Kathy went first to speak to the computer operators, who confirmed that there had been no further messages from LSterne and that they hadn’t been able to find any earlier references to the name.
‘This is quite a circus, isn’t it?’ Kathy said.
‘Oh yes, and it’s going to get worse. There are art societies and tourist groups booked in for the weekend, and more schools next week. It’s becoming difficult to work, but that’s all part of the deal, apparently. We are the artwork.’The woman laughed and returned to her keyboard.
Kathy moved over to the banners, curious to hear what was being said about them. A fierce grey-haired woman was challenging her group to interpret the images on the tenth banner. ‘The badger, here at the bottom, what could that represent?’
Silence, a snigger from a gangling boy.
‘Martin? What do you know about badgers?’
‘They’re extinct,’ he offered.
‘No they’re not, they are endangered, which is relevant. What else?’
‘They like the dark,’ someone said.
‘Fierce.’
‘Secretive.’
‘Vegetarian.’
‘No,’the teacher corrected again.‘They do eat mice and young rabbits actually, as well as eggs and roots. They are in fact omnivorous, which could also be relevant. So we have endangered, nocturnal, fierce, secretive and omnivorous. So what could it be a symbol of?’
A willowy girl said,‘The spirit of the artist.’
‘Excellent, Angela! The spirit of the artist!’
‘She got that off the web,’ someone muttered sourly.
‘And also,’ the willowy girl continued confidently, ‘the badger’s head is basically white, well, with black stripes. But white really, like…’ she lowered her voice to a reverent hush, as if the artist on the other side of the room might be listening,‘Gabriel Rudd.’
‘Ye-es,’ the teacher said uncertainly.
‘Which is a sign of shock and terror and loss… loss of life, loss of colour.’
‘Ah yes.’ Like many of her colleagues, the teacher was carrying a large loose-leaf file, Kathy noticed, subdivided into sections by coloured sheets. She thumbed through this for a moment, then said,‘Perhaps you should explain that, Angela.’
‘Gabriel Rudd lost the colour in his hair after the tragic suicide of his wife, five years ago.’
‘My dad says that’s impossible,’ someone objected, and Kathy had a sudden glimpse of the case being discussed over dinner tables and pub counters all over the country.
‘But there was a precedent, wasn’t there? Who remembers what I told you in class last week? Someone other than Angela.’
Silence, then a voice,‘The Night-Mare, miss.’
‘Which was…?’
‘The picture he won the Turner Prize with.’
‘Yes, but which was also…?’
‘Based on a painting by someone else.’
‘Called…?’
Silence.
‘Henry…?’
Nobody remembered, and she was forced to complete the name herself. ‘Fuseli, whose hair turned white as a result of a fever he caught in Rome, remember?’
‘What about the murder, miss?’ someone urged, and there was a general muttering of enthusiasm. The teacher relented, and they moved on to banner eleven.
‘This has got everything, hasn’t it?’ a woman at Kathy’s elbow said.‘Are you from Leicester?’
‘No, London.’
‘Ah. I’m from Bristol.’
‘You must have had an early start this morning.’
‘God, yes. But they’ve been pestering us for days, and with the murder yesterday… Our Head thought we should seize the moment. It’s not every day the whole school’s demanding to go on an art excursion. And it’s perfect, really-being able to see the artist actually doing it, the work in progress, the workshops where the banners are being made, and hopefully a glimpse of the actual crime scenes, at least the outside of the houses. They even hope that they might catch sight of the murderer, lurking about in the square somewhere. I just feel sorry for the police-if they don’t catch the bastard soon, they’ll be branded as incompetent, and if they do, everyone’ll be disappointed that the show will be over.’
‘Yes. Tell me, what are those thick folders that you’ve got?’
‘Our resource folders? They’re mainly stuff we’ve got off the web. Have you seen his site? It’s huge. Each section relates to one of the banners, about its symbolism, its references, its stylistic approach and so on. Of course, you don’t know how true it is, because people are contributing from all over, both good and bad criticism.’
‘Can I see what you’ve got on the first banner?’
The woman showed her.‘Anything in particular?’
‘That image of the figure holding the child’s hand.’
They thumbed through the pages, then the teacher said,‘Here it is.“On the lower left side is a haunting image of the lost child being led away by a sinister dark figure into a tunnel.” That’s all.’
‘Nothing on the source of the image?’
‘No, must be just the artist’s imagination. Poor bloke.’
As Kathy turned to leave, the computer operator she’d spoken to earlier called out to her. ‘Is your name Kathy? I’ve got an email for you.’
‘For me?’ Kathy read the page she was handed. It came from Gabriel Rudd and said, Hi. Back again? Anything you want to know? Gabriel.
Kathy looked back at the cube and saw him watching her, a little smile on his face.‘Can I reply?’ she asked.
‘Sure. You want to type it?’
‘Just say, Where’s Stan Dodworth?’
The reply came back after a few minutes. Sorry, can’t help. She looked back at the cube, but a fresh horde of school children was blocking the view.
It was time to go, she knew, though she would have liked to stay. She was beginning to find Northcote Square addictive, but Brock had given her an assignment and she had to return to Queen Anne’s Gate to follow it up, because he was insistent that no one at Shoreditch should get wind of it. He’d remembered that she had a friend in Criminal Records, now the National Identification Service, didn’t she? She told him that she did, Nicole Palmer, a good friend. And would Nicole Palmer do a favour for her, a discreet favour, possibly entailing unpaid overtime that Brock might repay in the form of theatre tickets or some liquid refreshment of some kind? It was quite possible, Kathy said, wondering why Brock wasn’t using the numerous contacts he himself must have in the NIS. A computer check, but possibly, he wasn’t sure, requiring a manual search-tedious, certainly. Theatre tickets and a case of bubbly. Maybe even a modest pre-theatre meal for two. What did Kathy think? Kathy asked who the target was. A certain judge, Brock said. He was interested to know if this man, let’s call him Q, had ever presided over a trial or appeal involving any of the people of interest to them in their present investigations. But no one else must hear of Nicole’s discreet inquiries, and above all there must be no mention of Brock or SO1. Definitely a pre-theatre meal as well, Kathy said, and not too modest.
The teacher’s assessment of the significance of what was happening at Northcote Square seemed to be confirmed by the commentators in the Sunday papers two days later. What had started out for some as a self-indulgent exercise in dubious taste had now been transformed into a statement on art and life as significant as, according to one excited reviewer, Picasso’s Guernica, or Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe paintings. There was speculation that, taken as a whole, The No-Trace Project, as people now seemed to be calling it, had become too big and too important even for the premier contemporary art prizes, such as the Turner Prize and the Beck’s Futures award. Questions were being asked as to what should happen to the work when it was completed. There was speculation that Fergus Tait intended to auction the banners individually, something that would result in the whole set being fragmented and dispersed, number one to Los Angeles, perhaps, number two to Bilbao, and so on. This would surely be intolerable. There was call for a public subscription fund to keep the work together and in the UK, preferably at Tate Modern.