‘So you’ve known Betty a long time?’
He seemed lost in thought for a while, then he stubbed out his cigarette and got stiffly to his feet. ‘Come on, I’ll show you something.’
He led her along the hall and began climbing the stairs, using the banister to help haul himself up. Kathy followed him up to the studio she’d visited before, recognising the smells of oil and pigment that seemed to impregnate the walls. Gilbey was searching through a rack of unframed canvases set up in a corner of the room. Finding the one he was after, he pulled it out, turning it towards the light for her to see. It was a large painting of a young nude woman, sitting in front of a window. Gilbey propped it up on a chair and stepped back, his eyes fixed on the face of the model. As she came closer, Kathy thought she recognised the large eyes and angular features, the central parting of long thick hair, jet black. The style of painting, with the paint densely applied in scoops and whorls of browns and white and black, was very different from the portrait of the judge standing nearby on its easel. Kathy assumed it must have been the work of another artist, but then she recognised the windows behind the seated model as those of the corner bay in this same room, with the trees of the central park beyond.
As if answering her unspoken question, Gilbey said, ‘I painted differently then.’ He gently touched the corrugated surface of the pigment with his fingertips.‘Laid it on thick, squeezed straight from the tube. I wanted to show the force of the material thing, the energy of its presence in the world, just as it was, without frills and tricks. The Kitchen Sink school, they called us in the fifties.’
In the corner of the painting Kathy noticed lettering, blunt and square: GILBEY 1969.
‘Later I moved on. I became less interested in the material presence and more in the spirit of what lay behind it.’ He sounded nostalgic, regretful, as if the texture of the paint against his hand had reminded him of an old friend. ‘The paint became thinner, more calculated, as I tried to show the soul… but it’s so bloody hard. I did this in one session, ten hours, and I knew I’d finished when I ran out of paint. Now…’ He looked over his shoulder at the judge’s portrait, ‘Well, I’ve been doing that for eight months now, maybe seventy or eighty sessions, layer upon layer, and I still haven’t captured the old goat, not really. I may never finish it.’
Comparing the two paintings, Kathy suddenly understood what he meant. The girl in the window had a real presence, but was flat and stylised, like a Byzantine icon, whereas the judge seemed to emerge out of the canvas as a human character in full, a man of judgement, intelligence and authority, yes, but also something else; crafty, predatory even, dangerous.
‘She was the one who made me want to change,’ Gilbey went on, and seeing the query on Kathy’s face he explained, ‘She was the first model I had who talked. Couldn’t shut her up. Told me more than I wanted to know about her life, and Harry. Harry was her husband, owned the house next door. I wanted quiet to concentrate on the paint, but she had to talk, and gradually I came to realise that the person that the talking revealed was more interesting than the body I was trying to represent. Took me a long time to come to terms with that.’ He turned back to examine the old painting, lost in memories.‘Resisted it until I began to see that my work was becoming just decorative, pattern-making. Then I had to start again, with sitters who would talk about themselves. And most of them will, with a bit of encouragement.’ He nodded his head, thinking, talking more to himself than to Kathy.‘Reckon it’s something to do with having to hold the same position all the time-frees the mind, like the psychiatrist’s couch. The judge is a great talker, oh yes.’ Gilbey gave a snort that sounded like contempt. ‘Well, I knew his reputation, of course. A man of fine words and firm moral judgement. But why was he so strict with certain types of criminals; the sex offenders, the rapists and pederasts? Was it because he felt so deeply for their victims? Or was it because he understood what drives them only too well? Now how do you show that in a portrait?’
‘He told you that?’ Kathy asked.
Gilbey looked up sharply, as if he’d forgotten who he was talking to.‘What? No, no, of course not.’
He turned away, a stubborn set to his jaw, as if he’d said too much and wouldn’t say any more. ‘So Betty was your model all that time ago,’ she tried, but he just grunted and refused to respond.
‘I need you to help me, Reg. I need to understand her, how she came to be the way she was. Paint her portrait for me now, in words.’
She waited, and then he began to speak again, voice low. ‘She was always like that, damaged goods. I don’t know where Harry found her or when they came to the square, but her English was still very ropy when I first arrived in the late sixties. Harry was twenty years older than Betty, and he’d had an eventful war by all accounts, and was pretty damaged himself. Couldn’t have sex with her, so she told me, after she’d been modelling for me for a while. Sounded like an invitation to me, so I obliged. Got her pregnant.’
Gilbey was speaking in a monotone, addressing himself to his portrait of Betty, stroking the surface of the paint like a lover.
‘Harry scared me, to be honest. He got this odd look in his eye sometimes. I didn’t fancy fronting up to him, or facing the complications that would follow. So I arranged for her to have an abortion. Practically frogmarched her to the place. Not like now. Backstreet knitting-needle stuff. Nasty… I was so self-centred, you see, I couldn’t imagine what it was like. You’ve lost your whole family in Europe somewhere, and then you fall pregnant, life returns, new hope. And then you have it snatched away from you, like that.’
He sniffed, ran a hand absent-mindedly across his head, making the tufts stand up more wildly than ever. ‘Nearly did for her. Tried to kill herself twice. Then Harry died one bitter winter, of pneumonia, and Betty went into a kind of trance. I tried to help, but she wouldn’t have me near her. Gradually she took on a role, Batty Betty, the mad woman of Northcote Square. She’s gone on playing the part ever since, an actor in a long-running show, becoming more extravagant year by year. At least that’s how I saw it, thinking of myself again, seeing it as a form of persecution of me, but maybe there was nothing voluntary about it.’
He fell silent, and Kathy became aware of sounds from beyond the window, of children’s cries from the school playground. Gilbey heard them too, and said,‘Has this got something to do with the little girl …?’
‘What do you think?’
‘They knew each other. I used to see them talking together, through the school railings or out there in the park. They seemed drawn to each other, two lost souls.’
‘Could Betty have known something about Tracey’s disappearance, or seen something? Did she hint at anything to you?’
He frowned.‘I don’t know. She liked to pretend she had secrets, it was part of her role…’
Then his concentration was broken by a loud rap on the door downstairs and a man’s voice, harsh, imperious. ‘Gilbey? I’m here. Where are you, man? Are you ready for me?’
Gilbey swore under his breath and Kathy heard footsteps, more than one pair, on the stairs. Then a tall, elderly man, hawk-nosed and severe in appearance, marched into the room.
‘Ah, here you are,’ the man said, and then, noticing Kathy, gave a stiff little nod of his head.‘Going to introduce me to the lady, Reg?’
‘Sir Jack Beaufort, this is Detective Sergeant… I’m sorry, I can’t remember.’
‘Kathy Kolla,’ she said.
‘Hackney?’
‘The Yard,’ Kathy replied.
‘Brock’s crew? Aha.’ Beaufort eyed her narrowly, then carelessly indicated his companion.‘You know DI Reeves, Special Branch?’ Kathy recognised the man who’d come to see Brock on that first morning. She particularly noticed his eyes, watchful, but with an ironic glint, as if well used to Beaufort’s antics. He nodded to her with a hint of a smile.
‘I can’t do it today, Judge,’ Gilbey said. ‘I’m sorry, I’ll have to cancel.’
Beaufort looked from Kathy to Gilbey and back again, as if he suspected some kind of conspiracy in his courtroom.‘Nonsense. What’s the matter?’
‘I’ve just had some bad news. A friend of mine has died.’
‘At our age that happens every week. Close?’ Then he noticed the portrait of Betty against the wall. ‘My God! I haven’t seen that one before, Gilbey. You’ve been hiding her from me.’ He moved closer, taking out a pair of narrow glasses and putting them on.‘Oh my! Sixty-nine, eh? Your best year, in my humble opinion. It’s the same model as the Woman in a Bath, isn’t it? Yes… yes…’ He absorbed it, then barked,‘I’ll have her. How much do you want?’
‘She’s not for sale.’
‘We’ll see. So who died?’
