Necessary as Blood

CHAPTER THREE

We carried on down Fournier Street. The back of Hawksmoor’s Christ Church loomed large over the Georgian town houses built by the Huguenots at a time when Spitalfields was known as Weaver Town.

– Tarquin Hall, Salaam Brick Lane

Hazel drove the secondhand Volkswagen Golf she had brought down from Scotland.

“I see you’ve joined the Sloane Rangers,” teased Gemma, the Golf having become the car of choice among the trendy in Chelsea. Having appointed herself navigator, she pulled her pocket-size A to Zed from her bag.

“They’re only Sloanie if they’re new and a gift from indulgent parents who don’t want their children to appear elitist,” said Hazel. “And this one has certainly seen better days.” She patted the dash as if consoling the car. “I was going to leave it behind, but then I considered the logistics of getting Holly from Battersea to Islington and vice versa with no tube stop on the Battersea end.”

They had crossed the Battersea Bridge and were driving east along the Embankment. Gemma glanced at Cheney Walk, then away. Her London seemed to be ever more populated by ghosts, and there were some she was more willing to allow real estate than others.

“Tell me what you know about this friend of Tim’s,” she said. Tim had rung just as Hazel announced it was time to open a bottle of wine, which seemed rather fortuitous timing on his part.

Hazel had listened, then put the bottle back in the fridge as she rang off, her brow creased. “Tim wants us both to meet him at a house near Brick Lane,” she’d explained. “If you can, that is. A friend who’s a single father hasn’t come home, and Tim’s worried about him and the child.”

Gemma had agreed willingly enough, but now she added, “Do you think Tim’s overreacting? Surely it’s a miscommunication of some sort.”

“I used to tell Tim his pulse wouldn’t go up in an earthquake. I wanted him to be more emotional.” Hazel’s emphasis made clear what she thought of that folly. “So, no, I’d say that if Tim’s worried, he has reason.” She coaxed the Golf’s sluggish gears through a down change, then tapped her fingers on the wheel as they idled at a light. “All I know about his friend is that they knew each other at university and recently got in touch again. He’s a solicitor called Naz Malik. Pakistani. I’ve never met him. There was some sort of scandal with Malik’s wife and I take it Tim felt sympathetic.”

Gemma glanced at Hazel, taken aback by the bitter tone, but Hazel went on, “I’m really not sure why he rang, except that he knew you were visiting and he wanted your advice.”

Afraid any comment would open a conversational minefield, Gemma went back to her map. “When you reach Whitechapel, you’d better take Commercial Street. I think Brick Lane is one way in the other direction.”

The Saturday traffic was light and they made good time, turning away from the river at Tower Hill. Soon the stark spire of Christ Church Spitalfields rose before them, and opposite, the dark brick facade of the old Spitalfields Market, surmounted by its new glass arcade.

Gemma had come to Spitalfields and to Petticoat Lane Market with her parents a few times as a child, and she had once been to Brick Lane on a Sunday with Rob, her ex-husband. She’d been a newly minted detective constable then, and Rob had bought cheap cigarettes and liquor that she’d been sure were smuggled or stolen. The street had smelled of rotting garbage, the buildings had struck her as dirty and squalid, and even by the standards of her Leyton upbringing the crowd had seemed raucous and unfriendly. She and Rob had ended up having a row and he’d called her-not for the first time-a self-righteous cow and she’d called him, well, she didn’t like to think about it. All in all, it had not been an experience she had wanted to repeat.

“Turn right just after the church,” she told Hazel.

“Hawksmoor, isn’t it?” Hazel glanced up through the windscreen. “Impressive, but not exactly your warm and fuzzy neighborhood sanctuary.”

Gemma had to admit that the angular silhouette of the church seemed a bit forbidding, and the proportions a bit odd, as if the spire carried too much weight.

As they turned right, she saw the short stretch of Fournier Street, its darkly severe houses anchored by the church and the crumbling facade of a pub at the top end, while the bottom end provided a perfect frame for the Bangla City supermarket on the opposite side of Brick Lane.

“There’s Tim’s car,” Hazel said tightly, as if her ill feelings extended to the battered Volvo. She found a small space nearby for the Golf, and when she had maneuvered into it, she and Gemma got out, checking the house numbers against the scribbled address.

“It’s this one.” Gemma looked up at a house set in the terrace on the north side of the street. Although adjoining, each house was set off from its neighbors by slight differences in the architectural detailing and the state of repair. This house looked well tended, its brown brick contrasting with trim work and wrought-iron railings painted a soft green.

The front door was offset, so that the ground floor had only two windows to one side, while the first and second floors had three windows across. The top floor was recessed, so that Gemma just glimpsed light glinting from what looked like loft or studio windows. The front door sported a hooded canopy supported by ornate brackets, also painted pale green, and the arched shape of the canopy was echoed in the slightly arched brickwork above the windows.

Before they could ring the bell, the door opened and Tim bounded down the steps, taking Gemma’s hand and giving her a peck on the cheek. “Thanks for coming.” He was tall, with unruly hair and a beard that had always seemed to Gemma to add to his air of rather puppyish awkwardness. But he had an endearing earnestness about him as well, and Gemma wondered if it was this that generated confidence in his patients.

“Hazel-” He turned to his wife, belatedly, for she had already mounted the steps. “Thanks. I-”

“Any word from your friend?” Hazel asked.

“No. I’ve kept Alia until you arrived. I thought Gemma would want to talk to her. Alia is Charlotte’s nanny,” he hastened to explain, ushering them into the entrance hall.

The space was dominated by a polished oak staircase, spiraling dizzyingly upwards in symmetrical right-angle turns. But the grandeur of the staircase was offset by the iron boot rack near the door, festooned with pairs of polka dot wellies in varying sizes, and a jumble of hats. A bicycle stood beside it, a helmet hanging by its chin strap on the handlebars.

The walls were painted the same warm green as the exterior trim, and through an open doorway Gemma glimpsed a comfortable-looking sitting room.

“Charlotte is your friend’s little girl?” Gemma asked.

“Yes. She’s not quite three. Naz was supposed to come for a visit, and we were going to let the girls play. But that was hours ago, and he never showed up at our house, or came home, and he’s not answering his phone. Look, let’s go down to the kitchen. You should talk to Alia.”

He led them to the back of the staircase, where a much less ornate flight led down into an open plan dining/kitchen area that stretched the length of the house.

Light from the well at the front fell on a sofa slipcovered in a cheerful dahlia print, and at the back, French doors opened onto a small garden. Cupboards and a large dresser lined the walls, and a trestle table stood in front of an enormous fireplace.

The air smelled of Indian spices, and a young Asian woman sat at the table, trying to coax a child to eat. The young woman was slightly plump, with straight black hair pulled back into a haphazard ponytail. When she looked up at them, her eyes were red-rimmed behind the lenses of her dark-framed glasses.

But the child…Gemma stared at the little girl, transfixed. Her light brown hair formed a mass of corkscrew curls almost as tight as dreadlocks. Her skin was the palest café au lait, and when she glanced up, Gemma saw that her eyes were an unexpected blue-green. She wore little Velcro-fastened trainers, and a dirt-smudged overall over a pink T-shirt. The ordinary clothes seemed only to emphasize her unusual beauty.

At the moment, however, she was turning her head away from the offered fork, and the young woman looked at Tim in appeal. “I made samosas,” she said. “A treat for Mr. Naz and Charlotte. My mum is always telling me I need to learn how to cook so that I can get a man, which is really stupid.” She shrugged. “It’s a Bangladeshi thing. But I don’t mind cooking for them.” Her nod included Charlotte and, Gemma assumed, the absent Mr. Naz. “Come on, Char,” she wheedled, pulling the child into her lap. “Just a bite.”

The child shook her head, lips clamped firmly shut, but leaned back against the young woman’s chest.

“Your daddy will be home soon, and he’ll be cross if you haven’t had your tea.” The young woman’s attempted sternness ended on an uncertain quaver, and Tim stepped in.

“Alia, this is my wi-” Tim regrouped in midword. “This is Dr. Cavendish.” He gestured towards Hazel, then Gemma. “And this is Gemma James. Gemma’s with the police, and I thought she might-”

“Police?” Alia’s eyes widened in alarm. “I don’t want-I didn’t mean to get Mr. Naz into any sort of trouble.”

“I’m just here as a friend, Alia,” Gemma said quickly. “To see if I can help.” She slipped into the chair beside Alia’s at the table. “Why don’t you tell me about your day.”

“My day?” From Alia’s expression Gemma might have asked her the square root of pi.

“Yes.” Gemma smiled, trying to put the girl at ease. She gave Hazel and Tim a glance that they interpreted correctly, taking seats at either end of the sofa. Turning back to Alia, Gemma asked, “Do you usually look after Charlotte on a Saturday?”

“No. Mr. Naz likes to spend as much time with her as he can on the weekend. But he rang this morning and asked if I could come in for a couple of hours. I thought he had to go to the office, but when he left he didn’t have any papers or nothing. Mr. Naz is a solicitor. But then Dr. Cavendish will have told you,” she added uncertainly.

“And Mr. Naz didn’t say where he was going?”

“No. Just that he’d be back in time to take Charlotte with him to visit Dr. Cavendish.” She looked from Tim to Hazel, obviously confused by the two Dr. Cavendishes, but this wasn’t the moment to enlighten her.

“Was there anything else different in what he said, or how he looked?” Gemma asked.

Alia’s broad brow creased as she thought. “He only gave Charlotte a kiss. Usually he picks her up and swings her round.” At the sound of her name, Charlotte put her thumb in her mouth.

Perhaps he had been distracted, Gemma thought, but she went on matter-of-factly. “Then what did you and Charlotte do? Did you go out?” She smiled at the child but got no response.

“Just in the garden.” Alia glanced at the back doors. “Charlotte has a sandbox, and it was nice outside. Then Mr. Naz had got mangoes, so we made a lassi in the blender. Mr. Naz had said he’d be back by three, so I had everything tidied up by then. But he didn’t come home.”

Gemma took in the neat kitchen. One of the work tops held the baking sheet Alia had used to heat the samosas, and a Tupperware container. The fridge, a retro Smeg, was adorned with magnets and bright crayon drawings, an ordinary scene in a household with a child. But something here was not ordinary at all. Thinking that Toby, now almost six, had not stopped talking since he’d learned how to form words, she smiled again at Charlotte and said, “Hi, Charlotte. I’m Gemma. Did you make those nice pictures?”

Charlotte merely gazed back at her, expressionless.

Wondering if the child was developmentally delayed, she said softly to Alia, “Is she very shy?”

“Shy?” Alia sounded startled. “Oh, no, I wouldn’t say that. It’s just that…since her mum…she doesn’t talk much, especially round strangers.”

“She doesn’t see her mum?”

Alia stared at her, the finger she had been twining in Charlotte’s curls suddenly still. “You don’t know about Sandra?” she whispered.

Gemma shot an accusing glance at Tim, who shrugged, mouthing “No time.”

“No. I’m afraid I don’t.”

Tim sat forward, hands on his knees as if holding himself down. “It was in May,” he said. “I saw an appeal Naz put in the papers afterwards. That’s why I got in touch.” He glanced at Charlotte, then seemed to choose his words even more carefully. “She-Sandra-left the baby with a friend at Columbia Road. It was a Sunday, just as the market was winding down. She said she had an errand and she’d only be gone a few minutes. She never returned.”