Half Moon Street - Anne Perry [136]
“He’d have started to consider the different professionals it might be,” Pitt continued with his thoughts. “He’d do it very discreetly. He would have been thinking of murder already . . . or at the very least a confrontation. Where would he begin?”
“Well, if he’s trying to keep it secret, he’ll hardly ask anyone,” Tellman retorted. “Not that you would ask anyone about pictures like that anyway.”
“He’d narrow it down to professional photographers who use that kind of scenery,” Pitt answered his own question. “He’d study them for style. He takes photographs himself. He knows how an artist puts things one way, then another, trying to get exactly the right effect. It’s like a signature.”
“So how would he see the style of Cathcart’s photographs?” Tellman turned to look at him. “There must be dozens! How would he even know where to look?”
“Well, he did!” Pitt pointed out. “He found him in less than two days, so whatever he did was effective.”
“Or lucky.”
Pitt shot him a sideways glance.
Tellman shrugged.
“Exhibition,” Pitt said abruptly. “He’d look to see if there was an exhibition of photography anywhere. Wherever he could see the largest collection of different people’s work.”
Tellman quickened his pace a trifle. “I’ll find out! Give me half an hour and I’ll know where there are any.”
Nearly two hours later Pitt and Tellman stood side by side in a large gallery in Kensington, staring at photograph after photograph of lovely scenery, handsome women, magnificently dressed men, animals and children with wide, limpid eyes. Some of the pictures were hauntingly beautiful, a world reduced to sepia tints, moments of life caught forever, a gesture, a smile.
Pitt stopped in front of one. Ragged children huddled together on a doorstep in some alley, dresses with holes in them, trousers held up by string, no shoes. And yet the childish curves of their cheeks held a timeless innocence.
In others sunlight slanted across a plowed field, bare trees filigree against the sky. A flight of birds scattered in the wind, like leaves thrown up.
He was looking for style, use of water, someone who saw symbolism in ordinary objects. Of course Pitt knew he was looking for Delbert Cathcart. Orlando had had no idea of who he was trying to find, or why the man would have used his mother. Had he believed it was blackmail, some kind of force or coercion that had made her do it? He would have to believe that. Anything else was unbearable.
He looked at Tellman, who was standing a few yards away, unaware that he was blocking the view of a large woman in lavender and black, and her dutiful daughter, who was quite obviously bored silly and longing to be almost anywhere else. Tellman was staring at a photograph of a young girl, a housemaid, caught momentarily distracted from beating a rug slung over a line in an areaway. She was small and slight with a humorous face. Pitt knew she reminded him of Gracie, and he was startled that anyone should think of her as a subject for art. He was proud that ordinary people were considered important enough to be immortalized, and it confused him because it was unexpected and made him self-conscious. They represented his own life caught and displayed for its interest, its uniqueness.
He stopped sharply and turned away, only just missing bumping into the large lady. He muttered an apology and rejoined Pitt. “This isn’t getting us anywhere,” he said quietly. “Can’t learn a thing from this lot.”
Pitt forebore from making any comment.
The next room was more useful, and in the one after they saw some pictures which Pitt knew immediately were Cathcart’s. The light and shade, the accentuation of focus, were all similar to the work he had seen both in Cathcart’s own house and in those of his clients. There were even two with the river for background.
“That’s his,” Tellman said bluntly. “But how would Antrim know that? It doesn’t prove anything, except that Cathcart’s work is exhibited. You’d expect it to be.”
“We’ve got to prove the link,” Pitt said unnecessarily. “Antrim found out who he was. This