Kathy looked away, unable to hold the gaze of those dark, unblinking eyes gazing up at her from the frame of white bandage.
She was aware of Leon shifting himself beneath the tight fold of the bedcovers, turning away from her.
‘Was I wrong?’ she asked.
He took a long time to make a reply, and when it came his voice was soft and angry. ‘You jump so easily to conclusions, Kathy. You’re so bloody determined to trust nobody.’
She looked down at him, staring away to the far end of the ward where an old man with a walking-frame was making imperceptible progress towards a toilet door. ‘Tell me, then. Please.’
He shook his head angrily. ‘McLarren didn’t need me to betray Brock to him, Kathy. McLarren has had a need-to-know notice on the central computer for months. As soon as the tests on the ransom-note stamps were completed, and the clerk at the lab entered the word “forgery” on her machine, McLarren’s office was informed—it was automatic. But yes, I answered his questions when he asked. I didn’t hide anything from him to protect Brock. Why should I have done? I work as laboratory liaison for a number of teams, I would have done the same with any of them. And no, McLarren didn’t ask me to confront Brock with what we knew about the Canada Cover. I did that myself. I wanted Brock to tell us what was going on, and put a stop to it.’
He rolled back and stared at her. ‘This is a matter of loyalty, is it, Kathy? You think I should have behaved differently?’
Kathy felt sick. ‘No. I’m sorry, Leon. You were right. You couldn’t have done anything else. I suppose . . . I suppose the difference between us was that I knew Brock better. I knew that he couldn’t have taken the Canada Cover.’
‘A matter of trust, then. You trusted Brock, but not me.’
She sighed. ‘I’d better go. Can I just tell you that—’
Her words were cut off by the sound of Brock’s voice. ‘There you two are! I’ve been half-way round the hospital trying to find you. When did they move you up here, Leon?’
He looked at them, straightening upright as he came to the side of the bed, fixing smiles on their faces. ‘What’s up?
You look down in the dumps, old chap. Kathy depressing you, talking shop, is she? Here, I brought you something to read.’
‘Thanks, Brock.’ He frowned as he saw the title. ‘Shame . . .’
‘Haven’t read it, have you?’
‘Er . . . no.’
‘Has Kathy told you about her performance in McLarren’s office last night?’
‘I heard about it. I think the whole Met has.’
‘It was gripping stuff.’ Brock shot Kathy a smile. ‘Very impressive. McLarren is a changed man. And as for White . . .’ Brock shook his head as if still having trouble with the idea. ‘A very evil old man. I’m beginning to feel that all the old men in this force should be put down humanely.’
‘It was you who convinced me about him, Brock,’ Kathy said quietly.
‘Me? How come?’
‘Your extra blue pin on the London map, remember? I couldn’t figure out who it was, and then I remembered that White had used the nickname Sammy China when I talked to him that first time. So I looked up White’s file and found he grew up on the Myatts Grove estate too. His hatred of Sammy must have been a very long-term one.’
‘Did he?’ Brock said in astonishment. ‘I didn’t know that. My extra pin was Rudi Trakl—at that stage I wasn’t sure if he was involved.’
Desai tried to laugh, but could only wince. ‘So this is detective work. I think I’ll stick to forensics.’
‘Don’t mock,’ Kathy said. ‘We got it all worked out in the end. Except for the Canada Cover. I checked with Cobalt Square. They’ve searched everywhere. No luck. It looks as if Sammy will take his million to the grave.’
Brock was looking uncomfortable. ‘Kathy, one thing I do appreciate is the way you stood up for me against McLarren and the others, over that missing Canada Cover.’
‘It wasn’t that hard,’ Kathy said, feeling Desai look away, and the heavy lump in the pit of her throat growing again. ‘I knew you couldn’t possibly have taken it, so then it was a matter of working out how it was switched, and Waverley was the only possibility.’
‘Yes, I’d hoped you’d come to that conclusion. I knew I could rely on you.’
‘Hoped?’ Kathy looked puzzled, Brock even more uneasy. ‘How do you mean? You already knew he’d done that?’
‘I’m afraid so, Kathy. I saw him do it. The fact is,’ Brock drew an envelope from his jacket pocket and laid it on the bedclothes between the three of them, ‘your faith in me was somewhat misplaced. But I knew I could rely on that, too.’
Kathy looked at him in astonishment, then down at the envelope. She reached across and cautiously picked it up. When she opened the flap she saw the corner of a familiar Chalon Head inside. She drew out the cover carefully and recognised the flamboyant copperplate writing addressed to Mrs Sandford Fleming beneath the black stamp.
‘Is this it?’ she asked finally.
Brock nodded.
Kathy felt, rather than saw, Desai’s eyes burning into her; she kept hers focused on the little stamp, unable to look back at him.
Brock said, ‘When I saw Waverley switch the envelopes, I couldn’t make out what was going on. At that stage I believed Sammy had staged his wife’s disappearance, and the only thing I could think was that Waverley must be working for him, and that they hoped to substitute the copy for the real stamp, and steal it. So when the chance presented itself, I took the other envelope from Waverley’s bag, and later that afternoon, when they brought the original upstairs after the auction, I exchanged it for the copy. I thought that would sow a bit of confusion in the enemy camp, although I didn’t appreciate then quite how much.’
‘But,’ Desai’s voice was tight, ‘why didn’t you produce it when they started accusing you of stealing it? And why didn’t you tell us, last Monday night?’
‘I’m sorry, Leon. By then I realised that I was a target as well as Sammy, and I wanted to find out who was behind this, who would benefit and how. And I didn’t want you to lie for me—I wanted you to play it absolutely straight, as of course you did.’
Kathy winced and looked away.
Brock shifted on the edge of the bed and added, ‘Of course, the longer it went on, the more difficult it became to find the right occasion to produce the damn thing. The thing that haunts me is that if I’d just let things be Eva would still be alive. You said yesterday, Kathy, that you felt responsible for Sammy’s death, which is nonsense, of course, but what I did was much worse. They killed Eva because they thought Sammy had cheated them.’
Kathy shook her head. ‘No. The head was cold, remember? Frozen. She was already dead by the day of the auction.’
‘The forensic evidence isn’t conclusive,’ Brock objected.
‘I’m sure of it, Brock. Beheading Eva was central to Sammy’s punishment, a sick joke, a play on Sammy’s obsession with Chalon Heads, and a repetition of what White had done to Mary Martin. That’s what kept White going, the thought of Sammy opening that box.’
Brock rubbed his face wearily. ‘Maybe. Anyway, now I just don’t know what the hell to do. I’m walking around with a million quid in my pocket, and I don’t know how to give it back.’
Finally Kathy managed to look Desai in the face. He stared at her in silence, his expression neutral and distant, the old Desai, cool and detached.
Then he cleared his throat and turned his attention to Brock.
‘My head still hurts,’ he murmured. ‘And my memory of the time I spent in the Myatts Grove flat with Sammy is pretty hazy after that fall. I couldn’t see anything, of course, with the tape over my eyes, but he talked, to me and to himself, quite a bit. I have this feeling that he mentioned something about hiding the Canada Cover.’
Brock looked at him with surprise.
Kathy said, ‘Oh, Leon . . .’ Then she stopped whatever it was she had been about to say and instead added, �
�Yes, that’s quite possible. I should think.’
‘You might be able to jog my memory,’ Desai said to her. ‘Maybe if you could lay your hands on a copy of the report describing where they searched, it might come back to me.’
She looked away as she felt a tear coming into her eye.
Brock broke in, ‘I couldn’t possibly ask you to do that. It’s my own damned fault. I should have been more open with you both from the beginning.’
‘Yes, well, it’s a matter of trust,’ Desai said. ‘And it’ll cost you another slap-up meal at La Fortuna, Brock.’
He added this lightly, and Brock laughed ruefully, but Kathy could hear the edge in Desai’s voice, and knew she wasn’t forgiven. She got to her feet and looked down at the little portrait on the envelope.
‘A female head of the greatest beauty . . .’ she said sadly. ‘And it all began so innocently, in the days before I knew a cottonreel from a woodblock . . .’
She turned and walked away.
ALSO BY BARRY MAITLAND
SPIDER TRAP
Barry Maitland
Skeletons are discovered in wasteland behind Cockpit Lane, a poor black area of inner south London, and DCI David Brock and DS Kathy Kolla of Scotland Yard’s Serious Crimes Branch are called in to investigate.
The discovery that the victims died during the Brixton riots, over twenty years before, lead Brock and Kolla on a dark and dangerous journey into the heart of the West Indian community in London. A journey in which past and present come together in an intricate web of deception and intrigue, as Brock encounters a formidable old antagonist, Spider Roach. In a desperate search to find a crucial piece of evidence, Brock and Kolla unwittingly set in train a series of events that end in a shocking, violent conclusion.
Written with Maitland’s characteristically vivid sense of character and place, Spider Trap is Maitland at his scrupulously-plotted, complex and compelling best.
ISBN 978 1 74114 816 9
NO TRACE
Barry Maitland
Within an unconventional artists’ neighbourhood centred on Northcote Square in London, Detective Chief Inspector David Brock and Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla engage in their most compelling case yet. They need to find missing six-year-old Tracey Rudd, the third child to be abducted in similar circumstances in recent weeks.
Tracey is the daughter of the notorious contemporary artist Gabriel Rudd, best known for a grotesque work called ‘Dead Puppies’. Tracey’s grandparents accused the self-absorbed Rudd of responsibility for the suicide of Tracey’s mother five years ago, and now hint at his complicity in his daughter’s disappearance.
While Rudd, in the full glare of media attention, exploits Tracey’s abduction as inspiration for a major and controversial new artwork, Brock and Kolla hunt for the missing girls’ kidnappers, who appear to be connected to the eccentric community of artists, dealers and collectors in Northcote Square, all of whom fall under suspicion.
ISBN 978 1 74114 777 3
Table of Contents
COVER PAGE
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT PAGE
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE: RAPHAEL AND THE BEAST
1. CABOT’S
2. QUEEN ANNE’S GATE
3. A LIFE OF STARLING
4. THE CANADA COVER
5. AN AUCTION
6. A FEMINIST THEORY OF STAMP COLLECTING
7. A FEMALE HEAD OF THE GREATEST BEAUTY
8. SEVERED HEADS AND PENNY REDS
9. APPROACHING THUNDER
10. SEW SALLY
11. A PARTING OF WAYS
12. COBALT SQUARE
13. THE YELLOW BIKINI
14. ACTING BADLY
15. AN ORPHAN ON OUR DOORSTEP
16. THE MOVING FINGER WRITES
17. RAPHAEL
18. THE SOURCE
19. A CHALON HEAD
The Chalon Heads Page 36
