Painting in the Shadows

by Katherine Kovacic

  Hands on hips, I turn back to survey the room, looking for a drop sheet I can pinch from another area. Or maybe a cupboard helpfully labelled, drop sheets. Finally, I spot a stack of cloths underneath a workbench and grab a couple. As I head back to the painting I can hear clattering from John’s direction and no swearing, so I assume he’s finding everything he needs.

  I drag a couple of luminaires across to where I think John and Fiona will set up and switch them on. Then, taking a deep breath, I duck under the police tape and inch in front of the easel, being careful not to step on anything, before crouching down and giving the patch of crimson an experimental poke. It’s touch-dry and I frown. Then I look up at the painting. I realise I’m trying not to look directly into the bears’ eyes.

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake.’ I take a long hard look, then switch my attention to the top corner where the tear is. It looks as though Meredith hadn’t even started work, but there’s something else that bothers me even more.

  ‘John?’ I call over my shoulder. ‘John, are you coming?’ I make it a bit louder.

  ‘On my way.’ He appears from around the corner, pushing a little trolley that rattles its contents as it trundles across the floor. ‘That place is like Aladdin’s Cave. Oh my God, the variety of brushes! And the tubes and tubes of cadmium paints: yellow, lemon, orange – all the shades! Do you know what that stuff costs? I mean, sure, buy it when you need it, but unless you’re virtually repainting Matisse’s The Red Studio or one of those huge yellow Monet waterlily paintings, when would you need so much?’

  ‘Perhaps they’re stocking up in case the cadmiums get banned.’

  ‘They’re not that toxic,’ John scoffs, rolling the trolley to a stop on the other side of the police tape.

  ‘Look, forget about that for a moment. This paint is almost dry.’

  ‘Cool, so throw the sheet down and let me get organised.’

  ‘You’re missing the point. Giles said it was Alizarin Crimson.’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘Yes, but how long would that take to dry? Usually?’

  ‘Well it depends on the type, but it’s generally a medium to slow-drying paint. And there’s quite a bit on the floor.’

  ‘Which means?’

  ‘Five days or more.’ John’s speech slows as realisation dawns. ‘So how …’

  ‘Exactly what I was wondering. Can you mix it with something to speed up the process?’

  ‘You could use a Griffin Alkyd Fast Drying Oil Colour, which already has a resin mixed in. That would be touch dry in a few hours. That must be it. Meredith needed to get the repair done in a hurry so the painting could go in the exhibition, so she went for that. Personally, I still wouldn’t varnish for a while, but perhaps she was going to come back after the exhibition if necessary.’

  ‘Other than the fact that plan does not fit with Meredith killing herself, she hasn’t touched the canvas, and look,’ I gesture for John to join me in front of the painting and when he is standing next to me, I point to the area of damage.

  ‘So, okay, she hasn’t – hadn’t – started.’ John shrugs.

  ‘Yes, but look at the part that’s damaged.’ I stare at John as he stares at the painting. ‘It’s the sky in the Arctic with a bit of the top of an iceberg. It’s all grey and white – well, there’s that tiny patch of faint pink for the reflected light, but it’s so pale.’

  John is still staring at the painting, a slight wrinkle now visible between his eyebrows. I sigh.

  ‘What the hell would Meredith need a tube of deep crimson paint for?’

  John looks at me, then back at the painting, then back at me. He opens his mouth and takes a breath as though he’s going to say something, but instead he snaps it shut and shakes his head.

  The silence stretches as we eyeball each other. I’m hoping John can come up with something rational. He might be thinking the same about me.

  ‘This is crazy shit,’ he says, ruling out any hope of an explanation.

  ‘At least we agree on that. Do you think it was deliberate? Did Meredith want to make a dramatic statement? I mean, it does look like blood.’ I expel a short breath.

  John shakes his head. ‘Even if she did kill herself, which I don’t believe for a minute, Meredith was a lot of things but she was not subtle. If she wanted people to see a pool of blood, she’d go to the butcher and damn well buy a bucket of the stuff. She must have had fast-drying red paint for something else she was going to work on.’

  ‘If she did have another project, it’s not in this studio.’

  We both stare at the lake of red paint. I feel the beginnings of a headache and squeeze the bridge of my nose, trying to will it away.

  ‘Moving on. How are we going to get you set up without walking all over that stuff?’ I bite my lip.

  John isn’t listening, so I throw a drop sheet over the paint, but I’m itching to grab a broom and at least push all the loose crap into a pile. I check my watch. Fiona seems to be taking her time, but perhaps she’s just having a debrief with Giles, or a quiet cry in a toilet somewhere. I look around for something to do.

  ‘Shall I get one of those small tables so you have somewhere to lay out the things you’ll need?’

  John has been rummaging around in his trolley of sup­plies, but now he stops and frowns at the painting. ‘Ah shit, Alex.’

  ‘What? What’s wrong now?’

  ‘I haven’t been thinking straight. I can’t fix the painting here.’ He points to where I’ve set up the lights.

  ‘Of course you can. You do this all the time. This is no different to any other painting you’ve repaired.’

  ‘It’s not that. I can fix the painting. I just can’t do the first bit on the easel.’

  ‘You seem to have everything you need and then some.’ I gesture to the heavily laden trolley.

  ‘Yeah, but I need to start by fixing the tear and to do that, I need the painting off the easel and lying face down on a table.’

  We both turn and contemplate the painting. The con­servators have at least removed the frame, which is sitting on its own easel against the wall.

  ‘Didn’t you say moving it was outside our remit? Insurance cover, et cetera, et cetera?’

  ‘Yeah, but now it’s a necessary move. It’s essential to the job, which,’ he places a hand dramatically on his chest, ‘I have been hired to carry out, or at least oversee, and Fiona will be back any moment with official sanction. Therefore, I am currently MIMA’s agent and as such, we move the painting.’ He ends with a dramatic flourish.

  ‘Don’t let it go to your head or anything,’ I say. ‘Most of the weight would be in the frame, so all we have to do is manoeuvre a large and unwieldy painting through the field of debris that we’re not supposed to disturb. Piece of cake.’

  ‘I don’t care about the stuff on the floor, as long as the painting is okay.’

  ‘I doubt anyone would notice if we trampled it or kicked it around – accidentally of course. So where do you want the painting?’

  ‘The nearest table is covered in blotting paper and glassine, so it’s clearly set up for the purpose, only …’

  ‘Only?’

  ‘We’re back to square one with the whole Meredith thing. What was she even doing with the painting on the easel still? She must have looked at it enough times to know what she was planning. And you can’t do anything about the paint loss until you’ve fixed the great big bloody rip, and you can’t do that until you have the canvas face down on a nice flat surface.’

  ‘So to recap. Meredith didn’t seem the suicidal type yet she supposedly took something.’

  John nods.

  ‘She took this unknown stuff despite the fact that she was about to start a job she’d pushed for, one that, under the circumstances, would earn her serious career brownie points.’

  ‘Uh huh. Th
en either before or while she’s dying, she spills a large amount of crimson paint, a colour she has no use for and shouldn’t have to hand.’

  ‘And although she died in front of the painting, she couldn’t have been working on it. She never even began to work on it.’

  ‘Alex, I know this is insane, but when you set it out like that – and take into account the packer who did the damage in the first place – it sure as shit sounds like the story of the curse you were spinning yesterday.’

  ‘But that’s just it; it’s a damn story! An urban myth, only with art.’

  John gestures to the drop-sheet-covered floor. ‘Unless it isn’t.’

  ‘Oh come on. We’ve both scrutinised this painting at length and we’re both still standing and having a –’ I pause, ‘semi-rational conversation.’

  ‘Let me paraphrase what we just said. It boils down to this: two normal people with no known health issues look at a supposedly cursed painting and drop like flies. One manages to partially destroy the painting, the other destroys herself.’

  ‘Damage the painting, not destroy, and it was an accident. Plus, we don’t know whether either of them had any health problems,’ I say.

  ‘Feeble, Alex. Even if they did, why now? It’s not as though you look at those bears and think, “Gosh, those Victorians were right; my life really is quite small and pointless. Lucky I’m in a room full of toxic chemicals, then. Don’t know why I’ve burdened everyone with my existence for this long, but I –”’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ I drag both hands through my hair. ‘But there is a second possibility, one that doesn’t involve a curse.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Forget Tommo for now, we can get more on him later. Let’s just think about Meredith. If her death is nothing to do with a curse, and we both agree there are some seriously weird anomalies regarding what supposedly happened versus what you and I are seeing …’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Well, the only other thing that could start to explain it,’ I take a deep breath, ‘is if someone else killed Meredith and wanted to make it look like suicide. The curse is just an extra bit of convenient window dressing.’

  John points at me. ‘So everyone immediately thinks of the curse, and the fact Meredith was not at all suicidal suddenly becomes irrelevant.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But that’s even worse than if she did kill herself. It means there’s a murderer running around MIMA. And why would anyone want to kill an art conservator anyway?’

  I arch an eyebrow at him.

  ‘Hey, I know I piss you off sometimes, but not that much.’

  I tilt my head.

  ‘Hanging out with you is no picnic for me either, mate.’

  ‘Sorry, I’m being facetious. It’s not really a laughing matter, is it?’

  ‘If you’re right, it’s scary. And if the police keep thinking it was suicide and it wasn’t, then what?’

  ‘Maybe they’ll find something when they do the autopsy.’

  John shakes his head emphatically. ‘Nuh-uh. If Meredith was poisoned, how could they tell she didn’t take it herself? The only way would be if the killer – shit, listen to me – if the killer forced her to swallow something and she was fighting it to the point where she had other injuries.’

  ‘On her hands or face?’

  ‘Hell, I don’t know. I only know what I see on Crime Scene Investigation. Bruises on her arms if someone held her down, evidence under her fingernails if she scratched someone, fibres in her mouth if a cloth was held over her face …’

  ‘That is unbelievably gruesome. Just how much of this show are you watching?’

  ‘Not much. It just happens to be a very detailed program.’

  ‘Sure it is. Anyway, if your fingernails are a case study for art conservators, we can rule that out.’

  ‘Yeah, true. Hers would be as short as possible.’

  ‘So if this was an episode of CSI, how would those characters convince the police to look harder? What would they do?’

  John stands there for a moment.

  ‘Help me get the painting onto the workbench, Alex.’ John steps through the debris and up to the easel, where he loosens a wing nut and slides the clamp away from the top of the painting. I undo one end of the police tape.

  Moving to opposite ends of the canvas, we carefully lift it from the easel, shuffle sideways to the bench without dis­turbing the stuff on the floor too much, then slowly tip the painting and lie it face down.

  ‘You didn’t answer my question,’ I say, leaning a hip against the bench.

  John gently prods the damaged part of the canvas. ‘On CSI they’d look for a motive as well as looking for more evidence.’

  ‘And how would they do that?’

  ‘They’d get one of their people in undercover.’

  ‘You’re not serious?’

  ‘Got a better idea?’

  ‘But you couldn’t even trust yourself to work in here without me to stop you from saying something inappropriate. How the hell do you think you could lull a possible murderer into giving themselves away?’

  ‘I don’t mean me.’

  ‘Well, who –’

  ‘You’re already here, and you were going to nose about doing a bit of research anyway.’

  ‘Oh no –’

  ‘Just research a few other things while you’re poking around.’

  ‘John …’

  ‘Alex, I know. But think about it. If Meredith really did get murdered and the police don’t investigate, do you honestly want that on your conscience? Knowing that you could have helped bring her killer to justice? Given Meredith some peace?’

  ‘Shit, pour it on why don’t you? Is there some secret art conservator’s code that means you’re honour-bound to act when a brother or sister is in trouble?’

  ‘I know she could be prickly, but I still sort of liked her, at least in a nostalgic kind of way. And whatever happened, she shouldn’t be dead.’ He pokes the canvas again and then turns to me. ‘Look, we have that copper’s card. We could ring and find out what they’re doing. If it sounds like they’re on to something, fine. I fix the painting and we get out. But if they’re closing the book …’

  ‘I’m agreeing to this under duress. And it’s just a bit of a gentle snoop, nothing extreme.’

  ‘But you are agreeing!’

  I can’t believe it and I shake my head. ‘Just get to work and fix the fucking painting, would you?’

  ***

  ‘Should I wait for Fiona to come back?’ John stares at the door as though expecting her to materialise on command.

  ‘She is supposed to be doing the work. Maybe today’s been a bit much for her.’

  ‘So I should wait?’

  I shake my head. ‘You’ve got a fairly tight deadline.’ Turning to the sheet-draped floor, I move across and re-tie the police tape. ‘Get started. If Fiona turns up, fine, put her to work. But she’d probably feel bad to come back and find you twiddling your thumbs waiting.’

  John responds by dragging the trolley close and pulling a stool from under the bench. We’ve laid the painting out so the tear is closest to him, and the stool is high enough for him to work comfortably. Sitting down, he pulls two sets of tweezers from the top shelf of the trolley and sets them to one side, then puts a magnifying visor on his head. He fiddles with it a bit before I take over and adjust it so it’s snug enough to sit right without cutting off blood to half his brain.

  ‘Shall I leave you to it?’

  ‘You should have a rummage around here first, while everyone else is away.’ John is already bending his head over the canvas.

  ‘I doubt anyone would be stupid enough to kill Meredith and then conveniently leave incriminating evidence right here.’

  ‘How do you think most criminals are caught, Ale
x?’ He straightens up and looks at me, his eyes ridiculously large through the magnifier. ‘It’s because they’re inherently stupid. Or sloppy. Or cocky. Whatever. They make mistakes. Maybe there’s an empty pill bottle in one of the rubbish bins. You should go through those.’

  ‘Are you freaking kidding me?’

  ‘Oh and there looked to be some personal stuff in the storage alcove. Definitely check that out.’

  I shake my head. ‘If you think I –’

  ‘Anyway, like you said, I need to get on with this and I need to concentrate, so …’ John turns back to the canvas, leaving me fuming. As I stomp off, he’s already picked up the tweezers and has begun the slow process of carefully realigning the torn fibres of the canvas.

  I’m not sure which task bothers me more: pawing through the rubbish, or going through a stranger’s things without their knowledge. But the police have only cordoned off the area where Meredith actually died, so I decide to start with the storage area. It may be morally grubby but the smell will be less offensive. Sure enough, a section of shelves at the back of the alcove has been given over to the staff. There are several empty cubbyholes where I assume people stash their handbags or whatever, a few tatty-looking cardigans and jumpers which could belong to anybody, a couple of grimy coffee mugs, and an American-style electric coffee maker minus the pot. Nothing else. I run my hand across each shelf, more for something to do than because I expect to find anything, but as I grope around on the top shelf my questing fingers touch something that feels like a book but skitters away when I snatch at it. I try jumping and grabbing at the same time but only manage to push it further away. The idea of climbing the shelves flits into my brain but is immediately followed by an image of me pulling the shelves over and getting severely maimed in the process.

  ‘Bugger your damn curse,’ I mutter, looking around for something to stand on. There’s a milk crate filled with clean rags and I tip them out, up-end the crate and climb up. The book sits alone amid a forest of dust bunnies. As I pull it toward me I see it’s a diary for this year – 2001 – and my heart starts beating a bit faster. There could be anything in here. Suspicious appointments, the odd angry rant about or by Meredith, surely something juicy. I sit on the milk crate and start to page through. It’s completely useless. Not only does it not even have a name in the front, but the only things in there are “dentist, 2.30”, “Mum’s birthday”, and a shopping list. And not the sort of shopping list that would raise any eyebrows. Not a “rope, garbage bags, quicklime, shovel, balaclava” sort of list, just “bread, milk, wine, chocolate”. Then the entries stop a couple of weeks ago, at the end of January, when I presume the diary was lost. Strangely, the last thing written is simply the word, “Autumn”. It takes up nearly half a page and is circled heavily. Maybe the diary’s owner was sick of our hot weather, or perhaps planning a holiday or devising new-age baby names; who knows? I throw the diary back onto the top shelf, then re-stuff the rags in the milk crate. Sighing, I return to the main room to begin delving into the rubbish bins.