Necessary as Blood

rotating fan pulled in warm, sluggish air and feebly distributed it round the room. Gemma saw that Alia’s upper lip was beaded with sweat, but didn’t know if the girl was suffering from nerves or the heat.

The woman sitting on the sofa was an older, rounder version of Alia. She, like her daughter, concealed her hair with a scarf, but she wore a matching orange salwar kameez rather than Western dress. As she gave them a shy smile, a man Gemma assumed must be Alia’s father came into the room from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a tea towel.

“Mr. Hakim?” Kincaid held out his hand. “I’m Superintendent Kincaid. This is Inspector James. Thank you for seeing us.”

“It is our duty.” Having draped the towel over a chair in the small dining area, Mr. Hakim grasped Kincaid’s hand, but appeared not to see Gemma’s. Short and stocky like his wife and daughter, he had thick, dark hair going gray, and a severe mustache. His white shirt was neatly tucked into dark trousers. “Will you sit, please? My wife will bring tea.” Like Alia, he wore thick glasses.

Alia’s mother nodded and slipped soundlessly from the room. As Gemma and Kincaid sat side by side on the sofa, Mr. Hakim remained standing, his hands clasped behind his back. He continued, “This is a very bad thing. It is bad for our daughter to be associated with this, and I am hoping your questions can be answered quickly.”

Perching on the edge of one of the overstuffed armchairs, Alia tapped a sandaled toe against the carpet. Her toenails were painted a bright coral with pink polka dots, a surprisingly feminine contrast to her plain, un-made-up face. “Abba-”

“Mr. Malik was a man of good character, although we did not think it right for our daughter to be in his house with his wife away. I cannot think how this thing can have happened.” When his wife was away? Gemma wondered if this was a euphemism, or if Mr. Hakim didn’t know that Sandra Gilles had gone missing months earlier.

“Abba,” Alia said more forcefully, and this time her father looked at her. “I’m trying to tell you. I was there on Saturday, taking care of Charlotte. I know you don’t like me to be there on the weekends, but Naz-Mr. Malik-asked me to come for just a few minutes while he went out.” Her accent, in contrast to her father’s singsong lilt, seemed even more nasally Estuary than Gemma had noticed before. “I might have-maybe I was the last person to see him alive.”

Mr. Hakim’s mustache turned down at the corners as he tightened his lips. “You, Alia. If this is true, you have been very disobedient. I think you will have to pay a visit to your auntie in Sylhet if you cannot show respect for your parents’ wishes. We have had enough of this nonsense about lawyer school, this going and doing without any sense of what is proper. Your sisters-”

“My sisters have married totally boring men and lead totally boring lives,” Alia said vehemently as her mother came back into the room with a tea tray. “All they think about is babies and sweets and the latest Indian pop song-”

“Alia.” The sharpness of Kincaid’s tone stopped her midword. “You may not have been the last person to see Mr. Malik alive. We think Mr. Malik may have been murdered, and I need you to tell me anything you can remember about that day.”

The shock was mirrored on the faces of parents and child, but it was Alia who spoke. “Murdered? Naz murdered? But how-Why-”

“The police pathologist thinks someone gave him drugs and he suff-” Kincaid hesitated, and Gemma guessed he was searching for a more palatable description. “He stopped breathing.”

“Drugs?” said Mr. Hakim. “Alia, for you to be involved-”

“I am not involved,” Alia snapped at him. “And neither was Naz. Naz wouldn’t have anything to do with drugs.” She turned back to Kincaid and Gemma. “Why would someone do this to him?”

Out of courtesy, Gemma accepted a cup of the tea Mrs. Hakim had poured, sipping gingerly. It was lukewarm, tasted of cardamom, and was teeth-achingly sweet. “Did Naz say or do anything that was different on Saturday?” she asked, glad for an excuse to set down her cup.

“No.” Alia shook her head slowly. “But he was…distracted. I told him I’d made samosas, and he-he didn’t thank me.” She carefully avoided meeting either parent’s gaze. “He was usually very polite.”

Gemma suddenly wondered if there were more to Mr. Hakim’s disapproval than fatherly overprotectiveness. Perhaps not on Naz Malik’s part, but it was only natural that this rather awkward girl might have developed a crush on her employer, especially if she had romanticized Sandra’s disappearance in some way.

“Did he mention anything about a case he was working on?” asked Kincaid. “He was defending a Mr. Azad, a restaurant owner.”

“No. Naz-Mr. Malik-never talked about work. Well, only a little, when I’d have questions about my law texts, but then it was only, you know, general. It would have been unethical for him to discuss his clients.”

Definitely an echo of hero worship in the slightly prim reply, thought Gemma, but she said, “Alia, did Mr. Malik ever mention a man called Ritchie? Lucas Ritchie?”

“No.” Alia frowned. “Who is he?”

“Someone Sandra might have known. Did Mr. Malik ever talk to you about what he thought had happened to Sandra?”

“No. No-well, only at first. The same sort of things you’re asking me. ‘Did she say anything?’ or ‘Was there anything different?’”

“Do you know why Naz and Sandra didn’t get along with Sandra’s family?”

“I-No, not really,” said Alia, but her covert glance at her parents was unmistakable. “It wasn’t my business,” she added, making Gemma even more certain that she had absorbed every detail of Naz Malik’s and Sandra Gilles’s lives.

“And it is no longer her concern,” Mr. Hakim broke in, addressing Kincaid. “I think my daughter has nothing more to tell you, and I must get back to my work.”

“Mr. Hakim, we can interview your daughter here, or we can talk to her at the police station. A murder investigation does not revolve around your convenience. And Alia is of age-your presence is not required.”

“But I don’t know what else I can tell you,” said Alia, with another anxious glance at her father, and Gemma thought they’d get no more out of her in these circumstances.

“We appreciate your time, Alia.” Having apparently come to the same conclusion, Kincaid stood and pulled a card from his pocket. “If you think of anything else or need to get in touch-”

Alia plucked the card from his hand before her father could reach for it. “I’ll walk you out. I’ll only be a moment, Abba.” She obviously intended to forestall her father with speed, and Gemma just had time to say a quick good-bye to Mrs. Hakim, earning another shy smile. As she followed Kincaid and Alia from the flat, she wondered how much of the conversation Alia’s mother had understood.

Alia led them out through the patio garden and onto the lawn, then, when she was out of earshot, turned back so that she could survey the flat. “You have to understand about my father,” she said quietly, vehemently. “I don’t want you to think badly of him. He is not an uneducated man. In Bangladesh, he had a university degree. And he’s a good businessman-he owns a call center in Whitechapel Road. But he works all day with immigrants. He sees himself as an immigrant. His dream is to make enough money to retire in Bangladesh, and he wants…” She frowned, as if struggling to work out the words. “He doesn’t want anything in this life to- to stain that one.” Alia took a breath and went on, more hurriedly, “But me-I’m British first and Bangladeshi second. It doesn’t mean I disrespect my parents or my culture, but it’s different for me.”

Mrs. Hakim came out of the flat and began hanging laundry on the patio, glancing over at them as she lifted a sheet from her basket.

“Alia,” Gemma said urgently, afraid they would be interrupted, or that Alia would lose the nerve to make the confession she was obviously trying so hard to justify. “What is it that you don’t want your father to know?”

“My father-he disapproved of Naz and Sandra’s marriage, even though Naz was not Muslim. In Abba’s eyes it’s not right for an Asian to be with a white person. And Sandra-if he knew about her family-he would think I’d disgraced him, just by my connection with them. Even though I don’t know them personally.” Alia cast a wary eye towards her mother and ran a finger between her chin and the hijab. “It’s-what do you call it? Guilt by association.”

“What? How?” asked Gemma. “What could be that bad?”

“Drugs,” Alia whispered. “Sandra’s brothers do drugs.”

Kincaid raised an eyebrow. “Alia, half the city does drugs. Surely that’s not so unusual-”