The laboratory Reporting Officer cleared his throat, and Kathy sensed his resistance to Brock’s argument.‘We found no fingerprints or traces of Wilkes’s DNA at the scene, either in Zielinski’s house or in the basement of 13 West Terrace. There were many different footprints inside number thirteen, most of them builders’.’ He paused, thumbing through his file. He found the sheet he wanted and said,‘All right, the smallest size recorded was an eight. We should check her footwear, obviously. We can also confirm from their DNA whether Zielinski really was her mother, if that helps.’ From his tone, he plainly didn’t see how it would.
‘Check Reg Gilbey from number fifteen, too, would you? He may be the father.’
Kathy watched Dr Mehta, who was obviously intrigued by this, questioning the detective at his side. Her eyes strayed up to the map behind them. She saw that her imagination had exaggerated its menace; the red was more the colour of brick than of blood and, apart from the writhing Thames itself, the blue ribbons of waterways were nothing like snakes, but more like fine capillaries spreading out from it. There was one odd one that ran horizontally across the map, from somewhere above Heathrow in the west to meet the Thames at Limehouse in the east, not far from where they were sitting.
‘Kathy,’ Brock was saying, ‘what about Dodworth? Do you have any insight into the relationship between him and Wilkes?’
‘They lived near one another in The Pie Factory and they were both sculptors, using similar materials, so I suppose they spent time together in the workshops. She seemed protective when she found us searching Dodworth’s room after he disappeared. I think there may have been quite a close bond there, although not as close as that between Wilkes and Rudd. Reg Gilbey told me that they were together a lot, the three of them, much as Dodworth, Rudd and his wife Jane had been when she was alive.’
‘Jules et Jim,’ Dr Mehta said, and then, realising he’d given himself away, added, ‘I believe it was a popular movie, years ago, about two men and a girl-not that I was around then.’ People were giving him quizzical looks, so he quickly went on, ‘Wilkes surely couldn’t have hanged Dodworth against his will. Are you suggesting that she may have persuaded him to kill himself?’
‘Would that be consistent with what you found, Sundeep?’
‘Well… I suppose it might. There were no signs of a struggle, but also no evidence that he had handled the rope.’
‘And she had access to the building.’
‘We have got one new result for Dodworth,’ the RO said. ‘We’ve traced the clay that was found in the grooves of his shoes. It was a modelling clay, and we had assumed that we’d find a match somewhere in the workshops of The Pie Factory, only we didn’t. Instead we found it in Rudd’s studio, as DI Gurney suspected. The deposits hadn’t completely dried, and we estimate that Dodworth picked them up some time during the forty-eight hours before he was hanged.’
‘Interesting.’
Brock glanced at Bren, who said,‘We did check Rudd’s place on the Thursday that Betty was found, and there was no sign of Dodworth then. He must have gone there later.’
‘But there’s still no positive evidence that Wilkes was involved in his death,’ the RO objected.
‘No. But she was present at the third death, Gabriel Rudd’s. Is it possible that she was the hooded figure that attacked DS Kolla and PC McLeod?’
‘No,’ the RO said firmly.‘There were no bloodstains on her at all. It would have been impossible for her to have killed Rudd without getting blood on her shoes…’
‘Hang on,’Brock said.‘I didn’t ask if she could have killed Rudd-that was going to be my next question. I asked if she could have been the hooded figure who appeared at the top of the stairs before Rudd was murdered.’
There was silence as they digested this. Kathy said, ‘I thought the figure was taller than Poppy.’
‘Could you have been mistaken?’
She saw the image in her mind, but she knew from experience how distorted witnesses’ memories could be. ‘We were looking from below, which exaggerated the perspective. Yes, I suppose it’s possible I’m mistaken.’
‘You’re suggesting Wilkes was cooperating with the third person, the killer?’ The Reporting Officer was openly sceptical.
‘I’m just trying to establish what possibilities are compatible with the forensic evidence. Is this a possibility?’
Reluctantly they agreed that it might be.
‘All right,’ Brock continued, ‘let’s consider another possibility, that there was no third person. Could Wilkes have killed Rudd, then dumped the bloodstained shoes while Kathy and PC McLeod were recovering at the foot of the stairs, then returned in a pair of fresh shoes, taken sedatives and feigned unconsciousness. Is this compatible with the evidence?’
‘No, Brock,’Bren spoke up.‘There wasn’t enough time for her to do all that before Kathy broke in. We did test runs for each of the stages of the action. It just doesn’t work that way.’
‘All right,’ Brock persisted. ‘Suppose she dumped the shoes before she attacked PC McLeod and killed Rudd.’
‘But the shoes were bloodstained.’
‘Rudd had a cut on his arm, didn’t he, Sundeep?’
Mehta was looking keenly at Brock.‘Indeed.’
‘Could Poppy have incapacitated Rudd-he had drunk a lot remember, and he had a bruise to the head-and made that cut first, staining the shoes, and laying a false trail out into the lane. Then she returned, went through the charade with the disguise and made the noises to attract Kathy and McLeod up the stairs to witness the intruder before killing Rudd.’
There was silence as the others considered this. From their expressions, they were more impressed by its ingenuity than its probability.
‘It would explain the blood splash that we found overlapping the footprint,’the RO conceded,‘but it would mean that Wilkes carried out the final assault on Rudd without getting a drop of blood on her second pair of shoes. I just don’t think that’s possible.’
‘All the same,’ Brock insisted, ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d have another look at the bloodstain evidence, just to be sure.’
Reluctantly he agreed.
‘Thank you.’ Brock turned to the forensic psychologist, who had said nothing so far.‘What about motive?’
The man scratched his ear. ‘Well, I’m having some trouble with this line of thinking, I must confess. It isn’t the direction I was pursuing at all, as you know. But the idea of the killings being “within the family”, so to speak-if we can think of the community of Northcote Square as a family-has appeal. And the close relationship between the three artists is intriguing. You’re thinking of jealousy, perhaps? But what has it got to do with the disappearance of Tracey Rudd?’
‘I was thinking along the lines of Poppy punishing the others for neglecting Tracey, or even conniving in her abduction.’ Even as she put the ideas into words Kathy realised how bizarre they sounded.
‘One step at a time,’ Brock said. ‘Let’s establish the forensic options, and hope that Poppy regains consciousness.’
As the meeting broke up, Dr Mehta came over to speak to Kathy. ‘How’s my favourite lady detective?’ he murmured, with a jokey leer. ‘I was watching you, you know. You’re not well. If you don’t look after yourself, you’ll end up on my table, and you wouldn’t like that.’
‘No, I wouldn’t,’ she said, managing a smile despite his apparent enthusiasm for the idea. She was preoccupied. She’d been looking at that odd blue line on the map again, and was convinced that she’d seen it somewhere before. Then Brock interrupted her thoughts.
‘I wanted to show you something, Kathy,’ he said, and produced a copy of the photograph they’d found in Rudd’s studio.‘Have you seen this before?’
She took in the faces, especially that of the pale woman holding the baby. She looked ill, a strained smile forced onto her face, very different from the buoyant young woman whose pictures Kathy had seen at West Drayton. ‘That’s Jane Rudd,’she said.‘Must be Tracey’s birthday, just before she died. She doesn’t look well, does she? No, I haven’t seen it before. Where did you get it?’
‘It was pinned to the wall of Rudd’s studio.’
Kathy was puzzled.‘Whereabouts?’
