‘In three weeks? Oh.’
‘Come on, David. Surely that gives you enough time to organise things at work so you can get away?’
‘This is a major inquiry, Suzanne. A big one.’ He knew he was sounding stubborn and obstructive, but he couldn’t help it.
‘They’re always big ones.’ Her voice was cool now.‘You work for a big organisation. They can handle it. I want us to do this, David. I think it’s important, for both of us.’
‘Yes, you’re right. I’ll have a look, see if it’s possible.’
‘Please. But don’t take too long. The flights are heavily booked. I checked.’
Kathy felt edgy, unsettled, and went to a movie that afternoon, returning home at dusk. The phone was ringing as she opened the front door. She was surprised to hear the voice of Bren’s wife, Deanne.
‘Hi, Kathy.’
‘Hi. Is everything all right?’
‘Yes. Bren’s gone back to work, but there was something I thought you might be interested in. You probably already know. Do you lot monitor Gabriel Rudd’s website?’
‘I’m not sure. I haven’t seen it.’
‘Well, you might find it interesting, and all the other sites about him and his work-there are hundreds of them. They’ve been going crazy lately, of course. But you should check out his official site, www.gaberudd.co. He’s just updated it with a bulletin about his exhibition and his thoughts about everything. The thing I thought you should know is that he’s claiming the police have treated him shamefully, like a criminal instead of a victim, and he’s decided to refuse all further cooperation with them. He’s going into retreat, apparently.’
‘Retreat?’
‘Yes, into his art. He says he needs to focus on that. And physically, he’s retreating into a glass cube he’s had built inside the main gallery of The Pie Factory, alongside his hangings. He’s there now-there are pictures on his site of people looking in at him through the gallery window, and through the glass wall of the restaurant. He’s the only one with a key and he’s got a camp bed in there, and some kind of toilet, and electricity to run a fan and his computers. He says he’ll only communicate through his computer. He’s currently designing the next banner, and sending the images to his team. Oh…’ Deanne hesitated,‘… and he’s got a badger in there with him, too.’
‘Did you say badger?’
‘Yes, a live badger. He’s called Dave, and he’s currently hiding under a blanket. You know a brock is another word for a badger, don’t you?’
Kathy groaned.‘Yes.’
‘It’s Joseph Beuys again, like he did to you.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘One of Beuys’s art “actions” consisted in locking himself in a loft in New York with a live coyote. Rudd’s quoting again.’
Kathy gave a sigh.‘Well, at least we know where he is. We can always go in there and pull him out.’
‘Oh no, you couldn’t do that!’
‘Why not?’
‘Oh, Kathy… This is sort of what my masters is about: relative values. In fact, I might use this as a case study. Society operates on a hierarchy of value systems, right? Religion was once at the top, but now it’s way down, with royalty, say. Wealth is high up, and celebrity, and heritage and ethnicity, but at the very top is art. Art trumps everything else. You can blaspheme on TV, make jokes about the Queen, be obscene and poke fun at the rich and famous, but you can’t afford to be seen as a philistine. You can’t trash art, not really, not unless you’re an artist yourself, in which case your trashing of art becomes art itself, which is okay. Gabriel Rudd in his glass box in the gallery is a work of art-he’s said so. He’s now part of the No Trace work. You can’t possibly desecrate it. The whole world is watching.’
‘So you’re saying that the only way to get him out is to recruit an even bigger artist than him-this Beuys character, for example-into the Met and put him in uniform and give him an artistic sledgehammer.’
Deanne chuckled.‘He’s dead, unfortunately. But I don’t see it happening, do you?’
‘No. Brock’ll love this.’
‘I know.’
‘What about justice? Where does that come on your scale of values? I mean, Stan Dodworth has been stealing corpses to make artworks out of them.’
‘Oh, they all poked around in corpses, Leonardo, Rembrandt, Stubbs. That’s all right. Body snatching wouldn’t come close.’
‘What about child murder? Suppose Dodworth has killed Tracey so as to make a sculpture out of her? What then?’
Deanne thought for a while. ‘Mmm. Of course he’d have to face justice, but even then… I think the artistic recognition might outweigh the moral revulsion. Yes, it’d be a close call, but I think it would.’
‘That’s sick.’
‘It’s what you’re up against. Is it possible that Dodworth did take Tracey?’
‘It’s possible, Deanne. Right now, anything’s possible.’
The following morning Kathy went to see the performance in Northcote Square. Many others had had the same idea, lured by reports in the news. Office workers on their way to the City, parents dropping children at school, truck drivers unable to make deliveries to the building site because of the crowd blocking the corner of Lazarus Street and West Terrace, all strained for a glimpse through the window at the artist and, hopefully, his famous badger. In response to all this, the gallery was opening its doors early as Kathy arrived, and the good-humoured crush of spectators was syphoning inside to get a close-up view and maybe a quick photo to take back to friends.
Kathy joined the group outside the gallery window. She noticed a closed-circuit television camera mounted on the wall overhead, which she was sure hadn’t been there before, and attached to it a small microphone. It seemed they were recording the reactions of the spectators.
‘His hair really is very white, isn’t it?’ one young woman said, fingering her own blonde curls.
‘But this isn’t original, is it?’ her friend said, and clutched the collar of her coat impatiently against the cold wind.
‘What, his hair?’
‘Him locking himself in the glass box. There was that other bloke.’
‘Two others,’ the first woman corrected.
‘Well, what’s the point then? If it’s not original, what’s the point?’
‘I suppose the badger’s original.’
‘Yes, but you can’t even see it, hiding under the blanket. Maybe there isn’t a badger at all. Maybe they’re just saying there’s a badger.’
‘Do you think he’s going to go to the lavatory in front of everyone?’
‘That I don’t want to see. Come on, we’re late.’
As they hurried away Kathy noticed a fresh graffiti message on the pavement, written in the same looping letters as the one on the wall further along. It read,‘this is art’.
She joined the queue filing into the gallery. The girl at the desk had already run out of handouts for the exhibition and said more were on the way. She looked harassed, her face pink and slightly puffy, as if she’d woken up in the middle of a wild party. Her discomfort wasn’t helped by a man claiming to be from the RSPCA, demanding to speak to someone in charge about the badger, asking where they’d got it and how it was being treated.
‘I believe there is a vet on standby,’ she fretted, but he wasn’t to be put off.
‘Get me the boss,’ the man insisted stolidly.‘I can have this place shut down.’
‘Oh, I don’t think you can.’
Kathy passed through into the crowded gallery. The area around the glass cube was jammed, and she moved to a quieter corner where tables had been set up for three young female computer operators, all dressed identically in white caps and T-shirts with Gabe’s Team written on the back. One of them looked up and gave Kathy a brief smile.
‘Can I ask what you’re doing?’ Kathy asked.
‘We’re handling Gabe’s website emails, all the messages coming in from around the world, thousands of them. We select interesting ones and publish them hourly.’
‘Ah. I thought maybe you were part of the artwork.’
‘Oh, but we are!’ the girl said cheerfully.‘Gabe said so.’