve been through the files. Every couple of years for the past decade, he’s married a girl-supposedly of age-in Bangladesh or Thailand, then brought her into the U.K. Then after a year or two-I’d assume it’s when they’ve got too ‘old’ for his taste-he files for divorce, in each case assuring the judge that he’ll pay the girl maintenance so she won’t become a burden on the state. Then the girl disappears from the system. Very neat.”

“Any-”

Cullen cut Kincaid off. “The best part is yet to come. It’s been the same court in every case, and the judge’s name is on the members’ list of Lucas Ritchie’s club.”

“And was his lawyer the same bloke who’s representing him now?”

Cullen thought about it. “Yeah. As a matter of fact, it was.”

“How much do you want to wager that the lawyer’s name is on Ritchie’s list, too?” Kincaid asked with rising glee. Shuffling through the papers on his desk, he found the list, then ran his finger down it until he found the name he was seeking. “Bloody hallelujah.” Grinning, he looked up at Cullen. “Bingo. I thought his name sounded familiar. No wonder he’s looked so nervous.”

“If he’s one of Alexander’s playmates, he’ll be thanking whoever he prays to that he wasn’t in Alexander’s photo album.”

Kincaid glanced at his watch. “Speaking of the photo album, Ritchie should be at the club by now. It’s time we took those photos round. I’ll just-” His desk phone rang and he broke off to answer.

It was the receptionist informing him that a Ms. Louise Phillips was downstairs. “Have someone show her up to my office,” Kincaid said, deciding he’d rather speak to her there than in an interview room.

“News travels fast,” he said to Cullen, and a few moments later, a uniformed constable showed Louise Phillips in.

She looked better than when he had last seen her, as if she were beginning to pull herself together after the shock of her partner’s death. But she still smelled of smoke, and her dark eyes were as intent as ever. Taking the chair Cullen offered her, she got right to the point. “I hear you arrested someone, a suspect in Naz’s murder-an anesthetist named Alexander.”

“Do you know him?” Kincaid asked.

“No. But there’s something you should know. I’m here on behalf of my client.”

“Azad?” Kincaid wondered if they’d been wrong to discount Azad’s involvement in the child trafficking.

“Mr. Azad has been very distressed over Naz’s murder. He didn’t feel he could speak, however, as long as he was in the delicate position of facing charges himself.”

“Are you telling me the Crown dropped its case?”

“Mr. Azad’s nephew has returned. He no longer wishes to testify against his uncle.”

“Please, enough of the lawyer-speak, Ms. Phillips,” Kincaid said, exasperated. “What are you here to tell us?”

Phillips touched her bag, as if she were about to reach for a cigarette, then sat back in her chair with a sigh. “Look, it’s like this. Azad’s silly nephew got himself involved in a forced labor scheme in East Anglia. They promised him the moon, then kept him in a hut for weeks, except when they sent him and the others they’d recruited out to work in the fields. No decent food, little water, no lavs, no medical care-even after he suffered a bad cut-and absolutely no communication with the outside world.

“But day before yesterday, he managed to get away and thumb a ride back to London. He’s thrilled to be back in his uncle’s house, and now thinks washing dishes in the restaurant kitchen is heaven on earth. So he’s not about to bite the hand that-quite literally-feeds him.”

“I’m sure his uncle must be thrilled by his nephew’s safe return,” Kincaid said sardonically. “But I don’t see-”

“Having heard about Alexander’s arrest, Azad feels he may have had some degree of responsibility for what happened-although of course he didn’t realize this at the time.”

“Of course,” Kincaid agreed, with no small degree of sarcasm.

“Look,” Lou Phillips said again. She brushed at her lapel. “Azad’s not a bad guy, really. Feudal, yes, but that means he takes care of his own. He’s loyal to his friends and his family, and he would never condone child prostitution. He heard rumors going round in Ritchie’s club. Maybe because he’d been charged with human trafficking, certain people let things slip. They were checking him out, he thought, to see if he was interested in abusing children.

“But Azad was disgusted. He told Naz about it. Then the day before Naz disappeared-the day before he was murdered,” Louise corrected herself, “they had a row. The upshot was that Azad finally agreed to tell Naz the names of the people he thought might be involved. Alexander was one of them. But Naz must have made the connection between Alexander and Sandra himself.”

“And then Naz went round to confront Alexander,” Kincaid finished. “With disastrous consequences. You realize I could charge your client as an accessory. Or, at the very least, with obstruction.”

Louise Phillips gazed levelly back at him. “I don’t think you will. My client has only just realized the pertinence of his information.”

Knowing he couldn’t prove otherwise, Kincaid conceded with as good a grace as he could muster. “Would Mr. Azad be willing to testify?”

“Maybe,” Louise said. “But first you lot have to make a case that will hold up.”

Gemma nibbled a sandwich at her desk, trying to concentrate on shifting her neglected caseload. But between glancing at the clock and checking to make sure her phone was really turned on, she wasn’t making much progress with lunch or work.

She’d left two messages for Janice Silverman, even though she knew that the family court hearing might have run behind schedule. She’d managed to refrain from ringing Kincaid, as she knew he’d call her as soon as he heard anything about the excavation of the garden in Hoxton.

When her phone actually rang, she dropped her egg salad and cress on her computer keyboard.

It was Betty Howard, and her warm voice sounded unusually harried. “Have you heard anything, Gemma?”

“No. I promise I’ll call as soon as I do, but Mrs. Silverman may call you first.”

“She’s that unsettled today, little Charlotte,” Betty said softly. “She didn’t want to sleep in her bed last night. She wanted Toby, and she kept fretting for you, and ‘the big man.’”

“The big man?” Gemma asked, puzzled. She cleaned the remains of her sandwich off her keyboard and tossed it in the bin.

“She means Duncan, but she can’t say his name very well.”

Gemma smiled. Naz Malik had been a small-framed man, so compared to her father, Duncan must seem large to Charlotte-and apparently comforting as well. Charlotte had become attached to him very quickly, but her trusting nature terrified Gemma as much as it touched her. The child had never been mistreated. How would she cope with Gail and her uncles?

“Oh, Betty, surely they won’t place her with the family. At least not yet.” She knew she was trying to reassure herself.

“Listen, Gemma…” Betty sounded hesitant. “I’ve been worryin’ a good deal. Even sayin’ the judge decides against the family, they may not place her with me. She’s mixed race, and they may feel she’d be better off with a white family. And…truth be told, I’m not gettin’ any younger, and I’m not sure I can give the child the best care in the long term.”

Gemma felt as if she’d been kicked. “Are you saying you don’t want her?”

“No, no, I’m not meanin’ that at all,” Betty said. “I’m just worried. I’d have to think hard about raisin’ up another child-about what’s best for her. She’s special, this girl. She deserves more than I can give her.”

“But, Betty, no one could do more-”

“Just you ring me soon as you hear somethin’,” Betty interrupted, and disconnected.

Gemma stared at the phone, her head reeling. She’d thought that if she could protect Charlotte from her family, the child would be assured of care and a safe future.

But if Betty didn’t take Charlotte…

It wasn’t that Gemma didn’t understand Betty’s concerns. Betty had raised five children of her own, and the responsibility of another child at her age would be daunting.

Still, Gemma shook her head in dismay. She couldn’t bear the thought of Charlotte vanishing into the care system.

When her phone rang again, and she saw from the caller ID that it was Kincaid, she answered a little shakily.

“You all right, love?” he asked.

“I’m fine,” she said, knowing she couldn’t begin to explain, not until she’d had a chance to think it through. “Have they found-”

“I’ve not heard anything yet. But I have a nice surprise for you. I’ve had a call from Narcotics. Meet me at Gail Gilles’s flat in Bethnal Green. Soon as you can.”

Melody had insisted on going with her. “I’m on pins and needles about Alexander,” she’d said. “So I’m not accomplishing anything. And if it’s something about Charlotte, I want to know, too.”

As they drove, Gemma told her about her conversation with Betty.

“Her reservations are understandable,” Melody said. “And she may be right about the placement issues. But you can’t do anything until you know what position the court is going to take, and what’s going on with Gail Gilles. You’re sure Duncan didn’t sound upset?”

“No. I’d almost swear he was laughing.”

But when they rounded the corner into Gail Gilles’s council estate and Gemma saw the police cars, lights flashing, her heart lurched. “What the hell-” she said, climbing out of the car.

Then she spotted Kincaid coming towards them. “What’s going on?” she asked as they met. “Is someone hurt?”

“Well, yes,” he said, his mouth twitching. “Terry Gilles is in hospital. It seems that Kevin and Terry got in a little scuffle with a gang of Bangladeshi kids. Kevin and Terry were moving in on a Bangladeshi estate, trying to sell their wares, and the kids didn’t appreciate it.

“Terry got knifed, and he thought he was dying. A flesh wound in the side, but he bled like a stuck pig. Apparently he was also a little off his head, and felt a great need to confess. He gave the PC who rode in the ambulance with him the full monty, and Kevin didn’t have time to do damage control.” Kincaid broke into a grin. “I don’t think you’ll have to worry about Gail Gilles, or Sandra’s sister or brothers, getting custody of Charlotte any time in the foreseeable future.”

As Gemma watched, two uniformed officers came down the stairs, escorting Gail Gilles, who sported handcuffs along with her pink dressing gown and leopard-print slippers.

Gail, however, was too busy ranting at the officers to notice her observers.

“She knew about the drugs,” said Gemma, although she hadn’t much doubt as to the answer.

“She not only knew, she was holding for the boys. Not just a hefty stash of heroin, but cash. They found twenty thousand pounds, just where Terry said it would be, in a Manolo Blahnik shoe box.

“And according to Terry,” Kincaid went on as Gail was helped, none too gently, into the back of a panda car, “the sister, Donna, was involved in a smaller way. They’re still searching her flat.”

Gemma shook her head, bemused. “If I were Terry, I’d be hoping they wouldn’t put me in a cell with Kevin.”

“Whatever happens to either one of them, it serves them bloody right.” Kincaid’s voice had gone cold, and Gemma knew he was thinking about her encounter with the brothers.

He turned to her and gave her arm a squeeze. “And now you won’t have to worry about Charlotte.”

Before she could answer, his phone rang. He excused himself to take the call, and when he came back all the levity had gone from his face. “They want us in Hoxton,” he said.

The lower floors of the house had been cleared by the scene of crime team, so that Gemma, Melody, and Kincaid were now able to walk downstairs and through the kitchen without wearing sterile gear. Kincaid had told Gemma that Cullen had gone to speak to Lucas Ritchie, but was now on his way to the house as well.

Rashid Kaleem was waiting for them in the garden-a garden that looked quite different from the serene space Gemma had seen the previous morning.

The stone pavers had been levered up all around the fountain and stacked to the sides. The gravel that had lain beneath the stones had been carefully scooped into buckets and tubs.

The forensic excavation team responsible for the current state of chaos had set up lights and worked through the night.

“When they reached what looked like garden lime, they called me,” the pathologist explained. He squatted by the pit, wearing the jeans and black T-shirt that Gemma thought of as his uniform. But his face and arms were streaked with dust, and his urbane charm seemed to have deserted him, although he gave Gemma a quick smile.

“The lads and the photographer have gone for a bit of a break,” Kaleem continued. “And I’ve called in a forensic anthropologist. What comes next is more his province than mine.”

“You’ve found her,” said Gemma. And although it was what she’d expected, what she’d been all too certain of since she’d first looked at the garden, she felt a rush of grief that caught her by surprise. Sandra Gilles would not come home to her daughter.

“Yes, I think so,” answered Kaleem. He rubbed his arm across his forehead, leaving more streaks. “There is an adult female body beneath the layer of lime. The lime slowed decomposition somewhat, but it’s been a warm summer, so…the clothing is pretty well intact, however, and matches the description of the items Sandra Gilles was wearing the day she disappeared. The hair also fits Sandra Gilles’s description-blond and very curly.”

Gemma decided then that she was not going to look. She had seen Naz Malik’s body. She wanted to keep her image of Sandra Gilles, the vibrant woman she’d seen in the photographs in the Fournier Street house, intact-for Charlotte’s sake as well as her own.

“…we will, of course, be matching DNA and dental records,” Kaleem was saying as she dragged her attention back to him. “The victim was buried facedown, and it looks as though she received a blow to the back of the head. There’s what appears to be matted blood in the hair, and a depression in the skull.”

Kincaid stepped forward and looked down. His face was impassive. “He hit her?”

“Looks that way. I’d say when her back was turned. No guess as to the weapon without a proper examination.”

“But-” Gemma tried to work out what had happened. “If she just came to talk to him, why did he take the risk of killing her, rather than just bluffing it out? Surely he could have covered his tracks up to that point-”

There were voices from the kitchen, and two suited forensics techs came out, followed by a photographer, and then Doug Cullen. Gemma noticed that one of the “lads” was female.

Kincaid and Kaleem moved aside so the techs could go back to work. “We’re just going to remove a bit more fill, Doc,” said the woman, who appeared to be in charge. “It seems to be quite soft beneath the body.”

“I talked to the landscapers this morning,” said Cullen. “The woman next door remembered the name on their van. This”-he waved a hand towards the fountain, now moved to one side-“wasn’t the original plan. He was going to put in a fishpond, quite a deep one. They’d already dug for it, and delivered the pavers to go round it, but they hadn’t taken away the earth that had come out of the hole.

“Then Alexander rang them the morning they were scheduled to concrete the pond and said he’d decided on something else and was going to do the work himself. They thought he’d just got a cheaper bid at the last minute, because he wasn’t the type to get his hands dirty. But then he called them back a few days later and asked them to put in the fountain.”

“So, he found himself with a body on his hands and took advantage of an opportunity,” Kincaid said. “He had a hole, and the materials to fill it, and he needed to do it as quickly as possible-”

“Wait,” interrupted Kaleem. He turned to Cullen. “Did your landscaper say how deep they dug? This body is actually quite close to the surface. If there’s loose soil beneath her-”

Kaleem and the female tech looked at each other, then went to the edge of the pit and knelt, leaning down. The tech eased herself flat onto her stomach, and Kaleem steadied her while she seemed to be probing carefully in the bottom of the hole.

“Shit,” she said, suddenly still. “Get me a damned bucket.”

The other tech hurried forward and eased himself down flat as well, lowering an empty tub.

Kaleem watched intently as the female tech moved again, and Gemma heard the soft sound of earth falling into the plastic tub. Then Kaleem looked up.

“There’s another body, lower down.”

The two techs worked silently, easing soil from around the edges of the upper body. After a quarter of an hour, the woman said, “I think that’s all we can do without disturbing the upper remains. But fortunately the lower body was a bit to one side, so I think you can get some idea of what we’ve got.”

Kaleem knelt down again and peered in. “There’s a hand and forearm visible. From the size, I’d say they belong to a child. And there’s hair. Long and dark. So I would guess, given the suspect’s history, that this victim is female.”

“Oh.” Gemma drew in a breath as an added weight of sorrow descended upon her.

The little girl had stopped appearing in the window, not because she’d been passed on to another man, but because she had died.

“Was the girl there longer than Sandra, do you think?” she asked Kaleem.

“Can’t say for certain without tests, but it looks like decomposition is a little more advanced. There’s no lime over these deeper remains, however, so decomposition might have progressed more rapidly.”

Gemma frowned. “Why no lime over the girl, I wonder?”

“Maybe the girl’s death was an accident,” Melody suggested. “He got too rough with her, or…well, anyway, whatever happened…maybe he just took advantage of the work in progress.” She gestured at the garden.

“And then when it came to Sandra,” continued Gemma, “he must have figured that what had worked once would work again. But he had to put her body closer to the surface, so he risked taking the time to get the lime. It was a Sunday, after all. He could have just driven to a garden center that afternoon. He wouldn’t have buried her until after dark.”

“It must have been backbreaking,” said Kincaid, without the least trace of sympathy. “I’ll bet we find he took a few days off work afterwards.”

“But why didn’t he bury Naz?” asked Gemma.

“He was running out of room. And maybe the lime hadn’t worked as well as he’d thought.” Kincaid shrugged. “Or maybe he just didn’t want to dig up his pavers again. But whatever the reason, it was a bad decision. If Naz Malik had disappeared without a trace, we might never have learned what happened to Naz or Sandra. Or this girl.”

“We found a pair of glasses, guv,” said the female tech. “Almost forgot, in all the excitement. They were under the shrubs, covered with some leaf mold.” She gestured towards the fill buckets, and Gemma saw a small evidence bag pushed to one side. She crossed the garden and picked up the bag, studying it. They looked just like the glasses Naz had been wearing in the photos on Sandra’s corkboard.

“I’m certain these belonged to Naz,” she said. “Do you think”-she hesitated, hating the idea-“do you think he left them deliberately?”

“If Alexander invited him out here for a drink-and I wouldn’t be surprised if the idea appealed to him, the twisted bastard”-Kincaid grimaced-“then kept him here, drugged, until dark, Naz might have had periods when he was conscious enough to realize what was happening.”

Cullen was shaking his head, not in disagreement, but in an expression that bordered on wonder. “Maybe that’s what Alexander was looking for that day in the mortuary, when we thought he might have gone through Naz’s effects,” he said. “He realized he’d slipped up. But, my God, what a nerve.”

The enclosed space of the garden was beginning to bake in the afternoon sun, and the odor rising from the pit was unmistakable. Gemma stepped back until she stood partly in the shade cast by the house. She looked up at the dark brick wall. “What we still don’t understand is what brought Sandra here that day.”

“They found a camera inside,” said the tech. “In the bedroom nearest the bathroom upstairs. There were some girls’ trinkets in a drawer, and a folded sari. The camera was tucked underneath, in the folds of the cloth.”

Gemma imagined Sandra, driven by an impulse they might never understand, perhaps asking to use the loo, then darting across the hall for a quick look in the bedroom. Had she meant to take a photo of the sari, but tucked her camera beneath the silk when she heard Alexander coming?

“Were there any pictures in the camera?” she asked.

“I don’t know, guv,” the woman answered. “But I don’t think they’ve sent it to the lab yet.”

“I want to see it,” Gemma said. She turned and went into the house, and Kincaid followed her.

While he went upstairs, she waited in the kitchen, listening to the murmur of his voice as he talked to someone on the upstairs search team.

When he came back, he held a small camera with gloved hands. “There was only one photo on the memory card.” He held the camera up so Gemma could see.

She gazed at the bright square of the view screen. There was an arch of dark brick, and within it, a peeling poster. It was a street artist’s fading work, so damaged that Gemma couldn’t be certain whether it was a painting or a photograph.

It didn’t matter. The young woman in the picture seemed to gaze back at her, unconcerned by her nakedness, her serene face innocent and as ageless as time itself.