Footsucker

Twenty-eight

I decided to return to Kramer’s studio. This time I didn’t intend to break in and I didn’t intend to steal or destroy anything, but I did hope to get something I needed. I’d seen the reception area and the secretary’s desk when I’d been there before. They suggested that Kramer’s business wasn’t entirely a one-man operation. I had reason to believe that it had enough momentum to keep going for a little while after his death, especially since examples of his work were currently on display everywhere. It was a long shot but I thought it was my only hope.

I went there in working hours, pressed the doorbell and hoped for the best. A woman’s voice spoke in the entryphone and I muttered a few deliberately incomprehensible words. She said something equally incomprehensible in reply and pressed the buzzer that let me in.

I went up the stairs to the top of the building, to the studio, where I found a young woman in jeans and a lumberjack shirt, hair held back in a ponytail. She had her feet up on the desk and was smoking a joint. The place was a mess. There were boxes and tea chests all around her and it appeared she’d been half-heartedly packing and sorting through them. My presence gave her a surprise, and not a particularly pleasant one.

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I thought you were a messenger.’

‘I’m a potential customer,’ I said.

She looked confused.

‘I’d like to see Mr Kramer,’ I said brightly.

Then she appeared terribly sad. She wouldn’t look me in the eye, and she said, ‘He’s passed away. I mean, he’s dead. Robert’s dead.’

‘Dead?’ I said. ‘That’s terrible. That’s really terrible. I had no idea.’

‘I’m just here holding the fort,’ she said. ‘Tidying up some loose ends. Sending out invoices. Paying bills.’

‘But I keep seeing his work everywhere. The Adiol campaign.’

‘Me too,’ she said. ‘It was all set up before he died, there was no reason to stop it. It breaks my heart every time I see it.’

‘That must be awful for you.’

‘It’s not so great.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. ‘I really am. I’ll go away and leave you to your work.’

I made as though to leave, but she said, ‘Since you’re here, what is it you wanted? Can I help?’

‘It sounds trivial now,’ I said. ‘I wanted Mr Kramer to take some photographs for me, that’s all. You see, I’m a shoe designer. I was so impressed by the photographs in the Adiol campaign I thought I’d like something similar to show off my own work.’

She didn’t look at all perturbed. This was probably how things were done in her business; one job led to another, work generated work.

‘It’s a real shame,’ she said. ‘I’m sure he’d have been very interested. What can I say?’

‘I’d better go,’ I said.

‘Hold on,’ and she started looking through a fat address book. ‘I can give you the names of a couple of photographers who might be good for the job.’

‘That’s really kind of you,’ I said.

She jotted down the names and phone numbers for me and handed over a slip of paper. ‘They were both good friends of Robert’s. He’d have been happy for them to have the work.’

She was sad again. She stared down at the address book and seemed hypnotized by it.

‘It’s a while since he died,’ she said. ‘I feel I ought to be getting over it by now.’

‘It takes a lot of time,’ I said. ‘It takes as long as it takes.’

She nodded and looked at me as though I’d said something profound. I said goodbye and again started to leave.

‘Oh, just one more thing,’ I said. ‘The model. You don’t happen to know whose feet those are in the Adiol photographs?’

‘Sure. She’s not with an agency. But I can give you her name and phone number if you like.’

Casually, helpfully, undramatically, she wrote out Catherine’s new phone number for me.