No trace bak-8

by Barry Maitland

  ‘No, no. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it. Is that where they lived?’

  ‘We’re still gathering information. What we now have to do is review every aspect of Tracey’s case in the light of this new development. And I need you to help us by going back over what happened the night that Tracey disappeared. I want you to try to remember every detail you can, from the time Mr and Mrs Nolan returned Tracey to you on Sunday afternoon.’

  Rudd met Brock’s stare, eyes wide and innocent. ‘Oh, right. Well. .. if you think that’ll help.’

  He began to repeat the story he had told them before, almost word for word, while the two detectives listened impassively. When he finished, Brock turned to Kathy and said,‘How would you rate that story, DS Kolla?’

  Kathy gazed at Rudd and said,‘Well, to be honest, as an art critic, I’d have to say that it seems hurriedly cobbled together, weak in concept, unimaginatively presented and short of ideas.’

  Rudd’s pale face flushed pink. His mouth opened, but before he could speak Kathy went on, ‘You didn’t go to bed at ten that night, Gabe.’

  Brock leaned forward and said, ‘We know about your evening with Poppy Wilkes and Stan Dodworth; we know about your meeting with Yasher Fikret. Now I’m going to give you one last chance to tell us the truth before I arrest you for obstruction.’

  The pink leached from Rudd’s face, leaving it almost as white as his hair.‘Yasher? You know about Yasher?’

  ‘From the beginning, Mr Rudd. Let’s have it.’

  Haltingly, the bravado gone, Rudd described much the same sequence of events that Poppy had related to Kathy- supplemented, at Brock’s insistence, with an impressive list of everything he’d smoked, drunk and taken during the course of the weekend.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us this at the beginning?’Kathy said.

  ‘I panicked. I knew I’d be in trouble. I’d left Trace alone for most of the night, and somebody had snatched her. Her grandparents would have murdered me. This was exactly the kind of thing they’d said would happen. They’d have tried for custody again. Christ, I might have gone to gaol, I don’t know.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Brock, sceptical, scraped his beard with the end of his ballpoint. ‘Bad things do seem to happen to the people around you, don’t they? Whether by neglect or something worse.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your wife, Tracey’s mother-did she die because you weren’t around at the critical time? And was that just another unfortunate coincidence?’

  ‘Jane had been depressed for months. They gave her the wrong drugs. You should read the coroner’s…’

  ‘Yes, I’ve read his report. No suicide note, no cry for help to her parents. She just walked out one night, leaving her toddler behind, and jumped in the canal. And you were out drinking with your mates that night too, weren’t you? The parallels are striking.’

  Rudd sagged, a hank of white hair flopping over his eyes. ‘You think I don’t know that?’he said softly.‘I’m not proud of it. That’s why I wanted to keep quiet about Sunday night. I didn’t see how it would make any difference to your investigation. They took Trace, whether or not I was there. Okay, I was useless as a father, I neglected her, but in the end it doesn’t matter, does it? These…’ he gestured at the photographs, ‘… these monsters just do what they want anyway.’

  ‘There’s another parallel with your wife’s death, Gabe,’ Kathy said. ‘You told us before that Tracey was a happy child, but that isn’t true, is it?’

  ‘She’s all right. She has her ups and downs, like anyone else.’

  ‘Other people have described her as withdrawn and depressed, especially in the last few months.’

  Rudd seemed genuinely surprised. ‘That sounds like her grandparents talking, because if it is…’

  ‘Other people,’ Kathy repeated. ‘Can you think of a reason why she might be unhappy?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘They say she spoke of being afraid of a monster. That was the word you used just now, monsters. What was she talking about, do you know?’

  ‘She didn’t mention it to me. She had dreams, I suppose. Just dreams.’

  ‘Dreams, you think. Nightmares. Like her mother.’

  Rudd stared at Kathy for a moment, then turned his head away.

  ‘And one other similarity,’ Brock said. ‘Both of these tragedies have happened at times when your career was in decline, and you’ve exploited both to get publicity and interest in your work.’

  ‘Oh, come on, now you do sound like the Nolans. You’ll be spouting garbage about Munchausen by proxy next.’

  ‘You know about that, do you?’

  ‘How could I avoid it? Len and Bev have been accusing me of it for years. To listen to them, they’re the world’s greatest experts on the subject. And this will only confirm it in their eyes. But I can’t help that.’He sighed.‘Look, you can’t honestly believe that I would deliberately do anything to Trace,’ he gestured at the newspaper review, ‘for the sake of this? I don’t know you,’ he said to Brock, ‘but I’ve been watching her,’ he nodded towards Kathy, ‘and I reckon we’re much the same.’

  ‘How do you figure that out?’ Kathy said.

  ‘Everything I do, everything that happens to me, goes into my work. My work is everything. I am nothing else. We’re all obsessive about our work, and I reckon that describes you, too, doesn’t it?’

  Kathy leaned forward, holding his eye. ‘I don’t think I’m so obsessive,’ she said, her voice quiet and dangerous, ‘that I’d rent out my six-year-old daughter as a nude model.’

  Rudd looked stunned for a moment, then began to splutter,‘Now look, that’s rubbish! Who told you that?’

  ‘The sculptures of giant cherubs on show at The Pie Factory last week were modelled on your daughter. Do you deny it?’

  ‘They were based on her, yeah. Poppy needed a live model to work from and Trace was ideal. I didn’t rent her out! It was a favour to a friend. Trace thought it was all a big giggle. She loved seeing what Poppy made of her. There’s nothing wrong with it at all.’

  ‘Nothing wrong? Your child’s naked body was put on public exhibition at five times its actual size and you don’t think there’s anything wrong with that?’

  There was silence for a long moment, then Brock said, ‘Let’s get back to facts, shall we? I’m interested in the time in the early hours of Monday when you returned to your house. You said you were very intoxicated and can’t be sure exactly how you got home.’

  ‘Yeah, I was plastered.’

  ‘You say you think Stan Dodworth or Yasher Fikret helped you home, or possibly both, but you can’t remember. Have they both been in your home before?’

  ‘Sure. They’re friends.’

  ‘Does either of them have a key?’

  ‘No, they must have used mine.’

  ‘Describe them to me, these friends.’

  ‘Well, Stan is very quiet, very serious-too serious really. We tell him he should lighten up, but he’s totally dedicated to his work.’

  Kathy said, ‘The Pie Factory website describes him as being obsessed with death.’

  ‘In his work, yeah. It’s his theme-in his work.’

  ‘But you were telling us just now that there’s no distinction between work and life for you people. What about Mr Fikret?’

  ‘He’s completely different from us, a practical sort of guy, no bullshit-a breath of fresh air, really.’

  ‘Not that fresh, surely? He’s a drug dealer, isn’t he?’

  ‘I never said that. Look, he knows people. Sometimes he can get hold of a little bit of something for us. As a favour for friends, that’s all.’

  ‘So,’ Brock placed his hands flat on the table and stared at Rudd,‘At some time around three o’clock last Monday morning, you were taken home and dumped on your bed, paralytic, by one or both of a drug dealer and a man who has an obsession with death. And in the next room Tracey was possibly lying asleep. That’s about the sum of it?’
/>   Rudd’s eyes slipped away from Brock’s and an odd little expression, a grimace perhaps, touched his lips. ‘Yasher Fikret is not interested in little girls, you can trust me on that. His tastes run somewhere else entirely.’

  ‘What about Stan?’

  Rudd took a little while to reply.‘To tell you the truth, I’m not sure what gets Stan’s hormones buzzing. But you’ve got to understand, he’s a very gentle guy. I know his interest-his aesthetic interest-might seem a bit morbid, but I’m sure…’ he looked from one detective to the other,‘… no, I’m positive he wouldn’t do anything to hurt anyone. Really.’

  11

  It was dark as they waited in Brock’s car for the team to assemble in the square, and a light rain began to fall. The large scarlet neon sign for The Pie Factory and the discreet little blue one for The Tait Gallery shimmered through the droplets on the windscreen. The radio crackled, a short burst of words, and they got out of the car and hurried towards the shelter of the building’s entrance. Around them they heard the click of car doors and the soft thud of boots.

  ‘Mr Tait here?’ Brock said to the young woman at the desk. She was on the point of leaving for the evening and had a bored look that disappeared as she took in the uniforms assembling outside the door.

  ‘I’ll give him a buzz.’

  Fergus Tait appeared, sporting a pair of rainbowcoloured braces that matched his bow tie. His smile froze and the eyes behind the big glasses registered shock as he watched uniformed men crowding in behind Brock.

  ‘Sorry for the intrusion, Mr Tait,’ Brock said affably, as if they were a bunch of friends dropping in unannounced, ‘but I have a warrant to search these premises. We’ll be as quick as we can. I’ll give you a copy of this paperwork and then I’d be glad if you’d act as our guide. We’d like to start with the rooms you let out to tenants.’

  The service yard of The Pie Factory, accessible from the street and jammed with rubbish bins full of scrap materials and kitchen waste, had been thoroughly searched in the initial sweep of Northcote Square on the first day of the hunt for Tracey, but the check of the buildings had been more cursory. Packed into a city block, they looked deceptively compact from the outside, but inside formed a rambling maze. An agglomeration of cottages in the early 1800s that had gradually been extended, rationalised, rebuilt and modified over the years as its businesses grew, the result now was a warren of rooms large and small, corridors and lofts, storerooms and cellars.

  ‘Maybe if you told me what you’re after,’ Tait protested as he led them towards a staircase at the end of a corridor running behind the main gallery.

  ‘We understand Tracey Rudd used to visit here. Were you aware of that?’

  ‘I’ve certainly seen her here with Poppy a number of times. And without her, too, now you come to mention it. I do recall speaking to someone-was it Poppy? I don’t remember-anyway, someone, about how a little girl like that shouldn’t be wandering around the workshops with those machines.’

  The stair dog-legged upward towards a skylight, then reached a landing giving onto another corridor.

  ‘This way,’ he puffed. ‘We’ve had a bit of trouble with the fire authorities over the years, as you can imagine. Hence the emergency lights and fire doors and extinguishers and so on.’

  ‘And fire-escape stairs?’ Brock asked.

  ‘Oh my, yes, several new escape stairs.’

  ‘So there are plenty of ways for people to enter and leave the building unchecked?’

  ‘Well, there’s a measure of security, of course, but with the kitchen staff and the artists coming and going, and the whole place interconnected, it’s sometimes difficult to be sure just who is here at any one time. At night we lock up, and the residents have their own keys to their separate entrance.’

  ‘How many residents are there?’

  ‘There are five bed-sits, with shared kitchen and bathrooms, though only four are occupied at present. Our semipermanent artists in residence are Poppy and Stan, and we also have two young artists who graduated from college this year and have a twelve-month tenancy while we see how they develop. The fifth room I like to keep free for visiting artists. Last month we had a lovely German boy, a vinyl fetishist. He did marvellous work, it made the hair stand up on the back of your neck.’

  ‘Is that so.’

  They turned into a broader corridor and Tait pointed out utility rooms and a row of numbered doors bearing Yale locks. With a show of reluctance he knocked on them in turn and, getting no reply, opened each for a pair of officers to move in.

  ‘There are only four doors here,’ Brock said.

  ‘Ah well, Stan’s room is the fifth. It’s up there.’ He pointed to a steep little stair that closed the end of the corridor, leading up to the door of an attic room. ‘He’s the oldest, and has the most stuff, and his room’s a bit bigger than the others. He has a lovely view from up there.’

  ‘Let’s take a look.’

  Tait led the way up the stairs, knocked, cocked his head listening, then put his key in the lock. He swung the door open and reached inside for the light, then rocked back.

  ‘Phoo, bit foetid in here. He needs some ventilation. Shall I open the window?’

  ‘We’ll do it, thanks.’ Brock pulled on plastic gloves and crossed the room, opening the dormer window on the far side, while Kathy moved in behind him. The space was an irregular shape, jammed up into the pitch of the roof. Through one of the side walls they could hear the cooing of pigeons and the hiss of a water tank refilling. There was an open rack with clothes on hangers, books on the floor, and postcards and cuttings stuck haphazardly on every surface.

  ‘He does have a good view,’ Brock said, looking out over a panorama of the square.

  Behind him, Kathy said,‘What are these?’

  Brock turned and saw her standing beside a table pushed into the angle of the sloping ceiling. It was piled high with what looked like withered human limbs.

  ‘Oh, those!’Fergus Tait’s voice sounded unnaturally loud and jocular. He joined Kathy and picked up a leg. ‘These would be from his last exhibition, Body Parts. Caused quite a stir.’

  Now Kathy was pointing at the pictures on the wall, colour prints of photographs from newspapers and books and the internet showing car crashes, bodies being dug out of mass graves, executions, crime scenes, autopsies, abattoirs and butchers’shops.‘The girls must love getting invited back to this place,’ Kathy said.

  Tait gave a little giggle. ‘I don’t think he has any girlfriends right now, to tell the truth. He’s much too taken up with his work.’

  There was an old bed sheet hung across one side of the room with drawing pins. All three seemed to focus on it at the same moment. Brock went over and carefully drew it back. Behind, there was a small alcove in which, suspended on a chain, was the figure of an old woman, naked, body wasted and hunched in a foetal curl. Brushed by the sheet, it slowly began to rotate.

  ‘Oh my,’ Tait said. ‘Now isn’t she something! I haven’t seen her before.’

  ‘We have,’ Brock said, and looked at Kathy, who was staring in shock at the figure. It was the old woman they’d found in the bed of Patrick Abbott’s flat.

  ‘These are not sculptures, are they?’ Brock asked Tait.

  The gallery owner hesitated.‘Well, I think I would say that they are, but I take it you mean that they’re not carved or shaped in the normal way?’

  Brock nodded.‘How does he make them?’

  ‘They’re made of bronzed plaster and fibreglass. From rubber moulds and casts.’

  ‘Of real corpses.’

  ‘Ye-es,’ Tait said carefully. ‘You’d have to ask him, you understand, but I think it would be fair to say that. It’s what gives them their extraordinary truthfulness, their power. You know immediately that this isn’t some prop from a movie or a waxworks show. This is the real thing, death, in all its terrible beauty.’

  ‘Beauty?’

  ‘Well, that’s my opinion. I’m not normally a fan of
the macabre, Chief Inspector, but I am moved by Stan’s work. He faces unflinchingly what lies in wait for all of us.’

  ‘And where does he find his subject matter, his body parts?’

  ‘He has a source, so he tells me. Now he assures me, and I was insistent on this, that it isn’t illegal, what he does. I didn’t enquire too closely, but I gather he knows someone at a hospital with access to dead bodies. I’m sure Stan doesn’t tamper with them, or cut them up or anything like that. I suppose he may, well, arrange them or whatever, like models, but he puts them back the way they were after he takes his cast. No one’s the wiser-or sadder.’

  Kathy was peering at some shelves on the wall behind the dangling figure in the alcove. On them there were hands, feet and a head. She reached out to touch one of the hands and felt a throb of revulsion. She touched another. ‘These aren’t plaster,’ she said.‘They’re soft.’

  ‘They’ll be rubber,’ Tait said.

  ‘I don’t think so. In fact, I’m sure they’re not.’ She held one aged hand in hers, feeling the bones flex beneath the skin. She suppressed a surge of nausea as she picked up the same chemical smell that had been so strong in Abbott’s mother’s room.

  Fergus Tait looked more closely, then gave a little sigh. ‘Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. This is very naughty. I had no idea, none at all.’

  ‘Where is he now, Mr Tait?’

  ‘I really don’t know. I haven’t seen him since Gabe’s show last night. But look, let me just say that, irregular as this may be, Stan is not a bad fellow. I want you to understand that. He’s the gentlest of people, soft-spoken, polite, never a harsh word, loves animals and

  …’ He hesitated.

  ‘And children,’ Brock finished the sentence for him.

  ‘He’s just completely caught up in his work.’

  ‘Where does this obsession of his come from?’ Kathy said.‘This thing he has about death?’

  ‘Well, a lot of art is about death. Goya…’

  ‘No, it’s something personal, isn’t it?’

  ‘You may be right. I’m not altogether sure. He doesn’t talk about it-not to me, anyway. There was some story of him being brought up by an elderly relative who died when he was a boy, but I’m not sure if that’s the source of it.’