Necessary as Blood

did you say your name was? Gemma?‘
    She turned back, her heart thudding. ‘Gemma. That‘s right.‘ She had blown it, and now she was going to have to bail herself out, somehow, and without blowing the narcotics op as well.
    ‘You said you helped look after Charlotte before the social-worker lady took her.‘ To Gemma‘s surprise, Gail‘s voice had taken on a wheedling tone. ‘So you know that Silverman woman. Any way you could put in a good word for me?‘

    Gemma clattered down the stairs, barely missing the tricycle, and cannoned out onto the patch of green lawn. She was breathing as if she‘d been running a sprint, and it was only when she reached her car and pushed her hair back from her face as she fished for her keys that she saw them.
    Two young men, one more heavyset than the other, both with heads shaven to a dark stubble, watched her from near the bottom of the stairwell. Although they were older than they had been in the photos, she recognized them from the family portraits in Sandra Gilles‘s flat. Kevin and Terry Gilles, undoubtedly. Had she gone right past them? Did they know she‘d come from their mother‘s flat? If not, they would soon enough.
    She glanced away, keeping her face deliberately blank, just as her searching fingers found her keys. Casually she inserted the key in the lock, opened the door and climbed into the Escort. The driver‘s seat scorched the backs of her thighs even through her trousers, and the steering wheel felt molten, but she switched the blower on high and drove slowly, cautiously away, without lowering the windows, and without looking back.
    Crossing Bethnal Green Road, she made the first right turn that she saw and pulled the car over near a quiet churchyard. It seemed miles from the council estate. With the car idling, she lifted her shaking hands from the wheel and lowered the windows.
    What had she been thinking, going into that flat as unprepared as a lamb? What if the sons had come in? And what had she accomplished for the risk?
    She thought it through. She now knew that although Gail Gilles seemed to have no means of support, her sons, who had menial jobs at best, kept her well supplied with high-priced merchandise, and God knew what else that was not so visible. That made it pretty certain that Kevin and Terry had undocumented — and probably illegal — income.
    And they had seen her. She hadn‘t identified herself, hadn‘t given her last name, but would it be enough to make them, or their hypothetical bosses, suspicious?
    And what if Gail hadn‘t been fooled by her dithery act? What if Gail had been playing her, having marked her as an undercover cop? And a lousy undercover cop at that.
    Bloody hell! The worst thing was that she could not — absolutely could not — repeat anything she‘d learned to Janice Silverman. Gail Gilles was vain, grasping, callous, bigoted, and still seemed to hold a vicious grudge against her missing daughter. Nor did she seem to feel an iota of genuine concern for her granddaughter. The thought of Charlotte being abandoned to the woman‘s care — if you could call it that — made her feel ill again.
    As she wiped her sweaty face with a handkerchief, trying to work out what to do next, her phone rang and she saw with relief that it was Melody, and not Kincaid. She wasn‘t ready to tell him that she just might have made a balls-up of things.
    ‘Boss.‘ Melody sound reassuringly crisp and cheerful. ‘You said to call if anything came in, so I am. There‘s been a burglary, a hairdresser‘s shop down the bottom of Ladbroke Grove. Last night, but they just now got round to reporting it. Manager apparently waited until the owner came in. Want me to put Talley‘s team on it?‘
    ‘What?‘ It took Gemma a moment to make sense of what Melody had said. In the last two weeks they‘d had a string of night-time burglaries of small shops, although the culprits usually didn‘t manage to get much more than a little merchandise and some petty cash. ‘Oh, right,‘ she said, recovering. ‘Yes, Talley should take it. He‘s been working the others.‘ A thought occurred to her. ‘Look, Melody, could you get away for a bit? I‘m in Bethnal Green.‘

    Melody had suggested they meet at Spitalfields Market. ‘There‘s a good salad place there. I haven‘t had lunch, and I‘m watching my calories.‘ If she was curious as to why Gemma was in Bethnal Green when she‘d said she was going to Leyton to visit her mum, she