‘I feel like an idiot,’ Kathy said.
‘I feel bloody angry,’Bren replied.‘Where is this creep?’ He glared around, and people nearby shrank away. Usually calm, almost placid in his manner, he looked formidable now, all the frustration of the past five days concentrated in this outrage. They spotted Gabriel Rudd across the room, looking pale and tragic, wearing a suit that appeared as if it had been tailored from the same polymer material as the banners. He was talking to Fergus Tait and a circle of admirers, his white hair luminous beneath the lights.
Deanne said,‘I think you should leave it, Bren.’
‘You two stay here,’ he growled, and strode off across the room, the crowd parting before him. They watched him approach the group, saw Rudd’s face turn in surprise as he broke in, then Tait was gesturing, Bren said something in reply, and Tait was abruptly still.
After several minutes, Gabriel Rudd turned and walked towards Kathy and Deanne, ignoring the congratulations of the people he passed, Bren at his shoulder.
‘Kathy,’ he said,‘your colleague here has explained how offended you are by my use of your image. I want to apologise, I meant no offence.’ He was standing stiff and formal, his face even paler than usual. ‘Artists are terrible magpies of other people’s images, and I didn’t think you’d mind. I know that you and your people are doing everything possible to find Trace, and the last thing I want to do is upset you, okay?’
Kathy had expected arrogance or defensiveness, but this almost painfully polite apology was disarming.‘Well, I wish you’d asked me.’
He nodded humbly.‘I’ll fix it,’he said. Reaching into a pocket, he drew out a folding knife. People nearby strained to see what he was doing, then gasped in alarm as he raised the knife to the banner. With a smooth sweep of his arm he brought the blade scraping down across its surface, erasing part of the printed image. Then he did it again, and again, until Kathy’s face was removed, leaving only a ghostly smudge. He shrugged at Kathy with a weak little smile and walked away. A buzz of excited conversation followed him.
Bren, Deanne and Kathy left soon after. They paused outside in the sudden cool of the square. A silvery fog had descended, blurring the streetlamps. Bren said, ‘I overreacted, didn’t I?’
‘No, I’m grateful,’ Kathy said.
Deanne slipped her arm through his and said,‘You blew Kathy’s chances of immortality, darling. Now she knows how Mona Lisa felt, or all those nude models down the ages. At least she had her clothes on.’ She shivered and looked at the skeletons of the trees in the central garden silhouetted against the mist, and said,‘This is a rather sinister place, isn’t it? Not a very cheerful spot for a little girl to grow up.’
A man was locking the gates of the garden, walking slowly around the railings, limping on a stick, and the sight of him brought a memory into Kathy’s mind. ‘You remember the bloke we spoke to at the flats this morning, Bren? The one with the sick mother? He had a limp, didn’t he. Did you see if he had a walking stick in the flat?’
Brenthought.‘Yes, I sawoneon thefloorbesidethearmchair. An aluminium job, adjustable, with an elbow brace.’
Kathy visualised it, trying to tickle a memory into life. ‘I’m sure I saw someone with a stick like that, here, in the last couple of days. A young man with a limp, but I didn’t get a good look at him.’
‘Well, those sticks aren’t that uncommon. I think hospitals lend them out. Which leg had the limp?’
Kathy stared into the darkness of the gardens, remembering.‘The stick was in his right hand, so I suppose that was the bad leg.’
‘Like the bloke this morning.’ Bren pondered this, then said, ‘Just a coincidence, I expect.’ All the same, luck often did play its part in these cases-a comment overheard in a pub, a car pulled over for speeding with something suspicious in the back, perhaps a chance sighting of a limping man.
Then something else occurred to Bren. ‘The bedroom window of the second girl, Lee, was fairly narrow. Forensics found threads of fabric from a pair of jeans snagged on the side of the frame, as if the man had knocked his knee or hip against it, climbing in.’
‘The man’s name was Abbott, wasn’t it? Why don’t we check if they’ve found out anything about him?’
Bren called in and was put through to the Data Manager.
‘Abbott? Yes, I’ve got it. He’s not known to us, Bren.’
Bren made a face, then the voice in his ear added,‘You got a bit mixed up with that one. You know how you said his mother was sick? Well, she’s a lot worse than that.’
Kathy caught Bren’s look as he rung off.‘What’s wrong?’
He stared at Kathy.‘You remember Abbott’s mother?’
‘Yes?’
‘Apparently she died three months ago.’
‘But I saw her…’ Kathy replayed the brief glimpse she’d had of pale hair on a pillow in dim light.‘Oh my God.’
Deanne, who hadn’t been listening, was staring enviously through the windows at the diners in The Tait Gallery.‘I’m hungry,’ she broke in.‘Where are we going to eat?’ Then she saw her husband’s face. ‘Something’s happened?’ she said with practised resignation. He explained.
‘Oh well,’ she said, ‘they were bringing in finger food when we left. I’ll go back in and wait for you. Maybe I’ll get a chance to talk to Gabriel Rudd.’ She kissed Bren on the cheek.‘Good luck. Be careful.’
‘Be careful yourself,’ Bren said. ‘You might end up on one of his banners.’
As they approached the block of flats, Kathy looked up and counted the illuminated windows on the top floor.‘I think his light’s on,’ she said.
The lift seemed to take forever, and they were itching with impatience when they finally arrived. They hurried around the corner onto the access deck and stopped short; there ahead of them, backing out of his open doorway as if about to leave, was Abbott, juggling his walking stick and keys. He turned his head and for a frozen moment they stared at him and he stared back. Then, as they moved forward, he jumped with a strange lopsided skip back through his door and slammed it shut. As they ran towards it they heard the rattle of a chain. Bren hammered on the door, then stooped to the letterbox slot and bellowed,‘Open up, please, Mr Abbott. We have to talk to you.’ There was no reply. Bren peered in and said,‘I can’t see, the lights are off.’
‘We have to get inside, Bren,’ Kathy said, and pulled out her mobile.
While she called Shoreditch station, Bren moved back to the other side of the walkway and charged the door with a lowered shoulder. Kathy winced at the crash, but the door held. Bren backed off to try again. He had played for the Metropolitan Police rugby team, and he had the look on his face of someone charging an oncoming pack of forwards. The door burst open, then held on the chain. Bren used his boot to kick it clear.
As he went in, Kathy heard him cry, ‘The window’s open! He’s gone out the bloody window!’ She entered the darkened flat, feeling for the light switch. Ahead she saw the dark shape of Bren standing at an open window. She found the switch and the place flooded with light. At the same moment she became aware again of that hospital smell.
She ran to Bren’s side, past the discarded stick on the floor.‘He jumped?’
‘I don’t think so.’ Bren was leaning out, peering down into the darkness.‘I reckon that’s him down there.’ He was pointing to a dark shadow one floor beneath them and two bays along.
The facade of the building had projecting ledges and ribs of concrete, and Kathy could see how it would be possible to climb across it, if you had the nerve. Through the pounding in her own ears, she heard the murmur of traffic from fourteen floors below, and then something else-a grunt, a muffled curse.
Abbott had the nerve, perhaps, but he also had an injured leg. As her eyes adjusted, Kathy made out an arm reaching from the shadowy blob across a panel of pale concrete. Then the blob moved after it, slowly shifting towards the next bay of the wall.
‘Abbott, there’s no point to this,’ Bren was shouting. ‘Stay where you are.’
The warning seemed to galvanise the dark shape, which suddenly scrambled across its narrow ledge like a huge spider, reaching the next column, then crouching as if to lower itself down to the level below. There was another muffled snort, a cry, and suddenly the figure’s legs seemed to fly out from beneath him and he was toppling, limbs flailing, out into the void. It took several seconds for him to scream, as if he couldn’t quite take in what was happening to him. Then they heard a distant, piercing shriek, cut abruptly short.
Bren and Kathy were still for a moment, then he gasped,‘Ambulance,’and started working his phone. Kathy turned away, feeling giddy and sick. She wanted just to sit down, but there was something she had to do. She went inside the bedroom and opened the door. Gagging at the sour chemical smell that billowed out, she switched on the
