Gillespie and I (34 page)

The police made every effort to investigate each report—but, unfortunately, none of their inquiries had, so far, led to the discovery of the missing child.

Ere long, we heard speculation that Rose had already been spirited away to some foreign shore (perhaps France or Belgium) where she had been sold, either into a house of ill repute, or to a wealthy Minotaur. There was talk—in the newspapers, and in gentlemen's luncheon bars, like Lang's and Logan's—of White Slavery, and the sordid sexual underworld in which rich men, with the connivance of the police and public officials, brazenly trade in children to satisfy their unspeakable lusts. One further theory was that Rose had not been taken abroad, but was being held captive, in some East End brothel, in Glasgow, where she would be made to fetch and carry for the patrons, until such time—only a few years hence—when she was deemed old enough to be, herself, debauched.

Increasingly determined to speak to the grieving parents, newspapermen began to employ more imaginative tactics. Notes were pushed through the letterbox of the apartment, with various requests and invitations. Would Mr Gillespie consent to an interview? Would he and his lady wife like to have a photographic portrait taken, free of charge? Would he deign to accept the enclosed tickets for
The Scotia
? Would he care to take tea with the editor and his wife? One illustrated journal published a large and very accurate sketch of Ned (penned, of course, by Mungo Findlay), and thereafter, Gillespie began to be pestered in public places by complete strangers: rooms fell silent upon his entrance; people stared at him in the street; and men would approach him, hat in hand, to offer their condolences.

Inexplicably, as if to further deepen the mystery, the sender of the ransom note seemed to have fallen silent. After the arrival of the first letter, there had been every expectation that another would swiftly follow, with instructions about where and when the money should be delivered. Yet, subsequently, the abductor made no further communication, and a month after Rose's disappearance, there had still been no second letter.

One Saturday in early June, I happened to be passing through the Blythswood district: a disciplined grid of streets to the west of the city, crowned by the square on Blythswood Hill. I was returning to my lodgings, having just spent the afternoon helping to distribute handbills, advertising Rose's disappearance. My feet and legs were weary from standing, all day long, at the corner of Buchanan and St Vincent Streets. Only a handful of ladies from the art class had taken part in the distribution of leaflets that day; it was now almost five weeks since Rose's disappearance, and some members of the class had given up hope. There seemed to be a general, unspoken, opinion that the longer Rose remained missing, the less likely it was that she would be found.

I had become ever more concerned about Ned's and Annie's well-being and would have liked to call upon them every day, simply to check on how they fared. However, they had made it known to their friends and neighbours that, after the mayhem of the previous month, they now wished for some degree of privacy. With this in mind, I had restricted myself to visiting only every third day or so, much though I would have liked to call upon them more often. I had seen Elspeth during that period, of course, and was able to keep abreast of developments but, as you may imagine, time weighed heavily upon all of us.

I was in the habit of walking everywhere, taking the opportunity to glance down side streets and up lanes, always in the hope that I might catch a glimpse of a small child in a blue dress. And so it was, that afternoon, that I was about to turn onto West Campbell Street, when I noticed a small crowd of people, standing on the pavement, up ahead. As I drew nearer, I realised that they were queuing outside Hamilton's gallery, where Ned's exhibition was still ongoing. I had heard from Elspeth that attendances had crept up over the course of May, and that Hamilton had extended the show. Several of the recent articles in the press had reported that Rose's father was an artist; a few had mentioned that his paintings were currently on display in a well-known Bath Street gallery; and
The Evening Times
, which had previously ignored his existence, had suddenly decided to send an expert to appraise the exhibition, and an article had appeared in the paper, just the previous day. Evidently, the critic had been struck by Ned's recent paintings of Co'path, particularly the picture of the woods, with two children, who appear to be fleeing from some unspeakable terror or monster. ‘
Could the bairns in this picture resemble the artist's own?
' asked the reviewer, concluding: ‘
We are left to reflect that these eerie paintings may well have been hauntingly prescient
.' On the whole, his comments were favourable, which, perhaps, might have accounted for some extra gallery visitors that afternoon.

Curiosity aroused, I decided to wander past Hamilton's. As I approached, I noticed various men slouching around in the queue, some smoking, some spitting, some leaning against the railings with their hands in their pockets. There were several families present, which was a surprise, since children are not often to be seen in small, private art galleries. Some of the boys and girls, clearly bored with waiting, had sat down on the steps, whilst others played at the roadside. A fat, red-faced woman was eating peanuts and throwing the shells underfoot, while her friend tried to calm a screaming baby. As a group, they did not in the least resemble the usual sort who would attend an exhibition; indeed, many of them would have looked more at home on Glasgow Green, amongst the hordes who swarm between the freak shows and whisky booths on a Saturday night.

The queue carried on up the steps, and disappeared inside the front door of the gallery. Since I had last walked along Bath Street, handwritten notices had appeared in Hamilton's windows. One said: ‘Gillespie show extended'. The other sign advertised Hamilton's offer of a £20 reward for information leading to the discovery of the artist's daughter.

At the foot of the steps, two amiable-looking women of about my own age stood talking. Simply to see what they would say, I paused and asked them why such a queue had formed. One lady, who was a be-dimpled soul with apple cheeks, gestured at the building. ‘It's an exhibition of paintings—did you hear about the wee lassie that got lost, wee Rose?' I nodded. ‘Well, her father's the artist, and seemingly, there's pictures he painted of her inside, his daughter, the one that went missing.'

‘Indeed?' I replied, before thanking her, and continuing up the street, with a strange, heavy feeling in my chest.

It would seem that, within only a month, Gillespie had become a roaring success.

13

Throughout June, visitors continued to flock to the gallery. Ned's success meant that Hamilton's principal room was also busy, since the public spilled from one space into the next, and there, too, sales had improved. Having first extended the Gillespie show for a fortnight, Hamilton prolonged it for another few weeks, meanwhile mounting a second companion exhibition, of local artists, in the main room. Ned's gloomy style suddenly seemed to find favour, and by the end of month, even his most resolutely grim landscape had been sold. Reviews of his work continued to appear in the press. One gazetteer from
The North British Daily Mail
took a dander around the gallery and, in a subsequent article, he described Ned's canvases as the ‘heart-rending work of a gifted but haunted man'. Following the publication of this piece, attendance numbers soared, yet again, as more persons with scant interest in art, but unmistakable ghoulish tendencies, came to ogle the paintings of the tragic father. Perhaps some visitors even hoped to bump into Ned himself, but he had not shown his face at the gallery since his daughter had gone missing.

Ever the man of business, Hamilton wrote to Ned in July, and, after repeating his condolences for the family's recent troubles, tentatively expressed a desire to extend the show yet again. Ned let it be known that he cared not one whit whether the exhibition continued. I happened to see his reply to Hamilton on the hallstand, where it lay, just before it was sent. The note was written on what appeared to be a scrap of torn wallpaper. In it, Ned expressed his indifferent opinion, which was that he had neither the time nor the inclination to take down his pictures, and that the paintings might as well ‘hang there until they rot'. Thus, the exhibition was quietly extended, this time for an indefinite period.

Hamilton had also managed to negotiate over a dozen new commissions on the artist's behalf, mostly for portraits, which suggested that Ned's new-found notoriety outweighed any earlier concerns that the public might have had about how sympathetically he might portray them as subjects. Unfortunately, it was not at all certain when he might be in a fit state to resume painting. He had not so much as glanced at a brush in weeks, and his teaching position at the School had been taken over by another gentleman, who was perfectly pleasant, I believe, but not really in the same league as Ned, either as teacher or painter. Needless to say, I had not attended any of the classes that remained before the end of term.

As for Ned, when he was not distributing handbills, or looking for his daughter, he spent the time locked away in his studio, having pinned a black cloth over the skylight to block out any sign of the day. Although he insisted upon darkness, sleep eluded him and (as he told me later), for several weeks, he was subject to hallucinations, in which his missing daughter appeared to him. Once, as he was climbing the stairs to the attic, he thought that he saw her on the landing. It was getting rather dark, but the child seemed to shine out, strangely distinct, in the shadows. She stood up on tiptoe (a posture very characteristic of Rose), smiled at him, and then was gone.

In many respects, Ned appeared to be grieving. His speech and movements had become markedly slow, and—one day, when I happened to be standing near him—I was startled to notice, among his mane of hair, a single strand of white. Then, a moment later, I saw another. As the summer drew on, these white hairs proliferated, until they were too numerous to count.

Tortured by guilt and the belief that she, alone, was responsible for what had happened, Annie took to wandering the streets on the far side of town, in search of her daughter. Try as I might, I was unable to dissuade her from this futile quest. She and Ned would take it in turns to leave the apartment, and, while one of them kept an eye on Sibyl, the other carried out any necessary errands and continued to search for Rose. Ned tended to concentrate on the local area, whereas his wife had fixed upon the theory that Rose was being held captive somewhere in the East End. No doubt various newspaper reports had fuelled this notion, with their salacious references to White Slavery, and the endless sightings of little girls with fair hair. Throughout the summer, no matter what the weather, Annie haunted the side streets along the Gallowgate, flitting in and out of dank wynds and vennels, and searching filthy yards. With a doggedness that became almost mechanical, she would venture inside the closes, and climb the stairs, to question the inhabitants. Sometimes, she was greeted with honest courtesy and compassion; at other times, she had to flee in the face of harsh words; but always, the answer was the same: nobody knew the whereabouts of her child.

With her unfortunate parents lost in their own desolation, poor Sibyl continued to starve herself. Every mealtime was a battle, in which Ned and Annie had to cajole and beg their daughter to consume even a morsel, while Sibyl found ever more inventive ways of avoiding sustenance. Having, in her own mind, contributed to the loss of her little sister, it was as though she wanted to make herself disappear.

Early one morning in August, on his way downstairs from the studio, where he had spent a restless night, Ned happened to detect a change in the quality of light in the apartment. For weeks, in the interest of privacy, the curtains had been drawn at the front of the house, but now, he perceived that the hall was brighter than usual: a half-light spilled out from the parlour. His curiosity aroused, he entered the room, only to see that the curtains were open at one of the casements, and the sash window had been pushed up. Then, to his horror, he realised that Sibyl had climbed outside, onto the sill, as though intending to jump into mid-air. Indeed, as he crossed the threshold, the child rose up and leaned forwards, preparing to leap.

Thankfully, Ned was too fast for her. In one bound, he crossed the floor and, grabbing her by the waist, dragged her back inside, in order to save her from a fall that could only have ended horribly, if not on the pavement or basement area below, then on the railings, which were trimmed, at close intervals, with low, thistle-shaped spikes. Sibyl squirmed and struggled in her father's arms, attempting to lunge across the sill, crying, ‘No! No! Let me go!', so that Ned was forced to drop down and cover the child with his own body, in order to restrain her.

This was how Annie found them, moments later. Having spent the night in Rose's bed, she was alerted to the emergency by Sibyl's cries, and ran down to investigate. Upon entering the parlour, she saw her daughter writhing on the floor, pinned down by Ned, who was weeping, and stroking Sibyl's head, to calm her.

‘What happened?' Annie cried, and while her husband gave a rapid account of events, the child continued to wriggle beneath him, weeping.

Somehow they managed to lift her onto the sofa. Then, Annie hurried over to close the sash and draw the curtains. Ned clutched Sibyl to his chest, rocking her back and forth, and whispering in her ear. The child sobbed, quietly, but seemed to have calmed down somewhat. Annie sank into the easy chair, and eventually, after what seemed like a very long time, Sibyl fell asleep. Carefully, Ned rose to his feet, and he and Annie carried the child next door to their own bedroom, which had the dusty, petrified atmosphere of a room that is seldom used. Then, while Annie kept vigil over her daughter, Ned went around all the rooms, hammering nails into the sash frames and skylights, so that the windows could no longer be opened.