Necessary as Blood

by Deborah Crombie

  “Because it’s high church. My parents were brought up chapel, and to them St. John’s might as well be Catholic. My dad says it would kill my mum, which of course it wouldn’t, but my mum says to try to humor him-”

  “Then a civil venue-”

  “Just as complicated. The boys want in on the choice, and if we hold a proper reception, the guest list turns into a nightmare. We’d end up having to invite everyone either of us has met since primary school.”

  “A register office-”

  “Then we’ll disappoint everyone.” Gemma shook her head and looked out the window so she wouldn’t have to meet Hazel’s eyes. “I don’t know. I’ve done this before-it seems now that the wedding was the beginning of the end for Rob and me-and I don’t want to go through that again. I’m just about ready to chuck the whole thing.”

  The heart had gone from the house. Tim knew it, and Holly knew it, and there didn’t seem to be anything he could do to fix it.

  During the longest and darkest days of the winter, he had painted the kitchen. Not that he was very good at painting and decorating, but it gave him something to do to fill the seemingly endless evenings and weekends, and when he was finished he’d been quite proud of his handiwork.

  Gone were Hazel’s soft greens and peaches. The cupboards were sparkling white, the walls a deep maize yellow. A new beginning, he’d thought. Then Holly had come for a much-anticipated visit and burst into tears at the sight of it. “Where’s Mummy’s kitchen?” she’d wailed, and he’d been powerless to comfort her.

  She got used to it eventually, of course, just as she’d got used to their routine, but he’d never stopped feeling he had to try too hard. Holly would be six in a few weeks, and he’d argued the case for her starting proper school here with him as persuasively as he could. Hazel, however, had capitulated more easily than he’d expected, and now he found himself wondering if he would be able to cope.

  “Where’s Mummy?” Holly asked for the hundredth time that afternoon. She sat at the kitchen table, kicking her heels against the chair rungs. He had given her one of the fizzy drinks Hazel didn’t allow, and it had only made her more cross.

  “I’ve told you, pumpkin. She’s having a girls’ day out with your auntie Gemma.”

  “I want to go. I’m a girl,” Holly said with irrefutable logic.

  “You can’t this time. It’s grown-up girls only.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “No, I suppose not.” Tim sighed. “We could have cheese on toast,” he offered.

  “I don’t want toast. I want to play with Toby.” Holly’s pretty mouth, so like her mother’s, was set in a scowl that would have done justice to a troll.

  “We’ll arrange something.”

  Gemma and Duncan had gone out of their way to keep up the connection between the children, and they often included him in social invitations. Decent of them, but he was always aware that there was an element of charity involved, and it made him awkward. Their lives had diverged, the only point of contact the children, and making the effort to talk casually about Hazel exhausted him. But it was one of the few anchors in his life these days, and he was unwilling to let it go.

  “Now,” he said to Holly, “let’s stop kicking the chair.” Why, Tim wondered as he heard himself, did adults talk to children in the plural? It wasn’t as if he were kicking the bloody chair. If the inclusiveness was meant to be persuasive, it didn’t work.

  Holly kept kicking the chair rungs. He ignored it. “We could go to the park after Charlotte visits.”

  “I don’t want ta play wi’ Charlotte,” said Holly, and Tim heard the Scots accent that had been popping up intermittently since she’d come back to London. He found it both endearing and annoying, but on the whole wanted his daughter to sound like her old self. “Charlotte’s a baby,” she went on with disdain.

  “And you’re a big girl, so you’ll do a good job of looking after her while I talk to her daddy.”

  Mollified by this appeal to her bossy nature, Holly’s mouth relaxed. “Can we still go to the park?”

  Tim glanced at the kitchen clock. Naz and Charlotte were now almost an hour late, and that was very unlike Naz. “We’ll have to see, pumpkin,” he told Holly. He tried Naz’s mobile, but it went straight to voice mail.

  He didn’t normally see clients on a Saturday, and especially not when he had Holly. But Naz Malik was an old friend-they had been at uni together-and considering Naz’s situation, Tim had been willing to juggle his own schedule to suit his friend’s. He’d thought they could talk in the garden, and the girls could play.

  And Naz had been insistent when he’d rung that morning, almost distraught, in fact. Why would his friend, who was punctual to the point of obsession, say he had to see Tim, then not show up?

  “Let’s make the cheese toast,” Tim suggested. “I’m sure Charlotte would like some when she gets here.” Restless, he added, “I’ll tell you what. We’ll make a proper Welsh rarebit, like Mummy does.” Opening the fridge, he dug out some cheddar, mustard, and milk. Then he foraged in the cupboard for Worcestershire sauce, and cut thick slices of some slightly stale bakery bread.

  “It won’t be as good,” Holly intoned with certainty.

  “I know.” Tim repressed another sigh as he poured milk into the saucepan. “But we’ll do it anyway.”

  By the time he had spread his cheese sauce on the toast and popped it under the grill until it bubbled, he was beginning to feel seriously worried about Naz. He rang his mobile again, with no result. He took a bite of the toast, which was better than he’d expected, and watched Holly make gratifying inroads on her slice, but he couldn’t stop himself from glancing at the clock. It was an old-fashioned clock with a big face, and its second hand seemed to tick at glacial speed as the light in the garden grew softer.

  “Can we go to the park now, Daddy?” Holly scrubbed her greasy hands against her jeans, and Tim absently got up and dampened a cloth to wipe her fingers.

  “Not quite yet, pumpkin.” He rang Naz’s mobile once more, then pulled up his home number and redialed.

  It was picked up on the first ring. “Mr. Naz?” The voice was young, female, and rising with distress.

  “No. Alia? It’s Dr. Cavendish here.”

  Alia was Naz’s part-time nanny, a Bangladeshi girl who minded Charlotte during the day and took college classes at night. She wanted, Naz had told Tim, to be a lawyer.

  “Is Mr. Naz with you, then?” asked Alia. “He was supposed to be home two hours ago and he’s not answering his phone. My parents are expecting me and I can’t leave Charlotte. I don’t know what to do.”

  “He didn’t say where he was going?”

  “No. And he’s never late. You know how he is. If I take Char out for an ice cream or something and we’re even five minutes late, he’s, like, ballistic.”

  With good reason, thought Tim. “Is there anyone else you can call?”

  “I tried the office, but no one answered. I don’t have numbers for Charlotte’s mum’s family. Mr. Naz won’t have nothing to do with them.” She said “nuffink” in the strong Estuary accent adopted by many young second-generation immigrants to the East End. “And I don’t know how to reach Ms. Phillips at home.

  “He always answers his phone if he sees it’s me,” Alia went on. “Unless he’s in court, and then he tells me ahead of time. He knows I don’t call unless it’s important.”

  Louise Phillips was Naz’s partner in his law firm, and Tim didn’t have her home number, either.

  “I could take Char home with me,” said Alia, “but I don’t like to without his permission. I can’t think why he wouldn’t ring me if he was going to be late.” She sounded near tears.

  Nor could Tim imagine a circumstance in which Naz Malik would miss an appointment without notice or fail to respond to his daughter’s nanny, and his anxiety spiked into fear. “Okay, Alia, let me think.”

  He could leave Holly with his neighbors and be in Fournier Street within hal
f an hour. “You stay there,” he told her, “and I’ll come straight over.”

  But once there, he thought as he rang off, what could he do other than send Alia home?

  He was going to have to find Naz Malik, and he was going to need help.

  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.