No trace bak-8

by Barry Maitland

  No trace

  ( Brock and Kolla - 8 )

  Barry Maitland

  No trace

  Barry Maitland

  1

  He sighed and his attention strayed to the second item on the table, a letter, neat blue words on cream paper. He set the senior management report aside, picked up the letter and began to read it once again.

  Dear David,

  I have to put this in writing, because I haven’t been able to find the words to say aloud…

  He reached the end and sat lost in thought, feeling the drag of sadness inside him, the weight of time and loss. As if to emphasise this, his eyes moved to a small framed picture on the wall in front of him, a shabby little thing, a gift from a murderer. He remembered his first glimpse of it, long ago, above the mantelpiece of a house in Stepney as he kneeled on the floor with the body of Emily Crab, trying in vain to stop the flow of blood from her throat. Emily had ruined his suit but established his reputation on his first big murder case. Later, interviewing her husband, he had asked about the little picture, saying that it had looked to him like the work of the German artist Kurt Schwitters, whom he greatly admired. Walter Crab had been surprised and gratified by this recognition. He told Brock that during the war his mother had taken in a refugee, a man who had been hunted by the Gestapo from Germany to Norway, before escaping to London. The man was penniless, and Walter’s mother had accepted the picture in lieu of a month’s rent and board. When her friends saw it-an old bus ticket, a scrap of a newspaper headline and other fragments glued to a piece of cardboard-they laughed and told her she’d been had, and Walter had been mortified on his mother’s account. Brock was the first person who had ever admired it, and yes, on the back was the signature K. Schwitters, and the title, Merz 598a, London, 1943. Then Walter confessed to Brock that he had murdered Emily and that the alibi provided by his sister was false. On the day that Crab was sentenced, Brock received a brown-paper parcel in the mail containing the Schwitters and a carefully written note from Walter, gifting him the picture in compensation for Brock’s ruined suit. Ever since, Brock had regarded the little collage as an icon, a condensed statement of his own calling, gathering the discarded residue of people’s lives and making out of it some kind of pattern and sense.

  Brock folded the letter and tucked it into the management report to mark the place he’d reached, then turned his attention to the third document on the table, every page of which he’d memorised over the weekend. It was a file marked Metropolitan Police, Case File Summary: Abductions of Aimee Jennifer Prentice and Lee Celine Hammond. He turned to the pictures of the missing girls, although they were already imprinted in his mind; Aimee with a cheeky lopsided grin and Lee, dreamy and pensive, as if she could sense the onset of puberty inside her slight body.

  Pinned to the cover of the report was the memo confirming the formation of a Major Enquiry Team, headed by Detective Chief Inspector David Brock, which would take control of the case as from 0800 hours on Monday October 13. Brock checked his watch. Two hours. Time to go. athy drove slowly down the clogged artery of Kingsland Road in Shoreditch, part of the stream of sullen Monday morning traffic splashing cold puddles over the legs of huddled bus queues. She could hear the howl of a police siren somewhere up ahead, and on the radio she picked up the first news reports of another missing girl, the third child abducted from her home in east London in recent weeks.

  She made a turn into Lazarus Street and found herself hemmed between the dark brick walls of warehouses under conversion to offices, studio flats and uncertain investment opportunities. Two small girls burst out of a side alley, school bags bouncing on their shoulders, black faces bright with glee, and Kathy stopped to let them pass.

  She was impatient. The call had come half an hour before, cancelling the first scheduled meeting of the new Major Enquiry Team and diverting personnel to Shoreditch, and she felt the anticipation itching inside her at the beginning of a new case. She checked the mirror to make sure the girls were clear of the back of the car and caught her own reflection. Serious eyes, official eyes. This is how you get to look in your thirties when you take your job too seriously, she thought. Her hair, very pale in the gloom of the dark street, fell almost to her eyes, and she remembered that she’d booked for a cut that afternoon. She’d have to cancel.

  As she moved on she passed the end of a narrow service lane and saw two uniformed police examining a row of dustbins. Ahead she spotted a pulsing blue light at the point where the street opened into a square. The patrol car was parked outside a sandwich shop, Mahmed’s Cafe, with two cops stooped talking to the driver, leaning against the car roof to ease the weight of their protective vests and loaded belts.

  Kathy slowed and called across to them.‘Hi, DS Kolla, SO1. Northcote Square?’

  ‘This is it.’ The man, registering the initials of the Serious Crime Group unit, peered across at her. ‘Better park down here, Sarge. The north end’s chocker.’

  As she rolled forward she saw what he meant, a jam of vehicles blocking the far end of the square. She hadn’t been here before, and she had the impression of a rather forbidding place hidden away among the tangle of streets. The square was surrounded by buildings of mixed age and use, mostly in dark red brick, all severe and square-profiled against the grey sky. Theyoverlookedathicklytreed central garden fenced by iron railings. Kathy pulled up beneath a no stopping sign and placed her Metropolitan Police Emergency notice on the dash. One of the uniforms came over to her.

  ‘That’s the house,’ he said, pointing to a building at the other end of the square behind the densest crush of vehicles and people. Originally two storeys high and rather squat and plain, a further two floors of milky white glass had been added.‘Press have just arrived.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  She saw other uniformed men and women door-knocking and talking to staff arriving for work at offices on the east side of the square. Here on the south side, Lazarus Street, was an old industrial building with a sawtooth roof. Like most of the other older buildings in the area it showed signs of conversion. A large section of ground-floor brick wall had been replaced by frameless glass, through which Kathy could make out white linen on restaurant tables. Red neon letters attached to the parapet announced ‘The Pie Factory’. Someone had sprayed a graffiti message in looping black letters on the brick wall beside the restaurant window: ‘same old shit’.

  Kathy crossed to the pavement that snaked around the central gardens, her feet squelching on wet leaves dropped by the brooding trees. Bolted to the railings was a police notice, warning motorists that thieves were active in the area and giving the Crimestoppers’ 0800 number. A logo identified Hackney Borough Police, the operational command unit for this area of the city. There was scaffolding up on part of West Terrace, which formed this side of the square, and some builders had stopped work to see what was going on. A man with a hard hat was leaning out of a windowless hole on the top floor of one of the buildings under reconstruction, passing observations down to his mates on the pavement below. Spotting Kathy, he paused in his commentary and the others turned to check out the blonde. One gave a desultory whistle and another called, ‘Give us a smile, darling,’ but the morning was too dull and their hearts weren’t in it.

  There was something of a melee at the top end of West Terrace, where traffic coming to the corner of the square was trying to work its way around stationary vehicles. She saw several cops trying to move people on, and when she reached the place Kathy realised that the problem was a school playground on the other side of the crossing, where small children were arriving with adults, all demanding to know what the police vehicles and press cameras were doing there.

  Kathy turned along the north side, Urma Street, past a corner pub cal
led The Daughters of Albion, and worked her way through the crowd standing outside number fifty-three. She showed her ID to a constable with a clipboard at the front door and he recorded her name.

  ‘Scene of crime are working on this floor, Sarge. If you take the stairs, I think you’ll find the others on the next level.’

  The front door closed behind her. She was in an entrance hall leading to a corridor of open doors. Ahead, a man wearing white nylon overalls was backing out of a room with a video camera held to his eye. To her left, a flight of open-tread timber stairs rose towards the sound of voices. Kathy climbed the stairs and emerged into a large room that took up the whole floor, well lit with windows to both back and front. The building had been gutted, exposing bare brick walls and the underside of timber floor beams overhead from which industrial lamps were suspended. Kathy caught sight of very large grainy images hanging on the walls, of horses’ heads with huge bulging eyes, like dramatic advertisements for a horror movie.

  Kathy had never seen such a response to a crime scene. The place was crowded with police, as if half the Met had been called out. She spotted Brock’s cropped white hair and beard among a cluster of large men in dark coats. She went over and he introduced her to a superintendent, Head of Operations, and a DCI, Head of Crime Investigations, both from the Borough Police. Then he drew her aside and said rapidly, ‘I have a few things to sort out here, Kathy, then I want to speak to the father, Gabriel Rudd, over there.’ He nodded towards a man sitting alone at a circular dining table, staring at a small TV on the table in front of him.‘Why not go and introduce yourself? I’ll be with you in a minute. See if you can find somewhere quiet for us to talk to him.’

  Kathy paused, struck by the man at the table, a solitary, motionless figure among all the bustle and noise filling the room. He had a startling mop of stark white curls and was wearing a black pinstriped suit without shirt or socks or shoes. The cut of the suit looked expensive. As she drew closer Kathy was surprised to see splashes of colour on its legs. His attention was completely focused on the screen, where a man with an Irish accent, red hair and large round glasses was being interviewed. ‘… A lovely fellow, and amazingly talented. And devoted to his little girl. He must be devastated…’

  ‘Hello, Mr Rudd? I’m Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla.’

  He glanced up at her and said softly, ‘Yes, saw you arrive.’ He nodded back at the screen, which was now showing a view of the square outside and the crush of people at his front door. His face was lean and intelligent, Kathy thought, though very pale and drawn, with dark hollows around the eyes.

  ‘I’m very sorry about your daughter.’

  ‘Tracey,’ he said.‘Her name’s Tracey.’

  ‘Right. I’m with the Major Enquiry Team led by DCI Brock…’

  ‘Brock? Oh yes…’ He looked vaguely in Brock’s direction, then focused again on the small screen, which now showed a reporter talking into a microphone. ‘… Turner Prize, and in the following year represented Britain at the Venice Biennale…’ A news summary was tracking across the bottom of the screen: Rapid police response to third child abduction in London borough.

  ‘Is there somewhere quieter we can talk?’

  ‘What? Oh, right. I’ll just record this on the other set.’

  He stood up, very tall, easing himself through the gap between two bulky cops to get to a large flat-screen TV against the wall, and began working a remote. Brock arrived at Kathy’s side.

  ‘How are we doing?’

  ‘He’s just recording the TV coverage,’ Kathy said. ‘What’s that on his legs, do you think?’

  ‘He says it’s paint. That’s what he does. He’s an artist, he paints.’

  ‘In his best suit?’

  Brock shrugged.‘Tracey Rudd, six years old, apparently taken from her bedroom at the back of the ground floor during the night. Mr Rudd rang triple nine an hour and a half ago, shortly after seven. You know about the other two cases of course. We’ll have to postpone the briefing on them until we get on top of this one. Hackney Operational Command Unit are giving us facilities at Shoreditch police station and I’ve got Bren working with their search teams.’

  He gave her several names and phone numbers which she wrote down in her notebook as Gabriel Rudd returned.

  ‘We can go up to the studio, if you like,’ he said. He sounded distant, detached, as if all this wasn’t really happening. They followed the slap of his bare feet on the timber steps up to a landing on the next floor. At the top, he opened a door and led them into his studio, suddenly empty and silent after the activity below. Kathy realised that this was the extension above the original building which she had seen from across the square, its white translucent end wall and ceiling producing a stunning luminous effect. The space was tall, with a ladder up to a gallery that stretched across one end. The lower sections of the walls were lined with white pinboard, and there were racks and trestles and pieces of equipment around the room, but not the easels and canvases that Kathy would have expected in an artist’s studio, and as far as she could see no works in progress. The place looked like a cross between a mechanic’s workshop and an art gallery, and there was a faint smell of acetate and paint thinner in the air.

  They sat at a plywood table on stools like chrome tractor seats. A Macintosh computer and printer stood at the far end of the table, and Brock reached for an image that lay beside the machines and handed it to Kathy. It was of a pretty little girl with curly blonde hair, clutching a furry teddy bear.

  ‘Mr Rudd had pictures of Tracey ready for us when we arrived, Kathy. When’s her birthday, Mr Rudd?’

  ‘Gabe, everyone calls me Gabe. She turned six in August, the tenth.’

  ‘And you live here on your own, just the two of you?’

  ‘That’s right.’ He blinked and rubbed his eyes, giving a little groan. It was the first sign of emotion that Kathy had seen, as if the TV downstairs had held reality in check.

  ‘You said Tracey’s mother’s passed away. How long ago was that?’

  ‘Jane died five years ago, when Trace was one.’

  ‘That must have been difficult for you, bringing up a little girl on your own.’

  He shrugged, dropped his eyes, sighed.‘Yeah, but well, you just have to cope, don’t you?’

  ‘What about close relatives, grandparents?’

  ‘Yeah, Jane’s parents, they… try to help.’

  ‘I believe you said that Tracey stayed with them over the weekend, and they brought her back home yesterday about five in the afternoon, is that right?’

  He nodded. Kathy thought she sensed some reserve at the mention of the grandparents.

  ‘Have you called them this morning, Gabe?’ she asked.

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘Maybe I should do that now, before they see it on TV. Can you give me their names and a number?’

  He wrote on a pad.

  ‘Anyone else? What about your parents?’

  He shook his head.‘We don’t keep in touch.’

  Kathy moved away to the area beneath the gallery, where there was a sink and a microwave. She used her mobile phone to ring the number Rudd had given her. A man’s voice, elderly and gruff, answered.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’d like to speak to Mr Nolan, please.’

  ‘This is Len Nolan speaking. Who’s that?’

  Kathy explained who she was and where she was calling from.

  ‘What’s happened?’ The voice had hardened immediately, ready for the worst.

  ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you that your granddaughter Tracey is missing, Mr Nolan. We’re doing everything possible to locate her, and at this stage…’

  ‘Where’s her father?’the voice barked.‘Where’s Gabriel?’

  ‘He’s here, Mr Nolan, helping us find her. He wanted you informed.’

  ‘What’s his story?’

  ‘It appears she went missing some time during the night. You haven’t heard from her, have you?’

 
‘We dropped her there yesterday afternoon, just before five. We haven’t heard anything since…’ Kathy heard a woman’s voice in the background, then a muffled conversation.‘We’re on our way,’Len Nolan said.

  ‘It might be better if you waited at home for now, where we can reach you.’

  ‘We’re coming,’he said firmly.‘I’ll give you our mobile number so you can call us if there’s any news.’

  When Kathy returned to the table she found Gabriel Rudd explaining something technical about his picture of Tracey.‘… to enhance the blue of the eyes, you see.’

  ‘But they are that colour?’ Brock asked.

  Rudd considered.‘Pretty much, but I wanted to get the right balance with the flesh tones.’

  He held the picture at arm’s length, squinting at it. His mood had shifted, and again Kathy had the impression that a screen had been thrown up between him and the reality of what was happening.

  Brock raised an eyebrow at her and she said, ‘They haven’t heard from Tracey. They insist on coming over here.’

  Rudd winced.‘Oh no. I couldn’t face them, not now.’

  They lived in the outer western suburbs, apparently. Brock checked his watch and said,‘All right, we’ll look after them when they arrive. Let’s go over last night again, Gabe, step by step.’

  Rudd ran a hand through his white hair, trying to collect his thoughts. ‘There’s not a lot to tell. Trace was tired when she got home. They always get her overexcited and give her too much to eat when she goes over there, and when she gets home she flakes out. She watched some TV and I gave her a bowl of cereal later, and afterwards she went to bed. I turned her light off about eight.’

  ‘Apart from being tired, how did she seem?’

  ‘Fine… normal. They’d taken her to the park near where they live, and she’d got her dress a bit muddy. She wanted me to put it in the wash.’

  ‘Think back over your conversation. Did she mention anything that might help us? A stranger in the park?’