Troubled Blood

“Then, at the end of our practice Christmas party, in walked Luca, with his father and one of his cousins.

“I was absolutely terrified to see them there. Luca said to me, ‘Dad just wanted to meet my girlfriend.’ And—I don’t know why, except I was petrified of there being a scene—I just said, ‘Oh, OK.’ And I grabbed my coat and left with the three of them, before anyone could talk to them.

“They walked me to my bus stop. On the way, Nico said, ‘You’re a nice girl. Luca was very upset by what you said to him on the phone. He’s very fond of you, you know. You don’t want to make him unhappy, do you?’ Then he and Luca’s cousin walked away. Luca said, ‘You didn’t mean what you said, did you?’ And I… I was so scared. Him bringing his father and cousin along… I told myself I’d be able to get out of it later. Just keep him happy for now. So I said, ‘No, I didn’t mean it. You won’t do anything like that ever again, though, will you?’ And he said, ‘Like what?’ As if he’d never pressed on my windpipe till I couldn’t breathe. As though I’d imagined it.

“So, we carried on seeing each other,” said Gloria. “Luca started talking about getting married. I kept saying I felt too young. Every time I came close to ending it, he’d accuse me of cheating on him, which was the worst crime of all, and there was no way of proving I wasn’t, except to keep going out with him.”

Now Gloria looked away from them, her eyes on something off screen.

“We were sleeping together by then. I didn’t want to. I’m not saying he forced me—not really,” said Gloria, and Robin thought of Shifty’s PA, Gemma, “but keeping him happy was the only way to keep going. Otherwise there’d be a slap or worse. One time, he made some comment about hurting my grandmother if I didn’t behave. I went crazy at him, and he laughed, and said it was an obvious joke, but he wanted to plant the idea in my mind, and he succeeded.

“And he didn’t believe in contraception. We were supposed to be using the… you know, the rhythm method,” said Gloria, reaching again for her wine. “But he was… let’s say, he was careless, and I was sure he wanted me pregnant, because then he’d have me cornered, and I’d marry him. My grandparents would probably have backed him up. They were devout people.

“So, without telling Luca, I went to Margot for the pill. She said she was happy to give it to me, but she didn’t know I had a boyfriend, even, I’d never said…

“And even though I didn’t really like her,” said Gloria, “I told her some of it. It was the only place I could drop the pretense, I suppose. I knew she couldn’t tell anyone outside her consulting room. She tried to talk sense into me. Tried to show me there were ways out of the situation, apart from just giving in to Luca all the time. I thought it was all right for her, with all her money and her big safe house…

“But she gave me a bit of hope, I suppose. Once, after he’d hit me, and told me I’d asked for it, and told me I should be grateful I had someone offering me a way out of living at home with two old people, I said, ‘There are other places I could go,’ and I think he got worried someone had offered to help me get away. I’d stopped making fun of Margot by this time, and Luca wasn’t a stupid man…

“That’s when he wrote her threatening notes. Anonymously, you know—but I knew it was him,” said Gloria. “I knew his writing. Dorothy was off one day because her son was having his tonsils out, so Irene was opening the post and she unfolded one of the notes, right at the desk beside me. She was gloating about it, and I had to pretend to find it funny, but not to recognize the handwriting.

“I confronted Luca about it. He told me not to be so stupid, of course he hadn’t written the notes, but I knew he had…

“Anyway—I think it was right after the second note—I found out what I’d been terrified about happening had happened. I was pregnant. I hadn’t realized that the pill wouldn’t work if you’d had a stomach upset, and I’d had a bug, a month before. I knew I was cornered, and it was too late, I’d have to marry Luca. The Riccis would want it, and my grandparents wouldn’t want me to be an unwed mother.

“That’s when I admitted it to myself for the first time,” said Gloria, looking directly at Strike and Robin. “I absolutely hated Luca Ricci.”

“Gloria,” said Robin quietly, “I’m sorry to interrupt, but could I ask you: when you were sick at Margot’s barbecue—?”

“You heard about that, did you? Yes, that was when I had the tummy bug. People said one of the kids had spiked the punch, but I don’t think so. Nobody else was as ill as I was.”

Out of the corner of Robin’s eye, she saw Strike writing something in his notebook.

“I went back to Margot to find out for sure whether I was pregnant,” said Gloria. “I knew I could trust her. I broke down again in her surgery, and cried my eyes out, when she confirmed it. And then… well, she was just lovely. She held my hand and talked to me for ages.

“I thought abortion was a sin,” said Gloria. “That’s the way I was raised. She didn’t think it was a sin, not Margot. She talked to me about the life I was likely to have with Luca, if I had the baby. We discussed me keeping it, alone, but we both knew Luca wouldn’t want that, that he’d be in my life forever if I had his kid. It was hard, then, being on your own with a child. I was watching Janice the nurse doing it. Always juggling her son and the job.

“I didn’t tell Luca, obviously,” said Gloria. “I knew that if I was going to—to do anything—I had to do it quickly, before he noticed my body change, but most of all, before the baby could feel it or…”

Gloria suddenly bowed her head, and covered her face with her hands.

“I’m so sorry,” said Robin. “It must have been awful for you…”

“No—well—” said Gloria, straightening up and again pushing back her white hair, her eyes wet. “Never mind that. I’m only telling you, so you understand…

“Margot made the appointment for me. She gave the clinic her name and contact details and she bought us both wigs, because if she was recognized, someone might recognize me by association. And she came with me—it was a Saturday—to this place in Bride Street. I’ve never forgotten the name of the street, because a bride is exactly what I didn’t want to be, and that’s why I was there.

“The clinic had been using Margot’s name as the referring doctor, and I think somewhere there were crossed wires, because they thought ‘Margot Bamborough’ was the one having the procedure. Margot said, ‘It doesn’t matter, nobody’ll ever know, all these records are confidential.’ And she said, in a way it was convenient, if there was any follow-up needed, they could contact her and arrange it.

“She held my hand on the way in, and she was there when I woke up,” said Gloria, and now tears leaked from her dark eyes, and she brushed them quickly away. “When I was ready to go home, she took me to the end of my grandparents” street in a taxi. She told me what to do afterward, how to take care of myself…

“I wasn’t like Margot,” said Gloria, her voice breaking. “I didn’t believe it was right, what I did. September the fourteenth: I don’t think that date’s come by once, since, that I haven’t remembered, and thought about that baby.

“When I went back to work after a couple of days off, she took me into her office and asked me how I was feeling, and then she said, ‘Now, Gloria, you’ve got to be brave. If you stay with Luca, this will happen again.’ She said, ‘We need to find you a job away from London, and make sure he doesn’t know where you’ve gone.’ And she said something that’s stayed with me always, ‘We aren’t our mistakes. It’s what we do about the mistake that shows who we are.’

“But I wasn’t like Margot,” said Gloria again. “I wasn’t brave, I couldn’t imagine leaving my grandparents. I pretended to agree, but ten days after the abortion I was sleeping with Luca again, not because I wanted to, but because there didn’t seem any other choice.

“And then,” said Gloria, “about a month after we’d been to the clinic, it happened. Margot disappeared.”

A muffled male voice was now heard at Gloria’s end of the call. She turned toward the door behind her and said,

“Non, c’est toujours en cours!”

Turning back to her computer she said,

“Pardon. I mean, sorry.”

“Mrs. Jaubert—Gloria,” said Strike, “could we please take you back through the day Margot disappeared?”

“The whole day?”

Strike nodded. Gloria took a slow inward breath, like somebody about to dive into deep water, then said,

“Well, the morning was all normal. Everyone was there except Wilma the cleaner. She didn’t come in on Fridays.