Square has affected him deeply.’
‘Do you know of any relatives of his?’
He scratched an ear.‘I recall a couple of old dears who came to an opening once-sisters or cousins-but I don’t know vhere they lived. You’d have to speak to Reg.’
The crowds were as dense in the square as before, and the floral tributes outside Gabriel Rudd’s house had grown to a small meadow, extending out across Urma Street, which had now been closed to traffic because of the risk of accidents. People were moving among the flowers, taking photographs and stooping to read the messages. Although it was midday, the sky was so darkly overcast that the lights in the buildings shone almost as brightly as at night. From the street Kathy saw a light in the bay window of Reg Gilbey’s studio. She pushed her way through the throng to the iron gate, went up the steps to his front door and rang the bell, hammering the brass lion-head knocker at the same time. There was no response. She returned to the street and went round the corner. Across the way, children in the school playground were pressed against the railings, pointing and waving to the crowds. She turned down the lane behind West Terrace and opened the gate into Gilbey’s backyard. His kitchen door was unlocked, and she went inside. The house was silent, a faint smell of burnt cheese and cigarette smoke hanging in the air.
‘Reg!’ She listened for a reply, but there was nothing. She continued along the hall, seeing the mail spilled over the floor beneath the letterbox in the front door. She climbed the stairs and opened the door to the studio. Gilbey was sitting in the middle of the room, staring at his painting of Betty Zielinski as a young woman. Beyond him, the easel that had held the portrait of Sir Jack Beaufort was empty.
‘Reg? Are you all right?’
The old painter stirred, turned his head and squinted at her through his thick-framed glasses.‘Poppy’s not here,’ he said, his voice weak. The flesh on his face seemed pinched and even more wizened than before.
‘But she’s been here,’ Kathy said, guessing.
He gave a little nod. It seemed such an effort for him to speak that Kathy took a chair to his side and leaned close so that she wouldn’t miss anything.‘Tell me about it,’ she said softly.
‘She screamed,’ he said after a pause, eyes narrowed as if watching a replay inside his head.‘She just screamed. Never heard such a scream.’ His voice faded away and with it his attention. Close to, his skin looked as thin as tissue paper. Kathy got to her feet and hurried downstairs to the kitchen, finding the cupboard where she remembered him keeping the whisky bottle. She found a glass and returned upstairs. He hadn’t stirred an inch.
‘Here, try this, Reg.’
The smell of the vapour under his nose roused him a little, but when he tried to take the glass his hand was trembling too much, and Kathy held it while he sipped. After a moment a little glow of pink blossomed in his cheek.
‘Want a cup of tea?’
He shook his head.‘Another one of them.’
She refilled the glass, and his grip was steadier.
‘You never told me you two were related,’ Kathy said.
He shot her a sideways glance.‘How do you know that?’
‘I’m the police, Reg. We get to know things.’
‘Tell me what she’s supposed to have done then.’
‘That I don’t know, but I do need to speak to her. So what happened exactly?’
He took another sip. ‘Couple of years ago she turned up on my doorstep. Never seen her before. Claimed I was her natural father. I told her that was bollocks. I didn’t know anyone by the name of Wilkes. She said that was the name of her adoptive parents, both now dead. Before she died, her mother’d told her she was adopted, and her real dad was a famous London painter, who’d done a portrait of Mick Jagger. Well, I had done one, but others had too, so I told her it was a case of mistaken identity.’
Gilbey emptied the second glass and handed it to Kathy, who took it but didn’t refill it. ‘Tell me the story first,’ she said.
He grunted and fumbled in his pocket for his cigarettes, lit one and coughed.‘She wasn’t convinced. She said she was an artist too, and it obviously ran in the blood.
When I went on denying I had anything to do with her blood she seemed more sad than anything else. Anyway, she finally left. Then I discovered she’d got herself taken on by Tait as one of his tame artists at The Pie Factory. She didn’t raise the matter of her paternity with me again, or mention it to anyone else, as far as I know, but sometimes I’d catch her looking up at my windows, or watching me in the supermarket, with a look in her eyes that said, You know. It got on my nerves. Eventually it occurred to me that Fergus Tait might have her date of birth for her national insurance or whatever. I thought I’d work out when she was conceived, and with luck I’d have been abroad at the time, or in hospital or something, and I’d be able to put the matter to rest.’
He sucked on his cigarette and took a deep breath.‘Tait did have the date. Trouble was, when I worked it out I found she must have been conceived around the same time as I got Betty pregnant, and that made me think. I thought back to that day I took Betty to get rid of the kid. She came out weeping and upset, but how did I know what had happened in there? Had she told them to keep the money and leave the baby alone? Soon after that, she went away to stay with a sister in Birmingham. She was away for months. Could she have had the baby and given it away? I didn’t want to know, and I didn’t raise it with Betty. The way she was about her lost baby she could have said anything, true or not.’
He hesitated, turning his attention back to the woman in the painting, her face bright and open, unclouded by dark dreams, sunlight spilling across her skin.
‘Go on, Reg,’ Kathy urged softly.
‘Poppy came here this morning. She’d seen the pictures of herself in the papers, and she was rattled. She said she just wanted to know the truth-was I her dad? Well, this time I didn’t deny it outright. I told her the story of Betty’s baby and the coincidence of the dates. I said if she wanted we could have a test done. I thought she’d be pleased, but she just seemed shocked. I asked her where the Wilkeses came from, and when she said Birmingham I told her that’s where Betty had gone, and she started screaming. I don’t know why.’
‘Reg, did she give you any idea of where she might be staying?’
‘I did ask her when she first arrived but she wouldn’t say. When she left I watched her cross the square, through the gardens, and head down East Terrace. Then I lost sight of her.’
‘Okay. Is there anything else you can tell me?’
He looked fearfully at her and said, ‘She knows who killed Betty, doesn’t she? That’s why she screamed. She knows who murdered her mother.’ He closed his eyes as if to wipe away the thought, then turned to stare again at Betty’s painting. ‘When she came here it was almost as if she took the other woman’s place,’ he murmured.
Kathy hesitated.‘What?’
‘The other woman, Gabriel Rudd’s wife, can’t remember her name now.’
‘Jane? Tracey’s mother?’
‘That’s it. They used to live at number thirteen, next to Betty, in the basement flat.’
‘Who did?’
‘The Rudds, when his wife was alive, before he bought that big place he’s in now. They were broke then. You’d see them, out in the gardens together, Jane and Gabriel and the sculptor feller.’
‘Stan Dodworth?’
‘Yes, him. Big pals they were, the three of them. Betty loved them too, especially when Jane got pregnant with the little girl-Betty hovered around her all the time, living next door.’
‘The Rudds used to live in the basement flat where Betty’s body was found?’ Kathy felt a prickle in the back of her neck.
‘That’s right.’
‘How do you mean about Poppy taking Jane’s place?’
‘Well, they reminded me, the three of them. You’d see them together, just like it once was with the first wife. I thought Poppy might have ended up marrying the Rudd feller, to tell the truth.’
As she turned to go, Kathy said,‘What happened to the portrait of the judge?’
‘Went to the framer this morning. Beaufort insisted. Last chance to get it into the exhibition.’ Reg sounded defeated.
Once outside, Kathy phoned Shoreditch and was put through to Sergeant Scott. ‘When you were investigating
