Necessary as Blood

began to drift again.
    Then, there was movement. Hands pulling at him, the grunt of someone else‘s effort. Space spun and he flailed out as arms gripped him, lifting. He forced his eyes open, but the movement made him queasy, and he saw only shifting, tilting shadows he couldn‘t grasp. His glasses: what had happened to his glasses?
    He groped at his face, but a vaguely familiar voice was urging him forwards. He stumbled — his feet seemed disconnected from his brain — but the hands and voice kept him moving.
    There was a click, and the feel of the air changed - fresher, damper — and he suddenly knew he was outside, although he hadn‘t realized before that he‘d been inside.
    The sharp scent of petrol exhaust tickled his nose. He heard the muted sound of traffic, saw moving flashes of light. Then the hand shoved him down, his forehead cracked against something hard and blackness descended.
    When he woke once more, he was moving, propelled by an arm round his shoulder, his unwilling feet tangling with each other. It was dark, truly dark. Rough things caught and scraped at his face, and when he lifted a hand to his cheek it was wet. Then he was falling, falling, and the scent of warm earth rose up to meet him.

Chapter Seven

At certain times, it was so quiet that I could hear the call to prayer from the East End mosque on Whitechapel Road, and the clatter of trains as they passed along the underground line from Shoreditch station. Sunday mornings brought the distant sounds of pealing church bells and music-box tunes played by roaming ice-cream vans. From the backs of the curry houses came the smell of Indian cooking and, when the wind was in the right direction, the sweet aroma of fresh bagels from the bakeries.

Tarquin Hall, Salaam Brick Lane

    Gemma woke on Sunday morning tired and headachy from having tossed and turned during the night. She‘d gone to bed cross with Duncan, something she hated even when the cause was a mere domestic argument. But this, this had been much worse than a squabble over chores or work. When he‘d told her about Cyn‘s call, she‘d lashed out at him in a burst of fury that left her shaking.
    He‘d said, with irritating reasonableness, that there would have been nothing she could do if he had told her earlier. She‘d been in Spitalfields with no car, and even if she‘d taken the Tube from Liverpool Street to Leyton, then what? Her mum would have been in bed, her dad exhausted, and neither glad to see her.
    The fact that she knew he was right made her no less peeved. When he asked her what had happened in Brick Lane, she‘d merely snapped, ‘Long story‘, and gone off to check on the children — Toby asleep, Kit texting on the phone that had been his birthday present, which she now swore was biologically attached to his thumbs.
    But upstairs on her own, the anger started to drain away. Feeling sweaty and dusty, she‘d shed her clothes in a heap on the mat and slipped into a hot bath. The bathroom window was open, and night sounds from the garden drifted in with the occasional breeze. It amazed her that London could be so quiet off the main thoroughfares — but when she listened very carefully she could hear an underlying faint hum of the city, and occasionally the distant squeal of brakes or slamming of car doors.
    By the time the water had cooled, she‘d realized that she‘d merely focused on Duncan as the nearest target for her own worry and her irritation with her sister. As she patted herself dry and slipped into pyjamas, she resolved to apologize, but when she went out into the bedroom, he was asleep. All she could do was curl up against his back and listen to his quiet breathing.
    She was up and dressed early, before Duncan and the children were awake. As soon as she deemed it even remotely civilized, she rang her sister from the quiet confines of the kitchen.
    ‘Cyn, why the hell didn‘t you ring me?‘ she hissed when her sister answered, trying to keep her voice down.
    ‘Gemma!‘ Cyn sounded cheerfully surprised, artificially so, and Gemma‘s heart plummeted into her stomach. ‘I was just going to call you,‘ her sister added. There was a murmur of voices in the background, but not, Gemma thought, those of Cyn‘s husband, Gerry, and her children, Tiffani and Brendon.
    ‘Where are you?‘
    ‘Hospital. The London.‘ Gemma heard rustling and the background noise faded, replaced by her sister whispering, ‘I can‘t talk. You know it‘s against