‘You haven’t? Well, it was a very realistic sculpture, a head and shoulders, presumably of Princess Di. The hair was the same characteristic style, and the lips and nose and one eye-it was definitely her-but the rest of her face was eaten away, it was very realistic, with maggots crawling in and out of the flesh. I mean they were real maggots, alive, breeding on some meat he’d put inside the skull, and they were dropping onto the floor and people were stepping on them-oh yes, it was quite disgusting. And this was just the year after Princess Di was killed, so you can imagine the tremendous fuss. I’m surprised you don’t remember it. The press pursued him, but he wouldn’t speak to them and that just drove them into a bigger frenzy. I mean, most of his contemporaries would have died for that kind of publicity, but he genuinely didn’t want any of it.’
‘When was this?’
‘Let’s see… Princess Di died in the summer of ninety-seven, right? So the exhibition would have been late ninety-eight.’
‘Shortly after Jane Rudd died.’
‘I suppose you’re right. Anyway, he tried to hide from the reporters but they found him in his studio and there was this terrible scene. One of the reporters was hurt. Poor Stan, it was all too much. He was arrested, but the psychiatrists said he wasn’t fit and he was put away in a hospital. He did some marvellous work in there. When I saw it I offered to show it at The Pie Factory and give him a home here till he found his feet. That was a couple of years ago, and he’s been here ever since.’
‘You’re a saint, Fergus,’ Kathy said.
He looked serious. ‘I’m a businessman, Kathy, and I look after my artists, because believe me, they need looking after. I can recognise talent, but I know I have to go gently with Stan. No fuss, next to no publicity, just a growing circle of admiring collectors of his work.’
‘People buy these things?’ Brock looked at the objects on the table in disgust.
‘Oh indeed. Much sought after.’
‘And you take a percentage, do you?’
‘In the case of my artists in residence, I own the work they produce, and pay their board and a salary.’
‘So you keep all of the proceeds of their sales?’
‘At first. When they begin here it’s a good deal for them, because their sales won’t nearly cover my outgoings, but as they become better known the balance swings back, and eventually they become well enough established to fly the nest, as it were.’
‘You pay for their production expenses, do you? Materials and the like?’
‘Yes.’
‘So it’ll be your money he used to bribe his “source” in the hospital to give him, or lend him, his body parts.’
‘Oh now!’ Tait lifted his hands as if to show how clean they were.‘I know nothing about that.’
‘Have you ever had a full-scale audit from the Inland Revenue? Our fraud people can be even more intrusive than that, I’m afraid.’
Tait coloured. ‘That’s a bit rough, Chief Inspector, threatening me like that. I’m trying to be cooperative, you know. I do perhaps recall Stan asking me for cash advances from time to time, for which no receipts were forthcoming. I didn’t quibble. The amounts weren’t large. More recently, as his sales have grown, he’s been getting a share of the proceeds and is free to spend it as he pleases. As you see, he’s a frugal man, dedicated to his work. I really wouldn’t know what he spends his money on.’
Kathy, meanwhile, was looking around the room, thinking. There were no images of children, no sign that Tracey might have been there or had contact with Dodworth. But she imagined a small child visiting Poppy’s room nearby and being intrigued by the attic room at the end of the corridor, climbing the stairway, opening the door, drawing back the curtain… Could that be Tracey’s monster, the thing hanging in the alcove?
‘Do you have a picture of Stan Dodworth?’ Brock asked.
‘Yes, there’ll be one in the files in my office downstairs.’
‘And I’d like to see where he worked, and any storerooms he would have had access to.’
Tait shrugged.‘You’re the boss.’
As they turned to leave they heard a woman’s voice raised in the corridor below, and as they came down the stairs they saw an officer backing out of one of the rooms, an angry Poppy following him.
‘It’s all right there, Poppy! Easy now!’ Tait called out, as if trying to soothe a pony.
She turned and looked up at them, and her eyes narrowed as she saw Kathy. ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’
‘It’s all right, Poppy,’ Kathy said, hurrying forward.‘We have to do this. Let me explain.’ She took the woman’s arm and led her back into her room, followed by Brock.
The furniture in the small room was cheap, bare plywood wardrobe and shelves, utility bed, carpet squares on the floor. Across the end of the room, in front of a small window, a sheet of plywood formed a table covered with sketchbooks, sheets of paper, glass jars jammed with pencils, pens and brushes. The books on the shelves were all art books, tall volumes with names for titles, Oldenburg, de Kooning, Gilbert and George. On a cork pinboard there were postcards and sketches, one of them a pencil portrait of Tracey.
‘Have you ever seen this man?’ Kathy showed her the picture of Abbott.
She seemed about to refuse even to look, but then relented, frowned.‘Why?’
‘It’s important.’
Poppy pursed her lips, then said quietly, ‘Stan knows him. Why do you ask?’
‘We believe he may have been involved in the disappearance of the girls. What about this second man?’
Poppy didn’t recognise Wylie’s picture. ‘Are you sure about this?’ she asked, suspicious.‘Why didn’t you show me them before, when we talked downstairs?’
‘We’ve only just got the pictures. What do you know of him?’
‘I saw him here with Stan in the workshops a couple of times recently.’
‘Before or after Tracey disappeared?’
Poppy screwed her nose, thinking. ‘The first time was before, I think. It was a late afternoon, and it was sunny, so it couldn’t have been last week, could it? I think the week before. They were in a huddle in the corner. I said hello but Stan didn’t introduce him. That was like Stan, secretive. The second time was only a few days ago.’
‘Do you know what they were doing?’
‘Looking at the work, I assume. I thought he might have been a buyer. When I came in that first time they were at the bench where I’d been finishing off one of my figures. The bloke with Stan was laughing, like at a dirty joke. I thought he was touching my sculpture and I was going to say something, but they moved off to look at Stan’s castings.’
‘Was the figure modelled on Tracey?’
‘I think so.’
‘Naked?’
Poppy became very still, eyes unblinking.
‘Did Stan know that it was based on Tracey?’
‘I don’t know… Yeah, he might have.’
‘He knew Tracey, of course? He’s seen her here and at Gabe’s house?’
‘Oh yes.’
As they were leaving, Kathy stopped in the doorway and turned back. ‘I don’t get it, Poppy. Your exhibition catalogue talks about your feminist principles and how you aim to expose the way men misuse images of women, but here you are manufacturing the images for them.’
Poppy looked subdued but defiant.‘That’s what Cherubs was about; their nakedness, painted with the blood of murderers… I wanted men to ogle them, and then feel ashamed. I wanted to rub their noses in it.’
‘Well, you certainly did that.’
12
