No trace bak-8

by Barry Maitland

  ‘Well, try the books, anyway. You never know, something may strike a chord. It happens to me sometimes when I’m stuck for ideas-the pictures get my imagination going again. Maybe, when this case is over, you should take a holiday. You’re looking tired.’

  ‘Me? Not me. Hell, look at you and Bren. I don’t have babies crying through the night.’

  They both laughed.

  Later, lying alone in her bed, Kathy thought about their conversation. They were about the same age, she and Deanne, and had known each other, through Bren, for some years, but tonight they had felt like strangers. She didn’t mind being alone, she told herself, tucked up in a warm bed with a good book. Well, the book wasn’t very gripping, as it happened-a thick biography of Henry Fuseli-and she was struggling to stay awake. She decided to focus on the illustrations, but didn’t find them very inspiring either, scenes of posturing characters from mythology and Shakespeare… Feeling herself dozing, she sighed and turned to switch out the light, barely noticing the illustration in front of her as she closed the book, Justice and Liberty Hanged, while Voltaire Rides Monster Humanity and Jean-Jacques Rousseau Takes his Measure. It showed two eccentric eighteenth-century gentlemen, one sitting on the back of a crouching man and, in the background, not one but two figures hanging from a gallows, hands tied behind their backs, one of them blindfolded.

  20

  Gabriel Rudd took three sleeping pills that Sunday night, then switched off the lights inside his glass cube and lay down on the camp bed, wrapping the black duvet around him. The rest of the gallery lights had long been extinguished, and the last curious faces had disappeared from the gallery window. After a while, the tartan blanket on the floor began to stir and a nose emerged, sniffing the air. A head followed, white with two strong black stripes running back over the eyes to the ears, then finally, the coast being clear, the full yard-length of Dave the badger appeared. Following the clever nose, he made his way to the corner of the cube where two dishes had been set out for him, one containing Perrier water and the other an artfully arranged confection of egg, rabbit and fresh vegetables prepared by the Tait’s second chef, another cousin of the Fikret family. Dave made short work of his meal, left a compensating deposit beside the empty plates and set off to explore his prison. Dave would have been able to see through the glass walls that another banner had been added since the previous night, making fourteen now in all, like ghosts suspended in the light seeping in through the window from the street. The latest one featured two huge mug shots, Abbott and Wylie. Gabriel Rudd heard Dave’s snuffling progress, the soft scrape of his claws on the polished timber floor, just before sleep came.

  The artist slept very soundly that night, on account of the pills. When he awoke, he blinked his eyes open briefly and was aware of the pale grey of dawn in the sky in the upper part of the gallery window, though the street lights were still on. He closed his eyes and pulled the duvet over his head again and, as he always did, examined whatever was in his brain for clues to his work for the day, a fragment of a dream, a pungent smell of animal droppings, a memory of getting up on winter mornings to go to school-any of these might spark a thought about the colour, texture or theme for the next banner. They were going well, he knew it in his gut, but he was conscious that as time went on people’s interest might begin to fade, the number of hits on his website might begin to drop off. How long could he keep it going? What for number fifteen? Something vertical, something dark, something harsh, shocking. He opened his eyes and peered out at the phalanx of pale ghosts beyond the glass. One…two…three… They work, he thought, they bloody well work!… seven… eight… nine.. . Nothing quite like this has ever been done before… thirteen.. . fourteen… fifteen. He blinked and stared, for there it was, at the end of the line, number fifteen materialised-vertical, dark, and most definitely shocking. A suspended figure, motionless on the rope by which it was hanged from the roof truss. He thought they seemed familiar; the shaved head, the black T-shirt and jeans, the big clumsy feet.

  At least, that was the way Gabriel Rudd later described it to the police. The shock of discovering Stan Dodworth hanging there in the gallery had driven him out of his glass cube for the first time in eight days. After checking that the body was real, he’d rushed out to the corridor that led to Fergus Tait’s elegant apartment at the back of the building and hammered on the door, rousing Tait from his bed. The two of them had returned to the gallery, where Tait had rung triple-nine.

  Brock was crouching beneath the dangling feet, carefully examining the floor and the chair standing nearby, when Kathy arrived. She took in the limp figure, the thoughtful expression frozen on the sallow face as if surprised that death wasn’t quite what he’d expected, and she felt a sudden jolt of recognition-two hanged figures, one blindfolded, both with hands tied behind their backs, in this case with a loose cord.

  Brock looked up, shook his head.‘I’d have said suicide this time, if it weren’t for the tied wrists.’ He spoke quietly, not wanting to be overheard by the others moving around nearby-the photographers setting up, and beyond them two men erecting a screen against the gallery window, across which a new graffiti message had appeared during the night,‘this too’.

  He straightened upright with a grunt and pointed at the man’s throat. ‘Nice clean rope burn, livid edge. Ah…’ Brock’s voice returned to normal volume as he saw the medical examiner arrive with a scene of crime team. He went over to brief them while Kathy remained with Stan’s body, studying the fingernails, the shoes, the knot that had been used to secure the free end of the rope to the leg of a nearby table loaded with computer equipment. Out of the corner of her eye she saw two men sitting together by the open door of the glass cube. Fergus Tait, in a green dressing-gown and leather slippers, looked bemused; the other man, Gabriel Rudd, wore a long overcoat, feet bare, and was drawing in a sketchpad on his lap. They both looked up as Brock approached with one of the SOCO team, and again Kathy was startled to see how gaunt and hollow-eyed Rudd had become. They appeared surprised as Brock explained something to them and the officer began examining their clothing. Theatrically, Rudd placed his sketchbook on the floor and raised his hands to be checked and have fingernail scrapings taken. As Kathy went over to hear what they had to say she saw that the drawing he’d been making was of Stan.

  ‘Did either of you touch the body?’ Brock asked.

  ‘I did,’Rudd said.‘I gave him a pinch just to make sure he wasn’t one of his own sculptures. Funny, he seemed less real than they do. He was stone cold.’

  ‘I touched him, too,’ Tait said. ‘I thought I’d better try to find out if he was actually dead. I mean, there seemed little doubt, but I tried to find a pulse anyway, in the wrist, and then,’ he gave a grimace, ‘in the throat. Nothing. If I hadn’t been so sure he was gone, I’d have cut him down, but I thought I’d better not. I mean, it’s not a situation I’m used to dealing with.’

  He sounded shaken, unlike Rudd, who had shifted his attention back to the corpse, narrowing his eyes, leaning his head from side to side as if mentally composing the image on a banner.

  ‘How did you reach up to the throat?’ Brock asked Tait.

  ‘I stood on the chair. It was lying on its side beside his feet. I’m sorry, perhaps I shouldn’t have touched it, but…’

  ‘That’s all right. Did either of you disturb anything else?’

  They shook their heads.

  ‘What about the cord around his wrists?’

  ‘I don’t think I touched it,’ Rudd said, and Tait said, ‘Oh, I probably did when I was looking for a pulse. That’s what really shook me up-I mean, it couldn’t have been suicide, could it?’

  ‘And you have absolutely no recollection of any noise during the night?’

  They shook their heads.

  ‘One other thing before I let you get dressed,’ Brock said.‘Who’s spraying these messages on your building?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ Tait said. ‘But he’s a bloody pest. It’s not just this b
uilding, several others in the square have been done over the past three or four months. “Property is theft” on the building site, adolescent stuff like that.’

  Suddenly Rudd exclaimed and made a move towards the cube, but the SOCO put a restraining hand on his arm. ‘Where’s Dave?’ Rudd said, and pointed at the tartan blanket lying flat on the floor.‘Where’s my badger?’

  Brock nodded to the officer to have a look. He made a quick search and shook his head. Dave, it seemed, had done a bunk.

  Soon the photographers were finished and Dr Mehta arrived. The body was lowered onto a plastic sheet on the ground and the doctors conferred on body and air temperatures and the state of rigor. Mehta finally offered Brock a preliminary estimate of time of death-between two and five in the morning. ‘I won’t be sure until I get him on the table,’ he added, ‘but there’s something odd about that cord on his wrists. It’s quite loosely tied and I can’t see any bruising underneath. It almost looks as if it was applied post-mortem.’

  ‘Like Betty Zielinski’s blindfold,’Brock said.‘And make sure they take care with his clothing and shoes, Sundeep. I’m very interested in where he’s been for the past week.’

  The body was removed along with everyone else except the SOCO team, which continued its painstaking search of the gallery and hallway outside. Elsewhere in The Pie Factory detectives were working from room to room, establishing who was present, and taking statements and swabs for aerosol paint traces on hands and clothes.

  On the way back to the station, Kathy mentioned the engraving in the book Deanne had given her. ‘I barely noticed it just before I fell asleep, but I registered the two hanging figures. Then I arrive here this morning and find a second hanging. It made me think.’

  ‘Fuseli, you say?’

  ‘Yes. You remember he was Rudd’s inspiration for The Night-Mare after Rudd’s wife died.’

  ‘Mm, but still, it seems a bit obscure.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have made much of it if it hadn’t been that one of the figures in the book was blindfolded-“Justice”, I suppose-and they both had their hands tied behind their backs, as if they’d been executed.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘If Rudd studied Fuseli’s work, he might be expected to recognise the allusion. Poppy said that Betty’s murder was a warning to Stan Dodworth, and maybe it was. Now Stan’s death may be a warning to Gabriel Rudd. It’s almost as if they’re being stalked in turn, the artists in Northcote Square.’

  ‘Betty wasn’t an artist,’ Brock objected, ‘and we don’t know that Stan was murdered.’

  ‘Betty was an artist’s model and someone tied Stan’s wrists,’ Kathy countered.

  Brock obviously wasn’t convinced, but he said, ‘All right, why don’t you discuss the two hanged figures with Rudd, see what he makes of it… Justice,’ he pondered. ‘Any word from your friend Nicole?’

  ‘Not yet. She said it might take a few days if she couldn’t do it openly.’

  They reached the room at Shoreditch station where the team was assembling, and whiteboards and display panels were being cleaned off to make space for information on the new case. As the meeting progressed, Kathy began to understand Brock’s reluctance to make much of the Fuseli illustration, for it soon became apparent that he had ideas of his own-ideas which, Kathy had to admit, made a lot more practical sense.

  One thing that the hunt for Tracey had revealed was that Robert Wylie had a wide network of acquaintances, many of whom proved extremely reluctant to provide information about his business affairs to the police. He had an office in a run-down building on an industrial estate, and in it they had found a notebook of telephone numbers, some with a private four-letter code identifying their owners. It didn’t take long to work out that this comprised the first four letters of their names written in reverse. Thus MMOS turned out to be disgraced vice squad detective Richard Sommersby, and OXID was an Inland Revenue tax inspector by the name of Jeffery Dixon, both of whom denied any knowledge of Wylie.

  Several phone numbers were believed to belong to serious criminals, members of crime syndicates, while many other names and numbers hadn’t yet been deciphered.

  As Brock and his detectives went over the recent events, it was clear that Brock saw this circle of Wylie’s contacts as being related to his refusal to talk to the police. ‘It’s as if he knows he can expect help,’ he said.

  ‘He’d need divine intervention to get him out of the hole he’s in,’ someone suggested, but Bren had seen where Brock was going.

  ‘You think they’re getting rid of witnesses?’

  ‘It’s possible. Suppose Betty saw something. And suppose Stan Dodworth, through his association with Abbott, knew something.’

  There was a sudden hush as they thought about that.

  ‘If that was the way of it, it’s just possible that Betty or Stan might have told someone else what they knew. Who would they be likely to tell, Kathy?’

  Kathy thought.‘Betty knew Reg Gilbey well, and Stan was dependent on Fergus Tait, but I don’t know if they were the sort of people they would confide a secret to. They were both pretty friendly with Poppy Wilkes.’

  ‘Right. We’ll speak to them all again. Of course, the same thing will have occurred to the killers. Maybe they persuaded Betty or Stan to tell them who else knew whatever they did.’

  The team meeting was almost over, Brock giving a dutiful warning to make every effort to avoid antagonising Sir Jack Beaufort should he be encountered, when Kathy was asked to take an urgent phone call. It came from Poppy Wilkes.

  ‘Can I see you?’ the artist asked, her voice anxious.

  ‘Yes. I’m at Shoreditch police station. Do you want to come here?’

  ‘I’m with Gabe, at his house, and I don’t want to leave him alone. Could you come to us?’

  ‘He’s left the gallery then, has he?’

  ‘Yeah, it’s not safe for him there now. Please, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.’

  ‘That’s all right, I’ll come over straight away.’

  ‘Thanks, thanks…’ There was a muffled thump, as if she’d dropped the phone.

  It was only a ten-minute walk, but a patrol car was leaving as she stepped outside so she asked them to drop her off at Northcote Square. Traffic was heavy and as they crawled along the two officers chatted to her about the case.

  ‘That Wylie bloke’s a slippery customer,’ the driver said. ‘I pulled him over once, years ago, for going through a red light. I could tell something wasn’t right about him, the way he was sweating. I got him to open his boot and it was full of dirty magazines, kiddie porn, you wouldn’t believe. But he managed to wriggle out of it. Claimed he didn’t know it was there. There was something else in the boot, too-a pair of handcuffs.’

  ‘Straight up!’ the other cop said.‘My missus has a friend whose cousin lives in that block in the Newman estate. She says everyone knew Abbott was weird. Is it right he worked in a mortuary?’

  Kathy said yes.

  ‘Only she said there was a rumour that he kept his mum’s body in his flat after she died.’

  ‘Don’t quote me,’Kathy said,‘but yes, he did. We found it up there.’

  ‘She says nobody knows much about Wylie though. Hardly ever saw him.’

  They arrived at last at Northcote Square, to find it jammed with media and police vehicles.

  ‘It didn’t take them long to find out, did it?’ Kathy said.

  ‘It was on the eight o’clock news this morning,’ the driver said.‘They quoted a spokesman for the gallery.’

  Fergus Tait, Kathy thought, he never misses a trick.

  She thanked them and ran across to 53 Urma Street and rang the bell. It was some time before the intercom beside the door crackled and a cautious female voice asked,‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s me, Poppy, Kathy Kolla from the police.’

  ‘I’ll come down and let you in,’ the voice whispered. ‘Wait a minute.’

  She opened the door with a furtive look
around the square, then led Kathy to the big living area upstairs where Gabe was sprawled out on one of the sofas, white curls against white leather. He lifted a hand in a lazy greeting and rearranged his long limbs to let Poppy sit by his side.

  ‘It was my idea to come here,’Poppy said.‘Gabe thinks I’m overreacting, but I’m not. He’s in danger, Kathy, I’m sure of it now, after what happened to Stan.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’ Kathy took a seat facing them. The room had a musty, unaired smell, and there was a pile of unwashed dishes on the kitchen bench top.

  ‘Stan was killed more or less in front of Gabe. It’s a warning that he’s next.’

  ‘Come on, Poppy,’ Gabe said.‘That doesn’t follow.’

  ‘Whoever’s doing this is insane,’ Poppy insisted, becoming more agitated. ‘They hate you-they took Tracey, didn’t they? I think they hate all of us here in the square. I think it’s a deliberate campaign against us, and you’re the most famous, the most obvious target.’

  ‘You mean it’s an art critic?’ Gabe laughed, but there was no humour in his voice.

  ‘In a way, yes!’ Poppy grabbed the sleeve of his shirt, sounding shrill. ‘You can laugh, but you know there are thousands of people who hate what we do and the publicity we get for it. They say we just rip the public off, playing with pretentious ideas about life and death that we’ve got no right to. Well I think one of them’s decided to make us face life and death for real, just like those messages on the walls say.’

  Gabe looked at her with concern. ‘But what about Betty?’ he said soothingly.‘She wasn’t one of us.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ Poppy hesitated, pulling away from his attempt to stroke her hair. ‘But there is somebody who hates us and Betty.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  ‘Think about it, Gabe.’

  He did, but clearly had no idea what she was talking about. She shot a quick glance at Kathy who also looked blank, then she said fiercely,‘Reg Gilbey.’