Art of Murder

by Jose Carlos Somoza

  Jose Carlos Somoza was born in Havana in 1959 and now lives in Madrid. A doctor of medicine and a specialist in psychiatry, he has been writing full-time since 1994. His previous novel The Athenian Murders, which is also available as an Abacus paperback, won the 2003 Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award.

  Praise for The Art of Murder:

  'The Art of Murder is simply delicious. It stubbornly fails to be pigeon-holed: it is a dark thriller and more; it is a thought-provoking treatise on art and more; it is a beautiful piece of literature and much, much more. The characters are finely drawn and the plot is as tight as we expect from Somoza, winner of the 2003 CWA Gold Dagger. His prose is bristling with fine brush strokes, conjuring up the hues and lighting required to instill a living, breathing atmosphere in each scene. Although many scenes are filled with characters in a trance-like state, he makes their inner thoughts twirl about us. This is an important novel that demands to be read - and heeded' Irish Examiner

  'Somoza follows his rich and strange The Athenian Murders with a book as exciting and original... Somoza breathes originality, wit, satire and suspense into a moribund genre' Julian Rathbone, author of A Very English Agent and Birth of a Nation

  'This intelligent mystery from an award-winning crime novelist paints a disturbing picture of the future of art, where the desire for hyper-realism has reached its obvious conclusion' Daily Mail

  'It takes considerable craft to tease a galloping narrative out of a subject as static as "living statues". In this exhilarating art-world thriller, however, Jose Carlos Somoza proves there can be action, intrigue and emotional drama - and a heady dose of sexual tension - even in seemingly abstract compositions. Wonderfully aberrant ideas about humanity and aesthetics are spun out of this intriguing fiction, which is sci-fi fantasy, thriller and treatise on art and murder. Somoza entices us along with shifts in tempo, offbeat aesthetic and pragmatic interrogations by the two detectives, and some crankily comic visions of the future. His sensualist's eye for shade, colour, texture and skin tone, set against a satirical depiction of the art business of the Foundation makes for an enthralling experiment in dystopian detective fiction. As with his previous novel, The Athenian Murders, the author creates a remote but utterly believable milieu, full of weird and obsessive but very convincing characters, into which we are gently seduced like so many amoral voyeurs' TLS

  'Somoza offers a gripping thriller that not only draws readers in, but also forces them to examine their own beliefs' Good Book Guide

  'Jose Carlos Somoza's satirical near-future thriller The Art of Murder combines fascinating speculation about possible artistic movements with hard thinking about the contemporary culture of celebrity. Like the best satirical science fiction writers, the author combines frivolous "What if?" speculation with angry "If this goes on" jeremiad, inventing an art movement in which paint is applied to celebrity models, who pose uncomfortably for hours, and regard themselves as being engaged in a serious artistic endeavour for which they are prepared to endure starvation and surgical enhancement' Art Quarterly

  'Move over Damien Hirst. Get out of that bed Tracey Emin. The artsy folk in Jose Carlos Somoza's creepy new novel have gone way beyond body parts or scuzzy sheets in Hoxton. But the flip side to trendola artist Bruno van Tysch's new movement are the snuff movies where the latest human "art" is filmed while being tortured and murdered. Cue Somoza's gripping yarn, as investigators April Wood and Lothar Bosch attempt to find the artful killer before the imitations of Rembrandt's masterpieces are put on show as the biggest exhibition of 'hyperdramatic art' ever. Somoza creates a gruesome Alice Through the Looking Glass art world in a narrative that simply sweeps you along from page to page. One thing's for sure, after reading it you'll never enter Tate Modern again without looking over your shoulder' What's on London

  The Art of Murder

  JOSE CARLOS SOMOZA

  Translated from the Spanish by nick caistor

  ABACUS

  First published in Spain as Clara y la Penumbra by Editorial Planeta S.A. in 2001 First published in Great Britain in September 2004 by Abacus This paperback edition published in June 2005

  Copyright © Jose Carlos Somoza 2001 Translation copyright © Nick Caistor 2004

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  This edition has been translated with the help of a grant from the Direction General del Libro, Archivos y Bibliotecas de Ministerio de Education, Cultura y Deporte de Espana.

  All characters in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 0 349 11883 3

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives pic

  Abacus An imprint of Time Warner Book Group UK Brettenham House

  Lancaster Place London WC2E 7EN

  www.twbg.co.uk

  For Lazaro Somoza

  For Beauty's nothing but beginning of Terror we're still just able to bear

  INTRODUCTION

  Clara and Shade

  The teenage girl stands naked on the plinth. Her smooth stomach and the dark curve of her navel are at eye level. She is looking down with her head tilted to one side, one hand shielding her pubis, the other on her hip. Her knees are together and slightly bent. She is painted in natural sienna and ochre. Shading in burnt sienna emphasises her breasts and moulds her inner thighs and her little slit. We should not say 'slit' because this is a work of art we are talking about, but when we see her, that is what we think. A tiny vertical slit, stripped of all hair. We walk round the plinth and observe the figure from the back. The tanned buttocks reflect patches of light. If we step away, her anatomy acquires a more innocent look. Her hair is strewn with small white flowers. More flowers surround her feet - a pool of milk. Even at this distance we can still pick up the strange scent she gives off, like the smell of wood after rain. Next to the security rope is a little stand with the title in three languages: Deflowering.

  A two-note loudspeaker chime breaks the spell: the museum is about to close. A young woman's voice says so in German, then in English and French. Everyone seems to understand, or at least gets the intended message. The teacher of a select Viennese secondary school gathers her uniformed flock and counts them to make sure no one is missing. Even though the exhibition is of nudes, she has taken the children to see it. It is of no importance, they are works of art. What matters to the Japanese is that they have not been allowed to take photos: that is why none of them is smiling as they file out. They console themselves at the exit, where they can buy catalogues for fifty euros with full-colour photographs. A nice souvenir of Vienna.

  Ten minutes later, after the room has emptied of visitors, something unexpected happens. Several men arrive, wearing ID tags in their suit lapels. One of them goes up to the plinth where the young girl is standing and says out loud:

  'Annek.'

  Nothing happens. 'Annek,' he says again.

  The eyes blink, the neck straightens, the mouth opens, the body shudders, and the budding breasts heave as she takes a deep breath.

  'Can you get down on your own?'

  She nods, but hesitates. The man holds out his hand.

  Eventually the girl manages to descend from the plinth, trailing a cloud of
petals in her wake.

  Annek Hollech opened the first bottle from the rack by the chrome metal shower, and the water turned green. She opened the second and rubbed herself with red water. After that, she soaked herself in blue, then purple. Each of the liquids in the bottles took off only one of the four products which had been applied to her skin: paints, oils, hairspray, artificial aromas. The bottles were numbered and each showed their purpose by turning the water a different colour. The paints and sprays were the first to come off, in a shower of drops. As always, the hardest thing to get rid of was the smell of wet earth. The cubicle filled with steam, and Annek's body disappeared behind a rainbow-coloured curtain. Each of the other twenty cubicles in the room was occupied by a shadowy silhouette. The only sound was the hiss of the showers.

  Ten minutes later, enveloped in towels and mist, Annek walked barefoot to the dressing room. She dried herself off, combed her hair, rubbed first a moisturising and then a protective cream all over her body - using a long-handled sponge to reach her back - and protected her face with two layers of cosmetics. Then she opened her locker and took out her clothes. They were all new, purchased in shops on the Judengasse, Kohlmarkt, the Haas Haus and the elegant Kärntner street. She liked to buy clothes and accessories in the cities where she was on show. During the seven weeks she had been in Vienna she had also bought porcelain and glassware and sweets from Demel's, as well as a few trinkets for her friend Emma van Snell, who was also a work of art but was being exhibited in Amsterdam.

  On that Wednesday 21 June, 2006, Annek had gone to the museum wearing a pink blouse, military jacket and a pair of baggy trousers full of pockets. Now she took these clothes out of the locker and put them on. She did not wear anything underneath - it wasn't recommended if one was on show completely naked (underwear leaves marks). She put on a pair of felt slippers in the shape of two little bears, fastened her black slimline watch on to her wrist and picked up her bag.

  Sitting next to her in the labelling room was Sally, the work of art on plinth number eight. She was wearing a sleeveless mauve blouse and a pair of jeans. They said hello and Sally commented:

  'Hoffmann says my purple's fading like Van Gogh's yellows. He wants to try a more intense colour, but in Conservation they're worried it might damage my skin. Wouldn't you know it? The same old contradiction: some people want to create you, others want to conserve you.'

  That's true,' Annek said.

  An assistant came over carrying two boxes of labels. Sally opened hers and picked out one of them.

  ‘I can't wait to get to bed,' she said. ‘I don't think I'll go to sleep straightaway, I'll just lie there on my back, stare at the ceiling and enjoy being horizontal again. What about you?'

  ‘I have to call my mother first. I phone her every week.'

  'Where is she now? She travels a lot, doesn't she?'

  'Yes. She's in Borneo, taking pictures of monkeys.' Annek put one of the labels round her neck and fastened it. 'Sometimes she emails photos of monkey couples.'

  'Really?'

  'Yes, really. I'm not sure whether she's trying to tell me I should get married or what.'

  Sally laughed quietly behind two rows of perfect white teeth.

  'At least she sends you something. My father in New York can't even be bothered to scan in a couple of hotdogs for me. He never liked the idea of his daughter becoming a valuable work of art.'

  Silence. Annek did up the last label round her ankle. Her neck, wrist and ankle now boasted three 8 x 4cm labels, painted bright yellow and tied with black strings. Sally had also finished doing up hers. They watched as the first works of art left the room: Laura, Cathy, David, Estefania, Celia. A parade of athletic, labelled figures.

  'I haven't had my period again this month,' Annek said expressionlessly. ‘It's been irregular since Hamburg.'

  Sally looked at her for a moment.

  ‘It’s not important, it happens to all of us. Lena reckons it's like an umbrella: first she has one, then she loses it, then she has one again, but then she loses it yet again. It's all part of being a work of art, you know.'

  'Yes, I know,' Annek was still staring into the mirror. 'And anyway, I feel better when I don't have one.'

  'Hey, have you got anything planned for next Monday?'

  The question puzzled Annek. She never planned anything for the day the museum was closed, apart from her frenetic shopping sprees with her inexhaustible credit card. Everything else -the solitary walks in the Hofburg, Schönbrunn, or Belvedere - which were not in fact so solitary because she was always accompanied by bodyguards - or visits to the Art History Museum or Saint Stephen's cathedral, even the ballets and performances put on for Vienna's June festival left her feeling bored and slightly nauseous. She wondered what a work of art like her was doing in this kind of city, where everything was art. She was looking forward to the time when the tour left Europe. The next year, 2007, the Foundation had promised them they would be travelling to America and Australia. Perhaps she could find something there she would really enjoy doing.

  'Nothing,' she replied. 'Why?'

  'Laura, Lena and I thought we might spend the whole day at the Prater fun fair. Want to come along?' 'OK.'

  A warm surge of gratitude swept over her. At fourteen, Annek Hollech was the youngest work of art in the exhibition (Sally, for example, was ten years older). On their day off, the others all did their own thing. Nobody worried about her. To anyone but Annek - who was used to the solitude and silence of museums, galleries, and private houses - the situation would have been intolerable. That was why she was so moved at Sally's offer. But her face betrayed nothing of this: it only ever showed the emotions a painter put there.

  'Thanks’ was all Annek said, gazing at her companion with her greeny-blue eyes.

  'Don't thank me,' Sally replied. 'I'm doing it because I enjoy being with you.'

  Her friendly reply made Annek feel doubly grateful.

  They took the lift down together. Two tall and slender Anneks, with straight blonde hair and two yellow labels tied round her neck, were reflected in Diaz's dark glasses. Oscar Diaz was the guard on duty with orders to accompany her back to the hotel. He always had a friendly smile and a polite word for her. That Wednesday, however, he was unusually laconic. Annek felt very relaxed after her talk with Sally and would have liked to start up a conversation, but remembered that works of art were not supposed to talk to their guards, so she decided to ignore his silence. She had other things on her mind.

  She had been Deflowering - a Bruno van Tysch masterpiece -for two years now. She had no idea how much longer it would be before the painter decided to substitute her. A month? Four? Twelve? Twenty? It all depended on how quickly her body matured. At night, lying naked in the ample hotel beds she slept in, she would run her finger round the edge of the labels attached to her neck or wrist, or feel for the tattoo on her right ankle (an indigo BvT) and mouth a silent prayer to the distant God of Art for her body to stay calm, for it please not to start changing in secret, for her breasts not to grow, her legs not to rise like clay on a wheel, pray that her hands stroking her thighs would not have to travel a longer, more curvaceous route.

  She did not want to have to give up being Deflowering.

  It had taken her six years to become a masterpiece. She owed everything to her mother, who had discovered her talents as an artwork and taken her to the Foundation when she was only eight years old. Her father would have forbidden it, of course, but as he no longer lived with them, he did not count. Her parents had split up when she was four years old, so Annek's memories of him were vague. What she did know was that he was a brutal, unstable alcoholic, an old-fashioned painter who still worked on canvas, insisted on making a living by painting, and refused to admit that non-human works of art had gone out of style. Ever since Annek's mother had gained custody of her, and especially since Annek had begun her studies in Amsterdam with a view to becoming a work of art, this irascible stranger had done nothing but pester them, except o
f course during the frequent periods he was in hospital or jail.

  In 2001, when Annek was being shown as Intimacy at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam - the first work that Van Tysch had painted using her - her father had suddenly burst into the room. Annek recognised the ghastly wild look and bulging red eyes staring at her from the other side of the security rope, and realised what was going to happen moments before it did. 'She's my daughter!' he shouted, beside himself. 'She is being shown naked in a museum, and she is only nine years old!' A whole team of security guards had to be summoned. The incident caused a scandal, then a brief trial, and her father was locked up again. Annek preferred not to recall that dreadful episode.