‘Ah, the Ben Nicholson, I’d forgotten that… Mm, mm, that looks pretty complete. Vait a minute, there vas a little Bacon, mm, very tasty.’
He smacked his lips appreciatively and Kathy was unsure if he was talking about food.‘Bacon?’
‘Mm, Francis Bacon, a little study for one of his figures at the base of the crucifixion. I made her an offer for it the last time I vas there, towards the end of last year…’He rummaged through the papers.‘Here ve go, last December, she sold me a small Eric Ravilious vatercolour, but she never vent ahead vith the Bacon. Maybe she got a better offer.’
‘She was in touch with other dealers then, was she?’
‘I vasn’t avare of any until that last time. I mean I vouldn’t have minded if she had got a second opinion, of course, but I alvays offered her a fair price and Reg told her not to bother.’
‘But last December she said she had spoken to other dealers?’
‘Yes, she said Fergus Tait had been around to have a look at her things, and had been quite interested in several of them.’
‘Fergus Tait? I thought he was strictly contemporary.’
‘Oh yes, but he vouldn’t let an opportunity pass him by.’ Schropp chuckled. ‘Come to think of it, of all the things she had, the Bacon would be most up his street- rather bizarre, and vith a quite contemporary feel to it.’
‘Could you describe it to me?’
‘Mm, not easy. An oil sketch, roughly eighteen inches square, grey figure, orange background. The figure is strange, like a dog vith a long neck and a mouth instead of a head.’
‘Thanks. Any others you can remember?’
‘No, I’m pretty sure that’s the lot.’
Kathy closed her notebook.‘Well, thanks very much for your help, Mr Schropp.’
‘Adrian, please. Delighted to be of service. And how is Reg these days? I must call in again. I dare say these horrible events vill have shaken him up. You know the poor voman vas a model of his, years ago? I just hope it doesn’t put him off that portrait he’s doing. Have you seen it?’
‘The judge? Yes, it looked pretty well finished to me.’
‘I hope so. I vas the one who recommended Reg to Sir
J. He’ll never forgive me if the old rascal doesn’t finish it in time for the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.’
‘You know Sir Jack, then?’
‘Oh yes, he’s been a client for years. A great collector, and not just from me. He’s even invested in some of Fergus Tait’s monstrosities.’ He led Kathy back to the stairs. ‘Did you have a look at our show upstairs? Vonderfully atmospheric, aren’t they? Perhaps I could interest you in one?’
Kathy smiled.‘That would be great, but I’d have to find a bigger place to live first.’
‘Who are you interested in?’ Schropp was being flirtatious.
Kathy wasn’t sure, but the name that popped into her head was the one that Deanne and Reg Gilbey had said Gabe Rudd was obsessed by.‘Henry Fuseli?’
Schropp looked both surprised and impressed. ‘Vell, that’s a minority taste all right. You’ve been to the Royal Academy?’ Seeing the puzzlement on Kathy’s face he said, ‘His Diploma Vork. Every painter elected to the Academy must give them a piece of their vork in exchange for the diploma, and these hundreds of vorks make up their permanent collection. Of course not all are on display, but you should take a look.’
Kathy did as he suggested on her way back to the tube station, passing up the great entrance flight of stairs to the lobby, where she was directed to the permanent collection. There she did finally find Fuseli’s 1790 Diploma painting entitled Thor Battering the Midgard Serpent, depicting a muscular male figure on a boat, cloak flying, arm raised to strike a sea monster rising from the waves. Kathy thought it melodramatic and rather absurd.
Brock, meanwhile, had been called away to another senior management meeting. He was able to gauge the deepening crisis by the increasingly peremptory manner of Commander Sharpe’s secretary, who gave the impression of holding him personally responsible for all the troubles her boss was enduring. On this occasion he seemed to be the first to arrive.
Sharpe waved him to a seat at the conference table. Once there would have been the offer of coffee, but such niceties had gone by the wayside.
‘I asked you to come before the others, Brock. Couple of things we need to cover. First, what’s the progress on Northcote Square?’
Brock gave him a brief summary, which only seemed to deepen his gloom.
‘No progress, then. What about the email from the murderer? Can’t you trace it?’
‘It was sent from a twenty-four-hour internet cafe a few hundred yards away from the square. Nobody there has any recollection of the sender.’
Sharpe groaned.‘This murder couldn’t have come at a worse time for us.’
‘For us?’ Brock queried.
‘Of course. Northcote Square is turning into the biggest public entertainment since “Coronation Street”, and this murder will make it bigger still. What the hell is going on? The place seems to be attracting homicidal maniacs like flies to a cow’s arse. This Dodworth character, where the hell is he? And why the hell can’t we get Wylie to talk?’
‘I’m going to see him again as soon as we’ve finished.’
‘Are you? Good. Look, I’m not blaming you, Brock. I know you’re doing everything you can. But we’re not looking good at precisely the moment when we need to look our best. I’ve just heard that the release of the Beaufort Committee recommendations is being brought forward. It certainly doesn’t help that the man himself is on the spot, watching the whole mess unfold at first hand.’
Brock said nothing. Sharpe sat back, suddenly deflated. ‘Strictly between us, Brock, I think the game’s up. By the year’s end you and I and the rest will have been put out to grass. I won’t be saying so at our meeting, but that’s what it amounts to. I want you to know that I’m going to recommend you for immediate promotion to Super. It would have happened long ago if you hadn’t been so bloody precious about staying on the streets. At least you can step down on an enhanced pension.’
‘Thank you,’ Brock said without warmth. ‘I appreciate the thought.’
The chill of the gaol, psychological rather than physical, gripped Brock as soon as he clipped on the pass and went through the barred internal security gates. He sat on the offered seat and waited while they brought out the prisoner. They had managed to fill in a little more of his background. Robert Wylie had lurked in the down-market end of the sex industry for years, the sometime proprietor of several adult bookshops with a special line in the back room, the publisher of cheap porn magazines using pirated images, the co-owner of a seedy brothel that had been closed down four times by the police in four different locations, and more recently an internet provider of suspect services. Over the years he had been the subject of numerous police inquiries, and a few successful prosecutions. Apparently he had learned from this the virtue of silence, and it seemed he wasn’t about to change now. He sat down in front of Brock and regarded him with face blank while his solicitor drew a chair to his side.
Brock stared back for a while without speaking. The man looked out of place in prison clothes, not at all the hardened criminal, but soft and pasty-faced from too little exposure to the sun. He seemed to have some kind of impediment in his nose, so that he breathed with a slight wheeze through open mouth.
Brock began.‘We’d like to contact your wife. Can you tell me where she is?’
Wylie glanced sideways at his lawyer, who looked preoccupied and worried. Neither spoke.
‘You’re in an interesting position, Wylie,’ Brock went on. ‘I hope you appreciate it. This case is big. Have you been watching the TV coverage today? Do they give you access to the web?’
Brock gazed at Wylie’s pudgy white fingers clasped loosely on the table, and tried not to think of the girls.
‘I can understand how that might appeal, your moment of fame, but it’s a dangerous game.’ Brock caught a flicker in Wylie’s eyes at the word dangerous. He wondered if he’d been getting trouble from the other inmates, and made a mental note to check. ‘A clever lawyer might be able to persuade a court that Abbott led you astray-he certainly must have been strange. But that will count for nothing if you don’t give us any help. That’s the only leverage you’ve got. And with so much public attention on the case, it’s only a matter of time before we discover everything for ourselves. Have you any idea of the number of people working on this? When we find Tracey, that’s one less thing you have to trade; when we find Stan Dodworth, that’s another. The information you’ve got has a very short shelf life, Wylie. Use it while you can.’