No Trace by Barry Maitland

Author:Barry Maitland
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: FIC050000
ISBN: ISBN9781741762266
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd
Published: 2006-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

19

The first school parties arrived at The Pie Factory the following morning, Friday the twenty-fourth of October. As she came through the square after the morning briefing, Kathy saw the three coaches parked on West Terrace and the children in uniform forming queues at the entrance to the gallery.What surprised her were the distances they had come; judging by the company addresses on the coaches, they were from Birmingham, Bristol and Leicester. Curious, she followed one of the lines into the gallery. These were senior students, she saw, in well-organised study groups, with notebooks, cameras and sketchpads. The teachers were handing out study notes and question-and-answer sheets, and were carrying files of reference material. As they reached the gallery foyer, Kathy saw that Fergus Tait had set an entrance fee, which was new, and had lavish catalogues for sale, as well as No Trace and ‘Gabriel’ T-shirts that were selling fast.

The cluster of girls in front of Kathy were clearly excited by their first glimpse of the artist through the front window, and were talking about him in pop-star terms, text-messaging their friends with the news.When they got inside the girls hurried over to join the ranks of teenagers around the glass cube gawping in at Rudd, who ignored them, head down over his computer screen. Some of the girls were flirtatiously trying to attract his attention, while the boys hung back, smirking and muttering comments. One was on his knees, tapping the glass and calling, ‘Dave, Dave.’ Then teachers appeared, briskly separating the mob into manageable groups and leading them away.

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.

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