No Trace

by Barry Maitland

  She paused and looked around the gallery room, which at that moment was empty apart from themselves. ‘Is it little girls?’ she asked, gazing steadily up into Brock’s face.‘Is that the problem?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I assumed so. It’s something that’s always troubled him. I remember not long after we were married confronting him with some pictures which I’d found in his study. He was mortified, literally sick with shame. I must confess I’ve often found it difficult to fathom what goes on in men’s minds, but I am absolutely certain that that is where Jack has kept this particular demon of his—in his mind. He would never, never do anything shameful in that way.’

  ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘I know him, Chief Inspector. I know him better than you or anyone else does. That’s what I wanted to tell you. I realise that it may not be a very satisfactory thing for you, a wife’s endorsement of her husband, but in this case it’s the most dependable thing you can have.’

  She turned back to consider her husband’s portrait.‘It’s caught him rather well, hasn’t it? His weaknesses as well as his strengths, Moloch as well as Solomon.’

  ‘Didn’t Moloch demand children as sacrifices?’ Brock said.

  Lady Beaufort gave an embarrassed flutter of her hand. ‘Oh, well I’ve probably mixed him up with somebody else.’

  ‘Your husband told me that he became involved with a man called Robert Wylie in order to help a friend whom Wylie was trying to blackmail. Have you any idea who the friend might be? It might help your husband if the friend could confirm the story.’

  ‘Didn’t Jack tell you? Well, well, how gallant of him.’ Brock caught the stress on the word “gallant”. A group came into the room, and Brock and Lady Maisie drew back into a corner as the people clustered in front of Beaufort’s portrait.

  ‘It’s a Gilbey, isn’t it?’ one said, peering at the title panel. ‘Yes. I’ve always loved this guy. Do you remember his Mick Jagger? He hasn’t really lost it, has he? A bit more blurry, like Monet in his old age, his eyesight going.’

  ‘I don’t think Jack would be altogether happy that they call it a Gilbey, rather than a Beaufort, as if he’s coincidental, like a bunch of flowers or a bowl of fruit.’ Lady Maisie allowed herself a little smile. ‘The friend was my sister—my younger sister. When Jack and I first went out she was a sweet, spoilt little girl of ten. Jack adored her, like everyone else. Well, perhaps not quite like everyone else. Anyway, later she became bored with being spoilt all the time and took to drink in a big way, and got into various kinds of trouble. Jack pulled strings for her a couple of times. She’s a reformed character now, so one is led to believe, married to a lovely man in the City. I’m not sure if she’d confirm Jack’s story or not. It might be an interesting test.’

  There had been an edge to her voice throughout this account, and while he believed her, Brock wondered what else there might be to the story. Did the little sister know something about Beaufort that he wouldn’t want her to bring up?

  Lady Maisie glanced at her watch. ‘I really must go now. There are so many last-minute arrangements to be made. I’m so glad we’ve had this little chat, Chief Inspector. I feel I shall be able to relax now, while we’re away.’

  She pursed her lips into a smile. They were orange, not quite right with the crimson scarf, and Brock wondered if she was colour-blind.

  31

  The next morning they picked Poppy up at the hospital and took her back to Shoreditch station. Some colour had returned to her face, and though she still looked exhausted, a little of her old cheek had reasserted itself. ‘Got a fag?’ she demanded as she sat down. ‘Can’t talk without a fag.’

  After a search was mounted in the front office, a packet of Benson and Hedges was requisitioned from a reluctant constable and the interview resumed. Kathy decided Poppy was robust enough to take some hard questions.

  ‘Okay now?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, fire away.’ Poppy casually lifted her chin and drew on the cigarette.

  ‘Just so you know, we checked your DNA. Betty Zielinski was your birth mother.’

  The thin column of blue smoke quivered. ‘Yeah,’ Poppy said after a pause, ‘I know.’

  ‘When did you find out?’

  ‘When Reg spoke to me. Yesterday was it? God, it feels like weeks ago.’

  ‘Did you suspect it before?’

  ‘No, of course I didn’t. What, that old bag?’ She shook her head in disgust, as if someone had swindled her out of small change.

  ‘And the DNA confirmed that Reg was your father, too. But you’ve been sure of that for some time, haven’t you? Is that why you dumped that rubbish of Stan’s in Reg’s bin and told me to look there? Were you trying to punish him for denying you?’

  But Poppy wasn’t yet ready to make admissions of this kind, and Kathy took a different line.

  ‘Reg said you were very upset when he told you about Betty. So upset you ran back to Mahmed’s and tried to kill yourself.Why was that?’

  Poppy seemed to shrink a little in her chair, as if fending off some terrible memory. She didn’t reply.

  Kathy leaned forward and spoke gently. ‘We know. We worked it out for ourselves, Poppy. It was Gabe, wasn’t it? You realised that your boyfriend had killed your mother.’

  Poppy flinched but kept herself under control, biting her lip as if at a spring tightening inside her.‘He didn’t. He was in that glass cube.’

  ‘We’ve found out how he was able to leave the cube without being seen on camera, just as he did later, when Stan died.Were you there, Poppy, when Stan was hanged?’

  Poppy glared at her, mouth tight. ‘God, you’re so fuckin’ sanctimonious, aren’t you? So pleased with yourself. Were you there, Poppy? like a fuckin’ primary school teacher. Gabe was so right about you!’

  Brock broke in, ‘That’s not going to help, Poppy . . .’ but Kathy had seen the glint of tears in Poppy’s eyes, and she said gently, ‘It’s okay, I think it already has.’

  Poppy stared at her for a moment, and then the tears began to flow.

  They sat in silence while Poppy sobbed, head bowed, then Kathy nodded to the uniformed woman constable who was standing by the door. She came forward and put an arm around Poppy’s shoulders, took a packet of tissues from her pocket and said, ‘It’s all right, love. Can I get you something, a nice cup of tea?’

  Somehow the uniform and the platitude had a calming effect. Poppy sniffed, nodded her head and wiped her nose. Then she took a deep breath and lit a new cigarette from the stub of the old one. ‘No, I wasn’t there,’ she said, voice subdued to a whisper. ‘I had no idea that was going to happen.’

  ‘Just tell us what you know,’ Kathy said.

  She had seen Stan Dodworth on the morning after Betty was murdered, Poppy explained, though she didn’t know about the murder at the time. He had returned briefly to his room at The Pie Factory, and he was so jumpy and wired that she’d thought he’d taken drugs. Something had happened, he said, something really scary and exciting. He said he had to go away for a while, and made her promise not to tell anyone she’d seen him. She’d stayed in her room after that until the police came to get her to be interviewed, and only then did she learn about Betty being killed. She was terrified that Stan had been involved, but decided to say nothing until she’d had a chance to speak to Gabe, which she did later that day, on his mobile. He told her to keep quiet and wait to hear further from him.

  She was surprised when Gabe came to her room later that night, after everyone was asleep. He told her he had a way of slipping out of the cube without being seen in the dark, and together they went across the square to Gabe’s house, where Stan was waiting for them. Gabe explained that the police thought Stan had something to do with Betty’s murder, and they had to help him because he had no one else to turn to. He was going to hide at Gabe’s until things quietened down, and Gabe wanted Poppy to keep an eye on him, get him food and pass him messages. Apparently the police had already visited Gabe
’s house, looking for Stan, who’d hidden outside on the roof until they left. Stan seemed very low, and Gabe was trying to keep his spirits up.

  Later, at the weekend, Stan told her that Gabe had been visiting him again at night. Stan was lively now, almost too lively, and Poppy was worried that he might do something stupid like go out into the street. He’d been making little clay maquettes for sculptures in Gabe’s studio, and he said he felt inspired to do something really awesome. That night he died.

  The next day she was very upset when she heard the news. She couldn’t believe Stan had committed suicide, and when she eventually got Gabe alone in his house again she told him how he couldn’t have killed himself when he was planning to do a really special work. Then Gabe said something weird. He said, didn’t she realise that’s exactly what he had done?

  ‘He wouldn’t explain what that was supposed to mean.’ Poppy was oblivious to them now, telling the story as if arguing with herself, trying to make sense of it. Her fingers flew between the cigarette packet, her mouth and the ashtray, flicking, tapping, scratching. ‘He changed the subject. Didn’t I ever get fed up, pushing the same tired old rubbish, spouting the same pretentious garbage, playing at being an artist, showing off like a kid with a drum? I told him I took it seriously, what I did, and he laughed. He said we were just playing with other people’s second-hand toys, that we made these gestures about life and death and violence and stuff, like we were really angry and profound, but nobody believed us and nobody gave a toss. People just wanted a bit of a laugh. We had less meaning than the ads on TV. Far, far less than some demented madman who strapped a bomb under his coat and got on a bus.’

  Poppy paused as the constable came in with her tea. ‘He really meant it. He scared me. I said that wasn’t so, that people really were interested in his work, that No Trace was pulling bigger crowds than Manchester United. He said that was because people realised it was true, it was real. It wasn’t just another artist wanker pulling down his pants to shock the bourgeoisie. Trace really had gone, Betty really was dead, so was Stan, and so . . . He didn’t finish the sentence, and that was when I first realised that he was behind the whole thing. The idea was so terrible that I couldn’t really take it in. Betty and Stan had died for Gabe’s artwork. He’d killed them so that he and his work would be more famous. He’d used them like disposable models.’

  ‘Did he actually admit this to you?’

  Poppy shook her head. ‘I didn’t dare ask him, but I didn’t have to. It was written all over his face. He knew what had happened. He’d known all along. He’d planned it and carried it out. I didn’t want to believe it, especially about Betty.Why did he have to do that to Betty?’

  She blinked and looked up suddenly, as if thinking she’d said too much and wanted to retract, but Kathy said, ‘It’s okay, Poppy, we worked it out for ourselves. He staged his own death, too, didn’t he?’

  ‘I found the sword in a drawer. I couldn’t bring myself to ask what it was for. I think I half-believed it was for me, but I still stayed with him. I wouldn’t be telling you now except that I believe he wanted people to know. All his heroes killed themselves—Van Gogh, Mishima, Pollock. Art validated by death, death validated by art. He said No Trace was the biggest thing in his life, and I suppose he thought this would make it even bigger.Well, it has, hasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kathy said. ‘It has.’ She watched Poppy reach for another cigarette, hand shaking. The air was blue, but no one dared break Poppy’s concentration by moving to open a window or switch on the fan. ‘Tell me about Tracey.’

  ‘I’ve dreaded you asking me that. I don’t know what happened to her. That’s the truth.’

  ‘But Gabe did, didn’t he?’

  Poppy hesitated, then gave a little nod. ‘He didn’t say so, but he had this calm about him when I asked him. He said I didn’t need to worry, he was sure she was happy wherever she was.’

  ‘When was this?’

  ‘When we saw that man’s picture in the papers, the one who fell from the building, and they said the police had wanted to talk to him about the other missing girls. I knew he was a friend of Stan’s, and when I asked Stan about it he told me he’d warned Gabe about the man being interested in Trace. I told Gabe we should tell the police but he said to wait, and Stan was worried that he’d get in trouble if it came out he knew the man, because he was using him to get into the mortuary at the hospital.’

  ‘What was the monster that frightened Tracey?’

  ‘I think it was the cast of the old woman that Stan had in his room. Trace was scared of Stan’s room, but fascinated, too. I’d catch them whispering together sometimes, and he’d say they were telling about secrets. Of course he’d known her since she was a baby, and she looked up to him as a kind of uncle. He could get her to do things she wouldn’t do for anybody else, like recite a poem in public, stuff like that.’

  ‘What about kiss a strange man on the cheek?’ Kathy told her of the episode that Beaufort had described, and Poppy looked shocked.

  ‘Yeah, I think he could have got her to do that. I remember she was modelling for me one day and she disappeared for a while. She was wearing that dressing gown. But why would Stan make her do it?’

  ‘As a favour to his friend Abbott?’

  ‘Maybe.’ She gave a shiver.

  ‘But you’d been doing research into pictures of missing children before Trace disappeared, hadn’t you, Poppy? At the Soane Museum?’

  Poppy was startled. ‘Yes . . . how did you know that? Gabe asked me to do it and get a photo if I could. We’d been reading reports about the hunt for the first two girls and he thought it might be a subject for a work.’

  ‘Why didn’t he go himself?’

  ‘He said people would recognise him, with his white hair.’

  ‘And this would have been after Stan had warned him about his friend Abbott taking an interest in Tracey?’

  ‘Maybe, yes, I suppose so. But . . . I’m sure Gabe would never have been involved in Tracey’s disappearance. She was . . .’ for a moment Poppy seemed lost for an appropriate word, ‘. . . important to him.’

  ‘But not as important as No Trace, the first masterpiece of the twenty-first century.’

  ‘Oh God.’ Poppy lowered her face onto her arms and began to weep silently.

  Kathy got up and opened the window, wondering what it was that Gabe had said about her that was so right.

  As they waited for the experts to arrive that afternoon, Bren, who’d been going over the tape of Poppy’s interview again, said to Kathy, ‘I’ve got to hand it to you. I thought your theory was barmy, but Morris and the Wilkes woman have shown you were spot on. Rudd must have been off his head.’

  ‘Obsessed, I suppose,’ Kathy replied. She still felt numb after the session with Poppy. Her question, ‘Why did he have to do that to Betty?’ kept coming back to her. And then there was the question of Tracey. She replayed mental images of Gabe—drunk, sober, gleeful, morose—and wondered how he had been able to hide so thoroughly the cruelty that must have lain inside.

  This time, the laboratory reporting officer came accompanied by reinforcements—two scientific officers, and a technician who connected their laptop to a projector and set up a screen. Brock began by summarising what they had now learned, and the lab team listened impassively. Then the RO spoke.

  ‘What we’ve tried to do is track the blood particles backward in time, from the last spot to the first, then reverse the sequence to get a picture of what happened.’ The technician switched on the equipment and the screen was filled by the image of a framework representing Rudd’s studio, with outlines of furniture and his figure placed inside it. A sequence of images followed, like stills from a cartoon film, with red arcing lines projecting from Rudd’s figure as it gradually changed position, turning and falling, and an irregular pattern of red spots spread outward on the floor around.

  ‘It would need more work if we had to take this to court,’ the RO said, ‘but we’re conf
ident that the basic sequence is right.’

  He paused, then nodded to the technician who pressed more buttons. The sequence began again from the beginning, but this time there was a second outline figure in the room, and as it moved towards Rudd and then away again, they saw how the figure blocked and interfered with the spray of red blood tracks. The reason for the irregular pattern on the floor now became clear. ‘There was someone else in that room,’ the RO said. ‘It just doesn’t work without them.’

  There was total silence, and then Brock opened his file and drew out the copy of the birthday party photograph they’d found pinned on the studio wall. He stared at it for a long moment, then said, as if musing to himself, ‘The unmatched DNA on the shoes we found in the bin outside . . . Did you try to match it with Tracey’s?’

  ‘Tracey?’ They stared at him in surprise, and then Kathy realised what he meant, and something occurred to her, something she’d been trying to recall.

  ‘The dolls’ house,’ she said, and then, her mind racing, ‘I should have checked the phone calls.’ Finally she asked, ‘Have you got anything on the chisel, apart from its width?’

  The RO checked his papers. ‘Yes, it seems it’s an unusual type, hollow ground on the underside of the blade. Japanese probably.’

  32

  Kathy got up early the next morning, hours before sunrise, and drove into Shoreditch to join the others. There she exchanged her car in the police station compound for an unmarked observation van and headed west. She found a parking spot in the silent suburban street as dawn broke, and slipped into the back of the van to wait. After a while the smells of a suburb stirring awake on a cold Sunday morning began to percolate into her hiding place—coffee, frying bacon, the exhaust of a car. Later she watched an old orange Volvo turn out of the side road and she got behind the wheel to follow it and a trail of other cars heading for church.