Charlotte a promise that she had to keep.
“And who better to do that?” Erika countered with a twinkle. “When I get fish gutting in return?”
“You’re very cheerful today.” Gemma eyed her affectionately. “You said your menu had to be French-would your guest by chance be French, as well?”
“A little something for my friend Henri, yes,” Erika admitted, smiling. “Now, if you will run your errand, I’ll make tea in the garden when you come back. And I think you promised ice cream? Perhaps you could pick some up.”
Leaving the boys in the kitchen, she walked Gemma to the door. “This is very sad, about the little girl,” she said quietly. Gemma had told her a bit of Charlotte’s story over the phone. “But children are very resilient, and she is in good hands.”
“Erika…” Gemma paused on the threshold. “Do you think a child that young understands what death means? If she should ask me…”
“Yes, that might be difficult. You don’t know her references. Were her parents religious?”
“I don’t know.” Gemma considered what she’d been told about Naz and Sandra, and what she’d seen in their house. “I’m inclined to think not.”
“Then I think I would wait and see how she makes sense of it. She might surprise you.”
Gemma turned into Portobello Road at Elgin Crescent, stopping a moment to look up the hill. The street, baking in the late-afternoon heat, seemed alien in its Sunday-afternoon emptiness. The arcades were shuttered, the stalls down, and the pubs seemed to be doing only desultory business. Even her friend Otto’s venerable cafe in Elgin Crescent was closed, it being his rule that Sunday afternoons were reserved for time with his daughters.
There was something about the deserted landscape that appealed to Gemma; for a moment she felt as if she owned the street, in all its cheerful and slightly Mediterranean tattiness.
She turned and walked north, down the hill, and turned into Westbourne Park Road. Betty Howard and her son, Wesley, lived in the same flat Betty’s parents had first occupied in 1959, fresh off the boat from Trinidad. Betty and her husband, Colin, had bought it from the slum landlords who had once owned it, and had brought up their six children in it. But Colin had passed away a few years ago from an early heart attack, and Wesley’s five older sisters were grown and gone.
Wesley liked to tease his mother, saying he only stayed because he couldn’t afford the rent on his own place. But while that was as true for Wes as it was for any young person in London, Gemma knew that he worried about his mum and didn’t like the idea of leaving her on her own.
Reaching Betty’s building, she pressed the buzzer for the top-floor flat, and when the door released, climbed the stairs. Betty opened the door just as Gemma reached it, holding her finger to her lips.
“She’s asleep, poor love,” Betty said quietly, giving Gemma a quick hug. She wore her usual bright headscarf, today in turquoise, with just a little graying hair showing against her dark skin. “It was the oddest thing,” she went on as she led Gemma into the sitting room. “When Mrs. Silverman left, the little thing, she cried and cried. Not even Wesley could comfort her. Maybe she’s not used to our dark faces.
“Then she spied those fabrics in the corner. She went right to them, burrowed in like a mole, and was out like a light. I took her little trainers off without waking her. Will you look at that?”
At first glance, Betty’s sitting room seemed a chaos of color and texture. But a closer inspection revealed that the first impression was deceptive, a product of many things occupying a small space. A multitude of clear plastic boxes held collections of buttons, feathers, braiding, sequins, and spools of thread. The sewing machine, a new and expensive model, sat on a table at the front window, where Betty could overlook the street as she sewed. As well as her work on costumes for carnival, she made slipcovers, drapes, Roman blinds-“Anything that can be stitched together”-as she liked to say. Her father had been an upholsterer and had taught Betty to sew as a tot. She’d left school at sixteen to work for a milliner and had been proudly following the family tradition ever since.
Looking where Betty pointed, Gemma saw the bolts of cloth stored between the sofa and the window. There were silks and taffetas in rainbow hues, heavy brocades and satins, gauzy nets, and one roll of gold lame.
Charlotte had indeed burrowed in between the bolts, pulling a fold of the shimmering gold cloth over herself like a blanket. Only her curls showed at one end and her stockinged feet at the other.
“A little princess,” said Betty. “Going right for the gold.”
“Oh, I should have realized,” whispered Gemma, her chest tightening. “It looks like home to her. Her mother’s an artist who works with textiles. She had her studio in the house.”
“An artist? Mrs. Silverman said the mother went missing?”
“Yes. In May. And now this. Her dad…” Gemma pushed away the image of Naz Malik’s body, with the flies buzzing round it in the heat. It would be cold now, on a trolley in the mortuary.
“She’s an odd mix, this little one,” said Betty. “Striking. Her mother white, her father Pakistani, Mrs. Silverman told me, but with that hair, I’d swear she’s got more than a drop of West Indian in her. Wesley will have his camera out, soon as her tears have dried, mark my words.”
“Where is Wes?” asked Gemma.
“Bread-and-butter shoot. Molly Janes, the fishmonger’s daughter, it was her birthday party this afternoon. I don’t envy Wesley having to deal with a pack of sweets-fueled children in this heat.”
Although Wesley was taking evening classes at university towards a business degree, he earned his keep working at Otto’s cafe and helping out with Toby and Kit. But his true love was photography, and he was getting more and more of what he called bread-and-butter jobs-weddings, birthdays, family portraits-through word of mouth in the neighborhood. He had a particular gift for capturing children, and had given Gemma a beautiful candid portrait of Toby for her birthday.
Charlotte stirred, disturbed perhaps by the sound of their voices, although they had kept them close to a whisper. Pushing the cloth from her face, she blinked and rubbed her eyes, starting to whimper. Then she caught sight of Gemma and held out her arms.
Gemma knelt, gathering Charlotte’s small, warm body into her arms, and it felt to her as if she had always held this child. “Hello, pet,” she whispered. “Did you have a good sleep?”
Charlotte rubbed her nose against Gemma’s shoulder, an indeterminate answer, but at least a response. Gemma eased herself into a sitting position with her back against the sofa, cradling Charlotte in her lap. “I’ll bet you’re hungry.” Tim had told her that Charlotte had barely touched her food last night or that morning. Looking up at Betty, Gemma said, “Something smells fabulous. What are you cooking?”
“Pork roast with achiote rub, black beans and rice. Not anything special.”
“It would be at my house.” Gemma chuckled and ran a soothing hand through Charlotte’s curls, saying meditatively, “I wonder if Charlotte likes beans and rice?” Again the nose rub, but this time more of a nod than a shake. “I’ll take that as a yes. Betty’s the best cook in the whole world,” she stage-whispered in Charlotte’s ear, “but don’t tell her I said so.”
Charlotte turned her head just enough to peek at Betty.
“The roast is about done,” Betty said. “And I might just have some mango rice pudding. Why don’t I go and see?”
Gemma nodded and Betty left the room. After a moment there came the comforting sound of Betty moving about in the kitchen, and her soft voice singing. Shifting her position a bit, so that Charlotte could see more of the room, she said, “Betty has some pretty things, don’t you think?” She pulled a box of thread spools closer with her free hand.
Lifting the top, she began to rummage through them, pulling spools out for inspection. “There’s blue, and red, and lime green, and a very pretty yellow. What about this one?” She held up a deep pink spool. “What color is this?”
“Magenta,” whispered Charlotte, reaching for it with fingers that were still toddler chubby.
“Magenta? What a clever girl you are.”
Charlotte slid from Gemma’s lap and knelt by the box. “My mummy has threads.” She began to take spools out and stack them, sorting by color. “Reds together, blues together, greens together.”
“Where does the pink go, then?”
“Between the reds and the blues.” Charlotte looked up at her, frowning, as if the answer were obvious.
