Necessary as Blood

could Ritchie, I think. But I haven‘t come up with a really good reason why either of them would have done so. Lucas Ritchie says he and Sandra were longtime friends, and even if they had been having an
    affair, I can‘t see why he would have harmed her. It still looks as if Sandra‘s brothers are topping the charts.‘
    ‘You talked to them?‘ The children looked up from their play, and Gemma made an effort to lower her voice. ‘What did they say?‘
    Duncan swirled the dregs of his wine. ‘Ah, well. That‘s problematical. I didn‘t talk to them. And I‘m not going to, at least any time soon,‘ he added, tipping up his glass to empty it. ‘I had a visit this afternoon from the guv‘nor, who‘d had a visit from a high-up muckety-muck in Narcotics. Apparently, Narcotics have been running an undercover op in the area for a couple of years. Major drug-smuggling from Europe, a couple of homicides involved. And while the Gilles brothers may be very small fry, things are at a critical enough stage that they don‘t want anything to rock the boat.‘
    ‘So they are into drugs.‘ Gemma didn‘t know whether to feel vindicated or horrified.
    ‘Minor players, but yes. And Narcotics think if we talk to them, it might put the wind up bigger fish. And that means I can‘t talk to Gail Gilles, either.‘

    The children had interrupted them, trailing back up to the patio and demanding drinks. Toby had taken Charlotte by the hand and was bossing her about quite insufferably, but as Charlotte seemed happy, Gemma didn‘t correct him.
    After fetching them chilled, bottled water from the kitchen fridge, she‘d gone back inside to do the washing up. Duncan had offered, but she‘d needed some time to think over the events of the day, and she‘d wanted to give him the opportunity to be on his own with Charlotte and the boys.
    What sense could it possibly make to a child, she wondered, to have Mummy gone, then Daddy, then to be taken from home and nanny and all things familiar, to a strange house with a new family, then left again in a different house with a different family. Although Betty had, of course, told Charlotte she would be coming back for her, Gemma wasn‘t sure Charlotte was old enough to understand that. Or whether she would believe it, given the capriciousness of the blows that life had recently dealt her.
    It was she, Gemma realized as she turned off the tap and began to dry the plates, who had been the only constant in Charlotte‘s life since the afternoon of her father‘s disappearance. The thought made her feel both frightened and possessive.
    Voices drifted in through the open doors in the dining and sitting room: Duncan‘s low chuckle, the high-pitched tones of the little ones and Kit‘s still-unreliable shift between tenor and baritone, with an occasional canine yip as counterpoint.
    But by the time she‘d finished in the kitchen, it had grown quiet, and when she entered the sitting room she saw that they had all migrated inside. A pool of lamplight fell on Kit, who was draped sideways over the armchair, cocooned with his iPod and earphones.
    Toby sat cross-legged on the floor a few feet from the television, with the sound off, watching mesmerized as Cathy Rigby swooped and swaggered across the screen. The dogs were stretched out, panting, beside him, and Sid had taken up a safe vantage point on the bookcase.
    And Duncan... Duncan sat on the sofa with Charlotte cradled in his arms. She was fast asleep, her curly head tucked under his chin, and on his face was an expression of surprised and wondering tenderness.

    When Betty had collected the still-sleeping Charlotte — and it seemed to Gemma that Duncan had lowered her into her car seat with some reluctance — and the boys were in bed, Gemma and Duncan lay side by side, the sheet thrown back to catch a breeze from the open window.
    Drowsily, she shifted towards him until their thighs touched, wondering if the warm, humid air would stick their limbs together like glue. ‘So, what are you going to do about Gail Gilles and her sons?‘ she asked. He‘d told her that the plain-clothes officers he‘d put on watch had seen Kevin and Torry Gilles moving some of their belongings from their mother‘s council flat to their sister Donna‘s flat nearby. ‘Have you let Janice Silverman know that Kevin and Terry are under investigation?‘
    ‘I‘m not to contact her. They don‘t want any chance of a leak. But...‘ He trailed his fingers over