No trace bak-8

by Barry Maitland

  They worked slowly through everything Rudd could recall about his last hours with his daughter.

  ‘So when did you last see her, exactly?’

  ‘I put her light out at eight.’

  ‘But after that, did you look in?’

  ‘Oh… yes, of course. About ten, when I went to bed.’

  ‘And are you certain she was there then?’

  ‘Yes, yes.’

  ‘Your bedroom’s on the ground floor too, isn’t it, but at the front, facing the square. You heard nothing during the night?’

  ‘Nothing, not a thing. I woke up just before seven, got up to wake Trace for school, and found she wasn’t in her room. I looked everywhere and couldn’t find her. Her bedroom window was open. So then I phoned nine-ninenine. I mean, with those two other cases…’

  ‘Had you discussed those cases with Tracey?’

  Rudd screwed his nose in thought.‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘Do you think she knew about them?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Do you normally sleep soundly, Gabe?’

  ‘No, not always.’

  ‘Did you have much to drink last night?’

  He looked vague. ‘Yes, a bit. That might be why… Look, couldn’t I be doing something? I mean, talking to the press, or something? Making an appeal for information?’

  ‘Not yet. Where does Tracey go to school?’

  ‘Right here in the square, Pitzhanger Primary.’

  ‘Is she happy there?’

  ‘Seems okay.’

  ‘So there was nothing she was worried about happening today, a test or something?’

  He shook his head.‘I don’t think they have tests.’

  The questions went on, without much result, Kathy felt, except a growing sense that the man didn’t seem very knowledgeable about or interested in the details of his daughter’s life. Rudd himself was becoming monosyllabic, and finally Brock snapped his notebook shut and straightened his back with a grunt. Kathy recognised the moment. Rudd looked up, thinking the interview over, but she knew better.

  ‘I know your name of course, Gabe. You’re famous,’ Brock said.

  Rudd shrugged carelessly.

  ‘One of my colleagues downstairs was telling me that there are more artists to the square mile in this neighbourhood than anywhere else in Europe, and you’re one of the stars. I think I’ve seen you on TV,“Parkinson”, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And you’ve exhibited at Tate Modern, yes?’

  Rudd nodded.‘Couple of times.’

  ‘And the Saatchi?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ He sounded bored and mildly irritated by Brock’s interest.

  ‘I thought so. I recognised the horses’ heads downstairs. That’s one of your favourite themes, isn’t it?’

  ‘It used to be. I’ve moved on.’

  ‘Dead Puppies, that was you, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Of course, that was the thing on TV. Have you got an exhibition coming up?’

  ‘I’m planning a show at The Pie Factory, the gallery across the square.’

  Brock gazed idly round the room at the blank walls. ‘Now that’s famous too, isn’t it, The Pie Factory? What’s the name of the man who runs it?’

  ‘Fergus Tait. He’s my dealer.’

  ‘Tait, yes of course. And he has a restaurant, too doesn’t he?’

  Rudd said,‘The Tait Gallery.’

  Brock chuckled. ‘The restaurant is called The Tait Gallery, and the art gallery is called The Pie Factory. He’s a bit of a comedian, Mr Tait, eh?’

  ‘He likes a laugh.’

  ‘But sharp as a tack, no doubt. That was him on the TV downstairs just now, wasn’t it? Talking to the media about Tracey. He was quick off the mark, wasn’t he? How did that come about?’

  Rudd’s pale face coloured a little, his expression becoming stubborn. ‘Fergus is more than just my dealer. He’s a close personal friend, and I phoned him as soon as I’d called the police. I needed to talk to someone.’

  ‘I suppose he handles your publicity and promotion, does he?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, from now on, Gabe, you let us handle it as far as Tracey’s concerned. All right?’

  Rudd shrugged.‘Sure.’

  ‘And please make sure that Mr Tait understands that too, will you? Tracey’s life may depend upon it. Understood?’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Good. Now is it possible that Tracey’s disappearance could have something to do with your career or reputation? Have you had any unusual correspondence recently? Any odd phone calls or visitors?’

  ‘No more than usual. Weird messages are often sent to the gallery or my website.’

  ‘We’ll need to check all those. There’s also the possibility that Tracey’s been taken for money, a ransom.’

  ‘Is that what happened with the other girls?’

  ‘No, but it’s always possible that this is different. Just to be sure, we’ll set up some special equipment on your phone, and I’ll ask you to stay close to it for the next twenty-four hours. There’ll be a police officer on the premises for all that time. Well, I think we can go back downstairs now.’

  The horde on the floor below had vanished. Rudd went to the kitchen area to put on some coffee. ‘I don’t understand why they had to search the house,’ he grumbled as he spooned out the powder.

  ‘We always do, in cases like this,’ Kathy said. ‘You wouldn’t believe the number of times a missing child has turned up asleep in a closet or beneath the stairs where they’d gone to play a game with their dolls.’ Or bundled up in the freezer, or beneath the floorboards, Kathy thought. There’s no place like home.

  ‘I just feel so helpless,’ Rudd said. ‘I should be doing something.’

  ‘Waiting is the worst of it,’ Brock replied.‘But the best thing you can do is stay here with DS Kolla.’

  At that moment there was a commotion from the floor below, a man calling out in protest, a woman’s scream drowning him out, then footsteps crashing up the wooden stairs. A woman’s head and shoulders burst into view, thick black hair streaked with grey, a black cloak flapping from her shoulders.

  ‘The chief inspector!’ she cried, looking wildly about. ‘I must see him!’

  Brock stepped forward, waving back the copper who had followed her.

  ‘The scream!’ she gasped.‘I heard the scream!’

  Brock tried to calm her, but this only made her more agitated.

  ‘You must listen!’ she cried. ‘I heard her, the missing child, last night!’

  Then she noticed Gabriel Rudd for the first time and flew at him. He flinched, standing rigid as she grasped him, babbling,‘Poor boy! Poor boy! But I understand, you know I understand. My little girl, my own darling.’

  Seeing the look of disgust on Rudd’s face, Kathy stepped forward and, putting a firm arm around the woman’s shoulders, drew her away.‘Let’s sit down,’she said,‘and tell me everything. First your name.’

  ‘Betty Zielinski, and I have vital information.’

  She was a neighbour, she said, a long-time resident of Northcote Square, living at 14 West Terrace. She leaped to her feet and made them follow her to the window, where she showed them her place, a narrow brick-fronted terrace house almost at this end of the block and barely fifty yards away. They could see the builders working on the roofs of the buildings beyond. The jam of people and vehicles hadn’t cleared from the square below, and faces turned up to look at them as they stood at the window.

  ‘At five minutes past two last night I was woken by a scream,’ the woman went on, her voice now dropping to a dramatic hush.‘A piercing scream. The scream of a female child.’

  ‘I see. Where’s your bedroom, Ms Zielinski?’

  ‘At the back, on the first floor.’

  ‘At the back?’ Brock sounded doubtful.

  ‘Yes… don’t you see? He must have taken her away down the lane that runs behind ou
r terrace. That way he wouldn’t be seen in the square.’

  ‘Are you quite certain about the time?’

  ‘Yes, yes. I checked the alarm clock beside my bed. Five minutes past two.’

  Kathy steered her back to a seat and asked her if she lived alone.

  ‘I live with my family.’

  ‘Did they hear anything?’

  ‘I’m sure they must have.’

  ‘What are their names?’

  Betty Zielinski looked doubtfully at Kathy’s hand poised over her notebook.‘You want all of their names?’

  ‘How many are there?’

  ‘Oh, hundreds and hundreds.’

  Kathy looked into the big, wondering eyes and said, ‘Maybe it would be best if I call and talk to them myself.’

  ‘That would be a very good idea.’

  They thanked her and she seemed satisfied as Kathy led her back towards the stairs. At the top she turned back to Gabriel Rudd and said, ‘She knew, my dear. She told me. She was so brave.’

  Rudd looked incredulous.‘Eh?’

  ‘What did she tell you?’ Brock said.

  The woman turned her wild eyes to him. ‘Secrets. Special children have the second sight, you know. And Tracey was a very special child.’ Then she took to the stairs, her cloak flapping in her wake.

  ‘Batty Betty,’Rudd said, shaking his head. He slumped in a chair, seeming unnerved by the visit.‘That’s what they call her in the square. What she told you was rubbish. She has no family, she lives alone. The school kids in the playground call names after her and she complains to the teachers. Mad as a hatter.’

  Kathy could imagine it, the children squealing with excitement at the mad lady in the black cloak, looking like a bat.

  ‘You don’t believe she heard something?’ Brock asked.

  ‘She probably dreamed it,’ he said dismissively, and Brock, remembering his own awakening that morning, was inclined to agree. All the same, he had noticed how closely Rudd had listened to the woman, especially when she mentioned the scream.

  ‘Did Tracey ever visit Ms Zielinski’s house?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  ‘You didn’t mention that before. You said she goes to the cafe on the corner, but you didn’t mention Zielinski. I think we’ll check her house, just to be on the safe side.’

  As Brock pulled out his phone Rudd got to his feet and wandered over to the window overlooking the square. He gazed down, then took something from his pocket and, opening the window latch, leaned out-too far out. Alarmed, Kathy hurried across to him. ‘What are you doing?’

  He stepped back and closed the window again. In his hand he held a small silver camera, and he was smiling. ‘Taking pictures of them taking pictures of me taking pictures of them… Don’t worry, I wasn’t doing an Yves Klein.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The artist of the void,’ Rudd said carelessly, and strolled away. he window wasn’t locked.’ Brock and Kathy had left Rudd to drink his coffee and watch TV while they went downstairs to check the progress of the SOCO team in Tracey’s room. The crime scene manager, a middle-aged woman with a cheerful smile, gave them a verbal report. As with the other two abductions, there were signs of forced entry to the girl’s bedroom window. However, in this case, unlike the other two where force had been quite crudely applied, these traces were minimal. Scratches on the window latch suggested a tool with a sharp edge had been used to unfasten it from the outside, but a separate security lock was untouched, and appeared not to have been engaged.

  ‘Not locked?’ Brock said.

  ‘That’s right. It was latched but not locked.’

  She’d noticed other differences between this and the earlier cases. With them, the girls’ bedrooms had been visible from adjoining streets and there was some evidence that the abductor, having targeted his victim, had watched her house to identify her room. In this case, though, the window looked onto a back courtyard which was screened from the rear laneway by a garage and wall, so it would have been much more difficult for the intruder to have observed the window. The woman also pointed out that the other two cases were much closer to each other than to Northcote Square, and the girls were both older than Tracey by several years.

  ‘So he’s spreading his territory and becoming more organised,’ Brock suggested. She conceded this possibility, but obviously remained unconvinced.

  ‘Your profiler will have his own ideas,’ she said. ‘But I attended both the previous scenes and this one is noticeably neater and free of visible traces. There’s no sign of disturbance in the room and no marks on the window surrounds.’

  ‘How about the rest of the house?’ Brock asked.

  ‘Clean, very clean. Mr Rudd said he has a cleaner who comes on Friday mornings, and it doesn’t look as if the place has had much use since then. You’re aware that he put the washing machine on before we arrived?’

  ‘What was in it? A dress of Tracey’s? He mentioned her dress being muddy.’

  ‘Yes, a red and yellow dress of hers, and her socks and pants. Also a complete set of his clothes-jeans, shirt, underwear, sweater and jacket.’

  ‘A jacket?’

  ‘Like a windcheater, washable.’

  Clean seemed to be the operative word, Kathy thought, looking round Tracey’s bedroom. It was as neat and Spartan as a motel room. There were no pictures on the wall, no toys on display, and the fabrics were plain and unpatterned.

  ‘Anything else?’ Brock asked the crime scene manager.

  ‘No controlled drugs, but lots of medication-antidepressants, anti-inflammatories, beta-blockers, sleeping pills, vitamins. We haven’t touched his computers at this stage. He has four of them in the house. Are you going to access his emails?’

  ‘Yes, though I imagine Tracey was a bit young to be talking to predators on the web.’

  ‘Don’t be too sure. Oh, one little thing. His alarm clock was set for six-fifteen, yet he didn’t ring us till seven-ohsix.’

  ‘Could have gone back to sleep.’

  ‘Yes, or done a bit of cleaning before we arrived.’

  ‘You’ll take that suit he’s wearing, will you? Check what those stains are on the legs.’

  Kathy had one question.‘Does he dye his hair?’

  The woman laughed.‘I asked him that. He said it went white almost overnight when his wife died.’

  ‘How did she die, do we know?’

  ‘He told me-suicide.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Brock said. ‘Those drawings of horses’ heads on the wall, they’re studies for an artwork he did after it happened. The Night-Mare, it was called, inspired by his wife’s suicide. I remember it won a big prize a few years ago and got a lot of press coverage.’

  ‘What about Dead Puppies?’ Kathy asked.

  Brock shook his head.‘You’d better ask him to explain that one himself.’

  The SOCO said, ‘Oh, was that him? Did he do Dead Puppies?’

  There was a call from an officer at the back door.‘Sir? DCI Brock? Someone to see you, sir.’

  The visitor was dressed like a young businessman, neat tie, smart suit, but even before he offered identification Brock had caught something in the way he looked around him at the crime-scene activity, familiar but detached, that had him pegged for a cop, and probably not regular CID.

  ‘Special Branch?’ Brock read his card, wondering what this could be about.‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘A quiet word, sir?’

  Brock took him upstairs to the living area and led him to the front window, at the far end from Gabriel Rudd, who was now joined by Kathy.

  ‘I’m on protection duties, sir,’ the Special Branch inspector said quietly to Brock. ‘We-my charge and I- have been coming here to Northcote Square regularly now for eight months. We were following the news reports of your case on the radio on the way over. When we arrived and saw the crowds I thought I should let you know.’

  ‘Really?’ Brock was mystified. ‘Can I ask who it is you’re
minding?’

  The inspector leaned close to Brock and lowered his voice further.‘Sir Jack Beaufort, sir.’

  ‘The judge? Why does he come here?’

  The other man allowed himself a little smile. ‘He’s having his portrait painted. The artist’s name is Gilbey, Reg Gilbey. Have you come across him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, he’s apparently held in very high regard. The only problem is that he’s bloody slow. Some days he works away there for a couple of hours and at the end of it I can’t see any difference at all.’

  ‘Where’s his studio?’

  ‘Number fifteen West Terrace.’ The inspector pointed. ‘The one on the corner, with the bay window.’

  It was the end house on West Terrace, Brock saw, at the corner of the square opposite the playground of the primary school and next door to the house of Betty Zielinski. The bay window was a distinctive feature, projecting out from the first floor on the corner like an observation post, and crowned by a slate-roofed turret.

  ‘That’s where he paints, the room with the bay.’

  ‘Why the protection?’

  ‘The judge has had death threats.’

  Brock could believe it. He knew Beaufort’s reputation for tough sentencing and had seen him in action in the criminal courts, imperious and acerbic. ‘Do you come at the same time each week?’

  ‘No, we try to vary it. At first it was once a week, but more recently it’s twice or three times, often first thing in the morning to keep his day clear.’

  ‘Well, thanks for the advice. Of course, we’ll be talking to Mr Gilbey.’

  ‘The door-knockers have already been. He had nothing to tell them.’

  ‘All the same…’ Brock was thinking of Betty Zielinski’s scream.

  The inspector looked thoughtful.‘Did the little girl go to the school on the corner, by any chance?’

  ‘Yes, she did. Why?’

  ‘Only that I know he watches them in the playground from his bay window.’

  ‘Gilbey? You’ve seen him?’

  ‘Yes, you get a good all-round view from up there.’

  ‘What’s he like, this Gilbey?’

  ‘In his seventies, I’d guess, dresses like a tramp, says very little.’ He shrugged and checked his watch. ‘Never know, he may have seen someone watching the place. Anyway, I should be getting back.’