Necessary as Blood

she have been jealous enough to kill Sandra?‘ asked Melody.
    ‘You‘re assuming that Sandra is dead.‘ Gemma kept her voice even and didn‘t look at Melody.
    ‘Aren‘t you?‘
    ‘I don‘t want to think so.‘ But Gemma recalled the short walk from Columbia Road Market to Pippa Nightingale‘s studio, and she couldn‘t shake the image of the monochrome paintings with the brilliant splashes of red pigment. What if Sandra had gone there that day, to talk to Pippa, and they had argued? Gemma had sensed a ruthlessness beneath Pippa‘s elfin looks, and Lucas Ritchie had confirmed it — if he was telling the truth.
    They had reached Brushfield Street, and the permanent canopy erected over the west end of Spitalfields Market looked jaunty, like a sail. A busker in bright African costume played the steel drums, and families congregated in the awning‘s shade, talking and laughing and eating ice cream. Surely, Sandra and Naz had brought Charlotte here, Gemma thought, and she had had ice cream, too.
    ‘I might want to have another chat with Pippa Nightingale,‘ she said to Melody. ‘But just now I want to go home, check on the boys, call Betty, see how Charlotte‘s doing today. What about you? Can I give you a lift?‘
    Melody seemed to hesitate. ‘There was something... no, never mind.‘ She shook her head. ‘Thanks, but I‘ll get the Tube. I have an... errand... to do before I go back to Notting Hill.‘

    Melody got off the train at High Street Kensington, and walked — or rather shoved — her way down Kensington High Street the short distance to the Whole Foods Market, for it had just gone six o‘clock and the pavements were teeming with shoppers and commuters.
    The enormous health-food store offered a respite from the heat as well as the crowds. It was an American chain, and Americans seemed to consider air-conditioning a religion, a quirk of national character for which Melody at that moment was profoundly grateful. She doubted there was a dry spot left on the once-crisp blouse beneath her suit jacket.
    Having had much practice, she made a beeline for the ready-meals case at the rear of the store. After a moment‘s consideration, she chose a carton of carrot and coriander soup, and a small plastic tub of pomegranate salad — and, on second thoughts, went on to the wine section and picked up a bottle of Pinot Grigio.
    After her late lunch with Gemma, that should be supper enough, and her shopping was a delaying tactic as much as a necessity. As she walked back through the shop, she passed the oyster bar and the champagne bar, and tried to imagine a life in which she would waltz up to either and order without guilt. Maybe the next time she came in, she would live a bit more dangerously.
    The DJ at the mixing station near the front entrance looked up as she passed and smiled at her, cueing Corinne Bailey Rae‘s ‘Put Your Records On‘.
    Melody smiled back, an indulgence she usually didn‘t allow herself, and tried not to bounce to the beat. But her temporary buoyancy evaporated quickly when she reached the street. She walked on, her purchases heavy in one hand, still mulling over what she had seen that afternoon in Lucas Ritchie‘s club.
    She thought she had recognized a man who had come in, not as someone she‘d met, but from a photo she‘d seen in a newspaper, and fairly recently.
    Well, she had an archive at her fingertips, almost literally, and this evening she couldn‘t resist the temptation of taking advantage of it, in spite of the attendant risks.
    Turning the corner, she looked up at the great Art Deco building that housed one of the country‘s most blatant purveyors of tabloid news, the Chronicle. Then she used her pass card in the door.
    ‘Evening, Miss Melody,‘ said the guard at the main desk as she crossed the lobby towards the lifts. ‘Your dad‘s just left.‘
    ‘Just as well, George.‘ Melody stepped into the lift and pressed the button for the top floor.

Chapter Nineteen

It was in January 1978 that Margaret Thatcher had famously spoken on television about the fear of white people that they were being ‘swamped by people with a different culture‘. White panic had already been triggered and was not allayed. Bangladeshi tenants had been encountering increasing harassment, and violence had already started to boil over on the streets.

Geoff Dench, Kate Gavron, Michael Young,
The New East End

    Melody had to skirt the editorial room. She passed by quickly, nodding