“Drugs?” said Mr. Hakim. “Alia, for you to be involved-”
“I am not involved,” Alia snapped at him. “And neither was Naz. Naz wouldn’t have anything to do with drugs.” She turned back to Kincaid and Gemma. “Why would someone do this to him?”
Out of courtesy, Gemma accepted a cup of the tea Mrs. Hakim had poured, sipping gingerly. It was lukewarm, tasted of cardamom, and was teeth-achingly sweet. “Did Naz say or do anything that was different on Saturday?” she asked, glad for an excuse to set down her cup.
“No.” Alia shook her head slowly. “But he was…distracted. I told him I’d made samosas, and he-he didn’t thank me.” She carefully avoided meeting either parent’s gaze. “He was usually very polite.”
Gemma suddenly wondered if there were more to Mr. Hakim’s disapproval than fatherly overprotectiveness. Perhaps not on Naz Malik’s part, but it was only natural that this rather awkward girl might have developed a crush on her employer, especially if she had romanticized Sandra’s disappearance in some way.
“Did he mention anything about a case he was working on?” asked Kincaid. “He was defending a Mr. Azad, a restaurant owner.”
“No. Naz-Mr. Malik-never talked about work. Well, only a little, when I’d have questions about my law texts, but then it was only, you know, general. It would have been unethical for him to discuss his clients.”
Definitely an echo of hero worship in the slightly prim reply, thought Gemma, but she said, “Alia, did Mr. Malik ever mention a man called Ritchie? Lucas Ritchie?”
“No.” Alia frowned. “Who is he?”
“Someone Sandra might have known. Did Mr. Malik ever talk to you about what he thought had happened to Sandra?”
“No. No-well, only at first. The same sort of things you’re asking me. ‘Did she say anything?’ or ‘Was there anything different?’”
“Do you know why Naz and Sandra didn’t get along with Sandra’s family?”
“I-No, not really,” said Alia, but her covert glance at her parents was unmistakable. “It wasn’t my business,” she added, making Gemma even more certain that she had absorbed every detail of Naz Malik’s and Sandra Gilles’s lives.
“And it is no longer her concern,” Mr. Hakim broke in, addressing Kincaid. “I think my daughter has nothing more to tell you, and I must get back to my work.”
“Mr. Hakim, we can interview your daughter here, or we can talk to her at the police station. A murder investigation does not revolve around your convenience. And Alia is of age-your presence is not required.”
“But I don’t know what else I can tell you,” said Alia, with another anxious glance at her father, and Gemma thought they’d get no more out of her in these circumstances.
“We appreciate your time, Alia.” Having apparently come to the same conclusion, Kincaid stood and pulled a card from his pocket. “If you think of anything else or need to get in touch-”
Alia plucked the card from his hand before her father could reach for it. “I’ll walk you out. I’ll only be a moment, Abba.” She obviously intended to forestall her father with speed, and Gemma just had time to say a quick good-bye to Mrs. Hakim, earning another shy smile. As she followed Kincaid and Alia from the flat, she wondered how much of the conversation Alia’s mother had understood.
Alia led them out through the patio garden and onto the lawn, then, when she was out of earshot, turned back so that she could survey the flat. “You have to understand about my father,” she said quietly, vehemently. “I don’t want you to think badly of him. He is not an uneducated man. In Bangladesh, he had a university degree. And he’s a good businessman-he owns a call center in Whitechapel Road. But he works all day with immigrants. He sees himself as an immigrant. His dream is to make enough money to retire in Bangladesh, and he wants…” She frowned, as if struggling to work out the words. “He doesn’t want anything in this life to-to stain that one.” Alia took a breath and went on, more hurriedly, “But me-I’m British first and Bangladeshi second. It doesn’t mean I disrespect my parents or my culture, but it’s different for me.”
Mrs. Hakim came out of the flat and began hanging laundry on the patio, glancing over at them as she lifted a sheet from her basket.
“Alia,” Gemma said urgently, afraid they would be interrupted, or that Alia would lose the nerve to make the confession she was obviously trying so hard to justify. “What is it that you don’t want your father to know?”
“My father-he disapproved of Naz and Sandra’s marriage, even though Naz was not Muslim. In Abba’s eyes it’s not right for an Asian to be with a white person. And Sandra-if he knew about her family-he would think I’d disgraced him, just by my connection with them. Even though I don’t know them personally.” Alia cast a wary eye towards her mother and ran a finger between her chin and the hijab. “It’s-what do you call it? Guilt by association.”
“What? How?” asked Gemma. “What could be that bad?”
“Drugs,” Alia whispered. “Sandra’s brothers do drugs.”
Kincaid raised an eyebrow. “Alia, half the city does drugs. Surely that’s not so unusual-”
“No.” Alia shook her head. “You don’t understand. I don’t mean they smoke a bit of weed or pop X at a party. I heard Naz and Sandra arguing, before Sandra disappeared. Sandra’s brothers deal heroin.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
In its heyday, the pub [the Bethnal Green Arms] had been the haunt of the Kray twins and various other East End underworld figures and thugs. But since then, its popularity had dwindled, possibly because the décor and ambience dated back to the same period.
– Tarquin Hall, Salaam Brick Lane
“I have to ring the social worker.” Standing in the street with Kincaid, beside their respective cars, Gemma fumbled in her bag for her mobile.
“Slow down, love,” Kincaid said. “We have no idea if it’s true, to begin with. Could be just a rumor, or could be the girl misheard or misunderstood, or she might even be making things up for a bit of drama. It sounds as if her life is going to be pretty grim without Naz Malik in it.”
“Yes, well, maybe so. But I don’t think she’s making it up. Tim said Sandra didn’t get on with her brothers at all.”
“That’s hearsay, and even if the brothers are involved with drugs, that doesn’t mean Sandra’s sister is as well. I’m sure the little girl will be fine.”
“Charlotte. Her name is Charlotte,” said Gemma, and was surprised by her own vehemence. “And you can’t know that she’ll be all right. She’s already lost both parents, at least as far as we know.”
He sighed. “Okay, you’re right. Call the social worker. But those decisions are hers to make, not yours. And-” He held up his hand like a traffic cop to stop her interrupting. “And I’ll see what I can dig up on Sandra Gilles’s brothers. According to the reports, they did have alibis for the time Sandra Gilles disappeared. But we don’t know yet about the day Naz was killed. Now”-he glanced at his watch, which suddenly seemed to Gemma an infuriating habit-“I’ve got to get back to Bethnal Green. I’ll ring you if we come up with anything concrete.” He kissed her cheek. “Go see your mum.”
Gemma watched as he got in his car, waving to her as he pulled away. She suddenly felt ridiculous, standing in the sun in the middle of a street whose name she didn’t remember, feeling angry with Kincaid for no reason other than that he had been bossy and slightly patronizing. If she were going to get her knickers in a twist any time a man behaved like that, she’d long ago have given up her job. It must be the worry over her mum getting to her.
She would go to the hospital, of course. But first she was going to ring Janice Silverman. And then, after she’d seen her mum, she was going to pay another visit to Tim Cavendish. Tim had been reluctant to tell them about Sandra’s rumored relationship with the mysterious club owner because he was protecting Naz. And if he’d held back one thing, were there others? Had Naz told him about Sandra’s brothers?
“Okay, what have we got?”
Kincaid looked round at the occupants of the incident room at Bethnal Green station, who looked as bedraggled as the room itself. Polystyrene cups and plastic sandwich boxes littered the tabletops; papers had drifted out of folders and onto the floor; articles of clothing had been draped over chair backs-all signs of what Kincaid hoped had been a productive afternoon. While he’d been out someone had got the whiteboard organized and tacked up a set of the crime scene photos.
He cleared space to sit on one of the tables as the female constable who’d been taking the public calls said, “Nothing on the phones, sir. A couple of nutters-we’ll check them out just in case-but nobody who sounds reliable has reported seeing anything in the park. I’ve pulled a photo of Naz Malik from the Gilles file and had it copied. We’ll get it posted round the park, and will have someone take it door-to-door in the nearby streets as well.”
“Nice initiative,” Kincaid said, trying not to notice that the constable had stripped down to the barest of tank tops and didn’t appear to be wearing a bra. “And you’re-”
“Ashley, sir.” She pushed a damp wisp of hair into her glossy brown ponytail and smiled. “Detective Constable Ashley Kynaston.”
“Newly promoted to CID,” put in Sergeant Singh, with the emphasis on newly, apparently not disposed to tolerate grandstanding by another attractive female officer.
“I’m beginning to think this is better than working at the Yard,” Kincaid murmured to Cullen, who had just come in, but Cullen looked at him blankly. Kincaid sighed. No wonder the poor bugger couldn’t get a date.
He addressed the group again. “Okay, no joy there. Anything from forensics?”
“Nothing immediately useful from the park,” said Singh, briskly taking charge. “But they’ve filed samples for comparison in case they’re needed later-a few unidentified shreds of cloth as well as the soil and leaf mold. It was too dry for prints. Nor was there anything of note in Mr. Malik’s personal effects. The techies have turned the mobile over to us, and I’ve got someone going through the numbers. All the most recent calls were from his friend Dr. Cavendish, his nanny, and his partner.” She spoke without notes, and Kincaid guessed he had her organizational skills to thank for the whiteboard and photos.
“And the house?” he asked.
“Still working on it. We’ll need prints for comparison, but there’s nothing obvious. They’ve taken two computers in for analysis.”
“All right. They can carry on, but I’ll want to have a look myself at anything interesting in the house-papers, diaries, photos.” These were the items he always preferred to see himself, as it was often the things you weren’t looking for that turned out to be the most helpful. And in this case, particularly, when they might be dealing with not one crime but two, he wanted to get a sense of this couple, this household.
Gemma had seemed to feel a connection with them, and with their child-perhaps too much of a connection, he thought, remembering their last conversation. “Sergeant Singh, when you investigated Sandra Gilles’s brothers after she disappeared, was there any suggestion that they were involved with serious drugs? As in dealing?”
“I can tell you that.”
Turning, Kincaid saw a man leaning against the doorway, hands in the baggy pockets of his trousers. He still wore the jacket of his gray suit, which stretched across his broad shoulders, but the tail end of his tie hung from the jacket pocket. His graying hair was buzzed short, accentuating the pouches under his eyes.
“DI Weller,” said Kincaid.
“Got it in one.” Weller came into the room, propping himself on the edge of Singh’s table, and Kincaid sensed a subtle shift in the room’s alliances, a withdrawal. None of the Bethnal Green crew would want to be seen sucking up to Scotland Yard in front of their boss.
“Kevin and Terry Gilles are not the brightest clams in the pail,” Weller went on. “I can’t see them doing more than threatening kids for their lunch money. One of them, Kevin, I think it is, has been taken in a few times for disorderly conduct, had his driving license suspended. Apparently has a bit of a problem with his drink, but that’s a long way from drug kingpin.”
“Duncan Kincaid, by the way. Scotland Yard,” Kincaid said, ignoring Weller’s slightly mocking tone. The DI was doing a fairly good job of playground bully himself, but they were all going to have to get along nicely if they were to get anything accomplished. “And this is Sergeant Cullen,” he added, and Cullen gave Weller a wary nod. Kincaid glanced at his watch, smiled at the rest of the room. “Long day, everyone, and good job. Let’s reconvene first thing in the morning, shall we?” He turned back to Weller. “Inspector Weller, can we buy you a drink?”
They sat at one of the few tables squeezed onto the pavement outside a pub in Commercial Street. Kincaid had chosen the establishment because it was within spitting distance of Naz Malik’s Fournier Street house and he wanted to check on the forensics team afterwards. Weller had chosen the table on the pavement because he wanted to smoke.
“I quit for six months,” Weller admitted when Cullen had gone for their pints. “But my son got married this weekend, and then this case…” He shrugged and lit a Benson Hedges. Squinting past a stream of exhaled smoke, he held out a hand to Kincaid. “It’s Neal, by the way. Sorry if we got off on the wrong foot. Bad day.”
Cullen returned with three carefully balanced pint glasses and managed to set them down with only a slight slosh. Weller nodded his thanks and held out a hand to him as well. “Neal.”
“Doug.”
Proper introductions settled, Weller drank, then wiped the foam from his lip. “I was saying. Didn’t get a conviction today on a bastard we’re certain is a serial rapist. Jury considered the evidence circumstantial and the judge couldn’t convince them otherwise. Eighteen-year-old kid looks like a choirboy, and then there was me. Who’re they gonna believe?”
“Tough luck,” Kincaid agreed.
“For the next woman he lures into an alley.” Weller crushed out his cigarette with unnecessary force, then sighed. “But that’s neither here nor there, is it? You want to talk about Naz Malik.”
“First, I want to talk about Sandra Gilles,” Kincaid said. “What do you think happened to her?”
Weller shrugged. “What are the options? One-the most likely-domestic row turned ugly, husband got rid of the evidence. But within an hour of her leaving the kid at Columbia Road, Naz Malik was seen very publicly waiting for his family in a bus-turned-restaurant in Brick Lane. What could he have done with her in that hour? His office wasn’t far, but we went over every inch of the place and found nothing. And if she were meeting her husband, why leave the kid? And why not tell the friend at Columbia Road that she was meeting her husband?” Weller drank more of his pint and Cullen shifted in his chair, as if anticipating being sent to fetch the next round.
“So maybe she went home for something, caught her husband unexpectedly in the house with someone else,” Cullen suggested.
Weller shook his head. “Again, not enough time. Malik went straight from the restaurant to Columbia Road, took the kid home, and when his wife hadn’t turned up by dark, he called the police. When would he have disposed of a body? And there was no evidence in the house. Same as the office, it was clean as a whistle. So, option two.” He shook another cigarette from the pack and lit it.
“Sandra Gilles decided she was tired of being a wife and mum and simply disappeared from her life, either on her own or with someone else. It happens. Maybe she hitched a ride and is working as a fry cook at a Little Chef halfway to Scotland. I’d like to think so.”
“But you don’t,” Kincaid said, knowing the answer. “And option three?”
Weller’s eyes hardened. “Somebody snatched her off the street in broad daylight. Somebody like that psycho who got off today. Maybe he pulled over in a car, asked for directions, and dragged her in. Maybe everyone just happened to have their lace curtains closed at that very moment. And if that’s what happened, God help her. I hope it was quick.” He finished hi
s drink in one long draft and Cullen stood up obligingly.
“Guv?” Cullen nodded at Kincaid’s glass, but Kincaid shook his head.
When Cullen had gone inside, Kincaid said. “What about her brothers? Apparently Naz thought their alibi was dodgy.”
“They were drinking in a pub near the Bethnal Green tube station. Not a nice place, to put it politely. Clientele mostly drunks and punters, and yes, some of them were mates of Kev and Terry. But the landlord didn’t care for the brothers, and he vouched for them regardless. And even if their alibi hadn’t checked out, what would they have done with her? Kev’s car, a clapped-out Ford, was up on blocks on the council estate, and they live with their mum, so it’s not likely they took her home.”
Cullen came back with a new pint for Weller and a glass of what looked suspiciously like tonic water for himself. “A scrum in there,” he said, edging his way past two standing drinkers to slip back into his chair.
The after-work crowd had now spilled out of the pub’s open doors. Most of the men and women wore suits, but Kincaid spied a patron or two in jeans and T-shirts, and one girl in full Goth regalia, black fingernails included.
“The City is moving in.” Weller eyed the suits with obvious distaste. “I suppose that’s a good thing-lowers the crime rate anyway, less work for us. But most of them are bloody wankers. They get jobs at some City bank, buy some overpriced tarted-up flat that’s barely been cleared of rats, and they think they belong here.”
“So who does belong here?” Kincaid asked, thinking about their earlier conversation with Alia Hakim. “The Bangladeshis? The Somalis? The artists?”
“There is that,” Weller agreed. “Not very many true Cockneys left-but what were Cockneys but poor immigrants who shoved out the immigrants who came before them?”
“Must have been a bit glamorous in its day, though, the old East End,” said Cullen. “The Kray twins-”
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