‘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
Brock and Kathy left the team searching The Pie Factory and returned to the car. On the way back to Shoreditch they took a detour by way of the Newman estate. There were still a couple of detectives at the flats interviewing residents and visitors as they arrived, and a uniformed man stood at the entrance to the lift lobby. He recognised Brock and saluted as they approached. ‘Evening,’ Brock said.‘Any dramas?’
‘Not really, sir. Quite a few rubbernecks, wondering what’s going on.’
‘Yes, it’s them I was interested in. How long have you been here?’
‘Since ten this morning, with a break early afternoon.’
‘Wouldn’t happen to have seen this bloke, would you?’ Brock handed him the picture of Stan Dodworth that Tait had provided.
‘Distinctive,’ the constable murmured, and he was right-the face that stared from the picture was gaunt, head shaved and oddly tilted, eyes unnaturally wide. To Brock it seemed as if Dodworth had begun to resemble the death masks he collected.
‘Yes, he was here. Late morning, perhaps eleven-thirty, standing out there in the car park near the taped area talking to some of the local kids. I’d begun asking the snoopers for their names, to discourage them apart from anything else, but he scarpered as soon as he saw me coming.’ He opened his notebook to a list.
‘Can I have a look?’ Brock scanned the names, then stopped at one and showed it to Kathy. ‘This one, Gabe Rudd. Remember him?’
‘Let’s see. Oh yes, the photographer with white hair.
I thought at first he might be the press, taking all those pictures, but then I recognised the name, and he told me he was the father of the other missing girl. Wanted to know what was going on, he said, and take pictures of everything. Funny how people react, isn’t it?’
Bren, working with the team checking on Wylie’s and Abbott’s backgrounds, had not yet visited the hospital where Abbott had been employed as a porter, but had made contact with the administration to obtain details of next of kin and had arranged a meeting with a staff manager later that evening. On the phone he gave Brock the name and number of the contact.
The woman met Brock and Kathy at the front desk and showed them to her office. ‘Your colleague said that Mr Abbott had a fatal accident last night,’ she said,‘but he didn’t elaborate.’
‘That’s right. We had been hoping to interview him in connection with the disappearance of the three missing children you may have read about.’
The woman’s face registered shock. ‘Mr Abbott? Oh dear.’ She stared at them for a moment, her mind elsewhere, working fast, then her eyes dropped to the file open on the desk in front of her. ‘He worked in the wing that houses geriatrics, as well as the pathology and mortuary departments. Not the children’s wing.’ A note of relief. Abbott had been employed there for over two years and there were no complaints or disciplinary actions recorded against him.
‘Was his mother, Mrs Eileen Abbott, ever a patient here by any chance?’
The woman was obviously puzzled by the question, but turned to her computer and began tapping. ‘We did have an Eileen Abbott here recently. Age seventy-six. Yes, same home address. She died here last July, the twenty-fifth.’
‘Cause of death?’
‘Bronchial pneumonia. She was also suffering from advanced muscular dystrophy.’
‘Do you have a record of how her body was disposed of?’
The manager scrolled through the record on her screen. ‘It would have been prepared in the mortuary and then handed over to funeral directors of the next of kin’s choosing for burial or cremation. Yes, here we are, Gill Brothers, a reputable local firm. Why?’
‘We found Mrs Abbott’s body last night, in Patrick Abbott’s flat.’
The woman flinched. ‘Surely not?’ Her voice was a whisper.
‘I’m afraid so. Any idea how that could be possible?’
‘I can’t imagine. It says here that Gill Brothers collected Mrs Abbott on the morning of the twenty-seventh. We know them well. I can’t believe they could have lost her.’
‘Why don’t you give them a ring?’ Brock suggested.