open his mouth to us.’
Kathy said,‘Do we know him?’
‘Three convictions for possession and publication of indecent photographs, one involving children. Two fines and a two-month prison term. We’re digging for more background.’
‘The flat was rented in his wife’s name,’ Kathy said.
‘Yes. We don’t know where she is. Neighbours say they haven’t seen her in months.’
He paused to let this sink in, then continued,‘The point is that we have Lee in intensive care and we know that Aimee is dead, but we have no more idea where Tracey is than we did last Monday morning. On the face of it, we have nothing to connect either Abbott or Wylie to her disappearance. And if that’s the case, we’re going to have to start all over again as far as she’s concerned. Right from the beginning.’ He took a deep breath, sat back against the padded seat and closed his eyes.‘So what are the alternatives?’
‘But I saw Abbott in Northcote Square,’ Kathy objected.
‘You think you saw him. All you can really be sure of is that you remember a limping man.’
‘You’re suggesting it’s no more than a coincidence?’ Bren protested.‘That last night was a fluke?’
‘I’m saying we should look at all the options.’
‘A copycat?’Kathy said. There was silence for a moment, then she went on,‘The Tracey kidnapping is different from the other two in that her father is a celebrity. Maybe it’s aimed at him.’
‘Perhaps, but there’s been no ransom, no threat. And why make it look like the other two cases?’
‘To distract us from the obvious suspect,’ Bren said.
‘Who is?’
‘Tracey’s father,’Bren said immediately.‘Gabriel Rudd.’
Brock gave him a quizzical look.‘You’ve met him?’
‘Last night. Kathy and Deanne and I went to the opening of his exhibition. He and I nearly came to blows.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh, one of his so-called artworks had a picture of Kathy and a caption that said she was dead.’
‘What?’
‘We persuaded him to remove it.’
Brock’s eyebrows rose further. ‘Rudd removed one of the artworks from his exhibition because you didn’t like it?’
‘Not exactly. He scraped Kathy’s picture out.’
Brock stared at them both in astonishment.‘Has Rudd been giving you trouble, Kathy?’
‘No. He apologised. He probably thought I’d be flattered. Perhaps I should have been.’
‘Anyway,’Bren went on,‘what really got to me was that he was exploiting Tracey’s disappearance for his own purposes. The whole thing has been turned into a circus for his benefit. It’s been like that all week, his picture in every paper, every news report.’
‘You’re suggesting Rudd arranged his daughter’s abduction to further his own career?’
Bren hesitated. ‘It’s not impossible, Brock. There are precedents.’
Brock shook his head. ‘Some form of Munchausen by proxy, you mean? You know what a can of worms that is.’
‘At least we should find out if he’s ever done anything like this before.’
‘We know he has,’ Kathy said quietly, and Brock nodded and said,‘The Night-Mare.’
Bren looked puzzled and Kathy explained, ‘After his wife Jane committed suicide, five years ago, he held an exhibition called The Night-Mare, inspired by her death. The main work won a big prize and he made a lot of money. Jane’s parents, the Nolans, were incensed by it. When I talked to the case officer who looked into the suicide, DS Bill Scott, it sounded like a prequel to what’s happening now, with the same cast of characters-Rudd, Tracey, the Nolans, Betty Zielinski.’
‘There you are then,’ Bren said.
‘I’ve been wondering about it all week. Right from the start his reaction to Tracey’s disappearance seemed ambiguous, and he has gone out of his way to make a public spectacle of it. I’ve also got the impression that his reputation has been fading recently, and he needed a boost like this. But on the other hand, I’ve found him weeping over a pair of Tracey’s shoes when there was no one around to impress.
‘There’s also the fact that the publicity has really been generated by his dealer, Fergus Tait, and it was Tait who pushed Rudd into doing this exhibition. If you were to look at who’s benefiting from all this, you’d logically have to consider Tait, too.’
‘Anyone else?’
‘Well, there’s the grandparents, Len and Bev Nolan. They say they’ve been worried for some time about Tracey’s life with her father, and they explored trying to get custody, without success. They might have decided to take matters into their own hands.’
‘We’ve been to their house in West Drayton, Kathy,’ Brock said, ‘and checked their story with the social services. They seem genuine.’
Bren shook his head doubtfully. ‘And they told you about the custody business, did they? They didn’t try to hide it?’
‘That’s true. I’m not saying you’re wrong to have suspicions about Rudd, but maybe there’s more to it. If Tracey’s kidnapper wasn’t the same as Aimee’s and Lee’s, then making it look as if it was would distract our attention away from Northcote Square, and I wonder if there are other secrets hidden there. For instance, both the grandparents and the headmistress of her school said that Tracey had become withdrawn and depressed in the past year. There may have been something going on in her life that we don’t know about, that was leading up to her abduction.’
‘An abuser?’ Brock asked. ‘Are there any other candidates in the square?’
‘Too many. There’s the painter Gilbey up in his turret, spying on the kids in the playground below; there are the builders who drink in the pub across the way and tease the kids; there’s the mad woman, Betty, who’s obsessed with stolen children; and there’s the artist in Tait’s stable who has a record of mental instability and violent behaviour and makes sculptures of body parts, and another who makes giant cherubs with Tracey’s face and stains them with the blood of murderers.’
‘Hell’s teeth,’ Bren groaned.
Brock sat up and stretched. ‘We’ll run more checks on them all,’ he said, ‘and meanwhile we’ll get to work on Gabriel Rudd. So, where do we begin?’ He took a bite of a sandwich and opened his notebook.
‘Find out what he really did the night Tracey disappeared,’ Kathy suggested. ‘Watching TV alone all evening and going to bed at ten after tucking his daughter up never really struck me as likely. I’ll bet someone knows.’
‘The grandparents say he takes drugs. Have you noticed anything?’
‘Apart from the booze? Yes. When he gets really down, which happens several times a day, he gives Poppy a ring. She comes over and in no time he’s buzzing with energy and optimism. I don’t think it’s because of her sunny personality. Maybe I should talk to her again.’
‘Good,’Brock said.‘These aren’t too bad.’He reached for a pile of sandwiches as if suddenly realising that he hadn’t eaten for days, which was pretty much the case.
Kathy’s mobile rang. She recognised Len Nolan’s urgent voice and grimaced at the other two. ‘We’ve just heard on the news,’ he said.‘What’s happening? Have you found her?’
Kathy took a deep breath and began to explain.
10
Poppy Wilkes was wearing goggles and a mask as she worked, spraying paint in a fine mist over the bulging pink forms. As the paint landed, something miraculous happened to the surface, becoming a glistening sheen, glossy as a mirror. She made a last pass with the gun, then released the trigger and stepped back, pulling off her face protection.
‘That’s fantastic,’ Kathy said from the edge of the room, hardly daring to move or speak for fear of stirring up
