Free No Trace by Barry Maitland Page B

that, isn’t it?’
    ‘That sort of thing. Gabriel Rudd’s famous.’
    ‘Oh yes, I’d heard of him. He’s the Dead Puppies guy, right? My girls saw him on TV and had nightmares for a week.’
    The lift ground to a halt at level three and a woman got in. The lumpy shapes of curlers bulged beneath her headscarf. She looked them over.
    ‘So what is Dead Puppies ?’ Kathy asked when the doors finally slid shut.
    The woman spoke before Bren had a chance. ‘ Dead Puppies ? I can tell you that, love. I saw it on TV. This smart–arse cooked up some puppies and put them in tins, with labels and everything, and called them works of art. Some art gallery paid millions of taxpayers’ money for just one.’
    ‘Yuck,’ Kathy said.
    ‘Oh, it was much worse than that, love,’ the woman continued, clearly relishing Kathy’s reaction. ‘He brought one of the tins with him on TV, and he had a tin-opener and a fork. . .’
    ‘Oh no!’
    ‘Oh yes. Tucked into it, he did. I was having my dinner at the time, but I couldn’t finish it, I felt so ill.’
    ‘It’s true,’ Bren confirmed.
    ‘That’s what they call art these days. Sick, if you ask me. You’re coppers, aren’t you?’
    ‘Is it that obvious?’
    ‘Yes, love, it is.’
    They reached the top level and the woman got out ahead of them. They followed her around a corner and came out onto the access deck. A dozen residents were outside along its length, some chatting, others smoking or reading the paper in the afternoon sun.
    ‘It’s the Bill,’ the woman called out so that everyone could hear, and they all immediately disappeared, front doors slamming.
    ‘So much for the element of surprise,’ Bren muttered.
    The first door they tried was opened by a suspicious elderly man in shirtsleeves. His forearms looked strong and brown, with a tattoo of an anchor on each. Bren asked him his name, and how many people lived in his flat (‘Just me’) and the names and numbers of people living in the adjoining flats,then showed him pictures of the missing girls.As the man examined them they looked over his shoulder into the living room. Against the far window was a telescope.
    ‘No, never seen ’em,’ he said and made to close the door.
    ‘That’s a pretty powerful telescope, isn’t it, sir?’ Bren asked. ‘Mind if I have a look?’ He walked straight past the man, who took a moment to recover from his surprise.
    ‘Oi!’ he protested, and Kathy said quickly, ‘He’s a keen amateur astronomer.What do you look at?’
    The man gave her an unpleasant glare. ‘Birds.’
    Bren looked into the eyepiece without touching the body of the telescope, then strolled slowly back, looking over the room and through the open bedroom door.
    ‘Come on, get out,’ the old man complained. ‘While you’re ’ere you should check out them next door. Dodgy, they are.’
    ‘In what way?’
    ‘All them strange kids.’
    As they moved to the next front door, Bren said under his breath,‘That telescope was trained straight down on the bus stop outside the newsagents. I could see the girls’ pictures in the shop window.’
    The next door was opened a couple of inches by a young woman with a thin, pale face, whose eyes widened at the word ‘police’. This time Kathy went through the routine, and at first the woman tried to respond, although her grasp of English obviously wasn’t strong. As she examined the pictures a second woman called to her in a language Kathy didn’t recognise, then a child gave a shriek and began crying.
    ‘Where are you ladies from, miss?’ Bren asked.
    The question seemed to agitate the woman, who was suddenly unable to speak any English at all. More children were howling now.
    ‘How many children do you have?’ Kathy asked, trying to see past the woman. She caught a brief glimpse of the second woman with a small child under each arm.
    ‘Babysitters!’ the woman at the door suddenly burst out.‘Babysitters!’ she repeated, and slammed the door