Yasher scowled truculently. ‘As it happens, I’m in dispute with that company over a commercial matter. And I completely deny your allegations about drugs. If there were any there they had nothing to do with me. I resent your insulting…’ He began to rise.
Brock broke in, voice mild,‘Please sit down, Mr Fikret. Tell us about your relationship with these artist friends. If it wasn’t to sell them drugs, why did you go there the night Tracey disappeared?’
‘It was their idea. They wanted to see what we were doing to the old building. I thought Gabe might be thinking of buying one of the flats for an investment. They’re just neighbours, people I meet in the square. I don’t pretend to understand what they’re on about all the time, but I like their company, okay? That’s the nice thing about living in this part of London-the culture you brush up against every day.’ He gave a broad grin.
‘But you’re a bit of a collector yourself, aren’t you?’ Kathy said.
‘Me?’Yasher looked astonished.
‘That painting in the shop, your mother said you bought it.’
‘Ah, that! Yes, I bought it down the market. That’s real skill, that is. That’s my taste, all right.’
‘What do you think of your friends’ work, Gabe and Stan and Poppy?’
‘You want an honest answer? Don’t tell them, please, but I can sum it up in two well-chosen words-total crap.’ He saw the little smile cross Bren’s face. ‘Aha! You agree with me, Mr Gurney! Am I right?’
‘When was the last time you saw Stan Dodworth?’
‘Stan? That would be the night we went to the cellar that I told you about. Not since then. Why?’
‘He’s missing, Mr Fikret. Any idea where he might be?’
‘No. I really don’t know him that well.’
‘And when was the last time you were in that basement?’
‘Oh, I don’t know… a couple of days ago. I seem to remember calling down there for some reason.’ He gave another big toothy grin.‘Mr Brock, sir, let’s be frank. If I was going to bump off the old lady, do you think I’d have left her for you to find on my own premises? The idea’s crazy. If this has anything to do with me at all, it’d have to be someone wanting to embarrass me and my family, right?’
After he’d gone, Bren said reluctantly, ‘He’s right, Brock. He’s not that stupid.’
‘Actually, I think he’s devious enough to do it this way just to put us off. But I don’t think he’s got the artistic talent.’
‘Artistic talent?’
‘Yes. The thing was staged, Bren. Artificial and composed, as if it was a commentary on something. I just wish I knew what.’
Listening to this, Kathy recalled Reg Gilbey’s sneer that the young artists in the square didn’t have an original thought between them, that everything was a reference to something else, and she wondered if Betty’s killer might have been deliberately using some recognisable artistic image of death or suffering. The more she thought about it, the more plausible it seemed. What had been done to Betty surely had meaning, a message of some kind. If they could find the reference, perhaps they could find the killer. What images might inspire Stan Dodworth, for instance?
Bren looked sceptically at his boss. ‘You don’t think you’ve been seeing too much of this contemporary art lately, chief? It can get to you after a while.’
‘Very true, Bren. And I’ve got a feeling there’ll be more.’
Fergus Tait sat in the interview room at Shoreditch station, full of apologies.‘I feel mortified, Chief Inspector, but what can I do? I’ve pleaded with him, told him it’s in his own best interests, but he’ll have none of it. He simply refuses to come out of the cube.’
‘It’s his privilege to refuse to talk to us, Mr Tait, but it could compromise his position in the future. I do think he should be persuaded to get legal advice, at least.’
‘Oh, he’s had that all right.’ Tait gave a coy smile.‘Advice from my lawyers is one of the services I provide my little stable of artists. Gabe spoke to them before he went into his retreat, and he was in touch with them by email again this morning. I believe he’s quite clear about his situation, but if you wish, the lawyer will speak to you. And indeed, it’s not as if Gabe’s refusing to answer any questions you may have. It’s just that he’ll only do it by email. Can I also just say on his behalf that he has absolutely no information about this terrible event. He was in his cube all night, of course, and he saw and heard nothing. He’s devastated, absolutely devastated, as we all are. I’m going to offer the gallery as a venue for the wake for the poor, dear soul. That way Gabe can be there, too. But of course it’ll depend on her family. Do you know who they are?’
‘We haven’t been able to trace them yet.’
‘No trace, eh? Well, I’d be obliged if you’d let me know when you do. I seem to recall that the lady had one or two pictures I might be able to help them dispose of.’
‘Just for the record, Mr Tait, is there any way we can verify that Mr Rudd remained in his cube all night? He’s on camera, isn’t he?’
‘That’s right. The eyes of the world were on him all night long. He’s broadcast live on the internet.’
‘What about you? What were your movements last night?’
‘I ate with friends in our restaurant. My goodness, what a spectacle that was in the square. Did you see it? All those people. Anyway, I was there till we closed down, towards midnight. Then I went to bed in my flat at the back of The Pie Factory. I was there till eight this morning, but I’m afraid there were no cameras to back that up!’ He chuckled.
‘What about Stan Dodworth? Have you heard from him?’
‘I’m afraid not. I did promise to let you know if I did, but there’s been no word.’
Brock looked hard at him. ‘I find that hard to believe. You were the one who rescued him from that institution, who brought him back down to London and gave him shelter and security, who protects him from unwanted publicity. Of course he’d get in touch with you.’
‘Well, I assure you…’
Brock reached across to some papers that Bren had placed in front of him.‘At nine-oh-three p.m. on Saturday last you had a call to your private number in your flat. It lasted three seconds. It came from a public phone in a pub in Islington. Over the next ten minutes it was repeated five times, all for just a second or two. That would have been to your answering machine, I take it, no message left. Then at eleven-seventeen p.m. on the same night you got another call from a public phone, this time at St Pancras rail station. It lasted six minutes.’
Tait sat back as if he’d been slapped. ‘You have my phone records?’
‘This is a serious case. Anyone who obstructs our inquiries is going to find themselves in very deep water. Well?’
A faint glisten of sweat had appeared on Tait’s forehead. ‘It could have been anyone making that call.’
‘Really?’ Brock and Tait stared at each other for a moment, then Tait looked away.
‘I get a lot of calls…’
‘There are cameras in the concourse at St Pancras, Mr Tait.’
‘Oh…’ Tait swallowed, wiped his forehead.‘All right, I did speak to him, yes, that one time. That’s all, I swear. It was that same evening you went through his room. He was agitated. He was telling me that he thought he would go away for a while, see his folks up north. I tried to persuade him to come back to the Factory, to have a talk with me first. He didn’t seem to be listening, so I made a mistake… I told him you’d been into his room, and found the cast of the old lady and the other stuff. That really made him panic. He became hysterical, abusing me for letting you in. I begged him to calm down and come back, but he just hung up. I haven’t heard from him since. I swear that’s the truth.’
‘Why did you lie to me?’ Brock said softly.
‘Like you said, Chief Inspector, I was trying to protect him. He’s not a bad fellow, I’m sure of it. He couldn’t have done this thing to Betty. I think he must have taken a train up north.’
‘The camera shows him leaving the station. We don’t think he ever caught that train.’
At that moment Tait’s mobile phone sounded in his pocket, a cheerful rendering of ‘Danny Boy’, and for a second Tait seemed uncertain what to do. Then he snatched it out.‘Hello?… Not now, Trudy, I’m… What?’ He listened in silence for a while, a look of consternation growing on his face, then he said,‘Hold on,’and looked up at Brock.‘That’s one of the girls on Gabe’s support team at the gallery. She says they’ve been going through his messages for the past twenty-four hours and there’s one they want me to look at. It seems it contains pictures… terrible pictures, she says… of an old woman, naked, hanging by the neck, being tortured…’
