Art of Murder

by Jose Carlos Somoza

  ‘I'm German, but I've lived in Madrid for several years,' she told Clara when they met. She pronounced 'Madrid' like a robot from a B-movie. 'GS are my initials.' She went on to tell her her surname, but Clara couldn't remember it. 'Pleased to meet you,' Clara had replied, and was rewarded with a smile. Bassan said she was a successful gallery owner and had a select clientele of hyperdramatic art collectors, but Clara hadn't been able to discover if this was true or not. What she had found was that Gertrude was rude and disdainful towards the paintings. Perhaps she was a little more pleasant with the painters. On top of that, she was a cleanliness freak. She did not allow Clara to use the bathroom to wash or make up after work. She said she had no wish to see paint anywhere else apart from on the skin of her paintings. On Clara's first day she showed her a small space at the back of the upstairs office and said that all the works got on just fine in there. Each day before work Clara had to go into this wretched cubicle and put on the porous swimsuit and the hair-dyeing cap, soaked in the colours Bassan had prepared, and wait for almost an hour until they had dried on her skin. Then she took off the swimsuit and cap and emerged naked and gleaming white, walked down to the basement and took up the pose and expression the painter had chosen for her. When the gallery closed, she was forced to make her way home with her body still painted under her tracksuit and wearing a ridiculous beret to hide her white hair; all she could scrape off was the paint on her face. It was no fun driving with her skin stiffened with oil paint.

  'Two gentlemen?' Clara had to clear her throat to get the words out. 'What do they want?'

  'How should I know? They're waiting in my office.'

  'But did they come down to see the work?' Often she was unaware of how many visitors there had been.

  'Not today, that's for sure. They asked for Clara Reyes. They didn't mention any work of art.'

  As Clara mulled this over, Gertrude went on:

  'I suppose you're not going to want to see them like that. You can put on one of the robes from the loft. But don't touch anything. I don't want any paint marks in my office.'

  The two men were standing waiting for her, looking at glossy catalogues of other works she had been. She recognised Tenderness by Vicky, Horizontal III by Gutierrez Reguero, and The Wolf, in the Meantime, Is Dying of Hunger by Georges Chalboux. The illustrations showed her naked or half-naked body painted in a variety of colours. There were also a few Girl in Front of a Looking Glass catalogues. One of the men was throwing the catalogues on to the table after showing them to his companion, as if he were counting them. They were dressed in expensive suits and looked foreign. When she realised this, Clara's heart skipped a beat: if they had come a long way, perhaps that meant they were really interested in her. Hey, slow down a bit, you've no idea what they're going to propose, she told herself.

  They offered her a chair. As she sat down, her robe opened over her knees like a petal, and one leg painted titanium white and white lead was revealed halfway up to her thigh. She crossed her hands under her chest and sat there like a patient child.

  'Well?' she said.

  The men did not sit down. Only one of them spoke. His Spanish was full of errors, but was easily understandable. Clara could not place his accent.

  'Are you Clara Reyes?'

  'Aha’

  The man took something out of a briefcase: it was the resume Clara usually sent out to the most important artists in Europe and America. Her heart beat faster still.

  'Twenty-four years old,' the man read out loud, 'one hundred and sixty-five centimetres tall, bust eighty-five, waist fifty-five, hips eighty-eight, blonde hair; light blue eyes tinged with green, depilated, no skin blemishes, firm and well-toned, primed four times ... is that correct?'

  'Correct.'

  The man went on reading.

  'Studied HD art and canvas techniques with Cuinet in Barcelona, and adolescent art in Frankfurt with Wedekind. Also in Florence with Ferrucioli. Is that correct?'

  'Well, I was only with Ferrucioli for one week.'

  She didn't want to hide anything, because that always led to difficult questions later on.

  'You've been painted by both Spanish and foreign artists. Do you speak English?'

  'Aha. Perfectly.'

  'You've done interior works and open-air ones. Which are you better at?'

  'Both. I can be an interior work or a seasonal outdoor one, or even be outside permanently, depending on the clothes and the time of year, of course. Although I can pose permanently outside with adequate protec—'

  'We've seen other works you've done,' the man interrupted. 'We like you.'

  'Thanks. But haven't you been downstairs to see Girl in Front of a Looking Glass? It's a really impressive Bassan, and I'm not just saying that because I'm the work, but—'

  'You have also done mobile works of both sorts: performances and reunions,' the man cut in again. 'Were they interactive?'

  'Aha. They were sometimes, yes.'

  'Were you ever bought?'

  'Almost always.'

  'Good.' The man smiled and peered down at the sheets of paper as if there was something there that amused him. 'This resume is for promotional purposes. I'd like to hear your private one.'

  'What do you mean by that?'

  'I mean your whole professional career, and what you can't put in a promotion leaflet. For example: have you ever been an ornament, a mobile, a utensil?'

  'I've never been a human artefact,' Clara replied.

  It was true, although she had no idea whether the man believed her or not. But her own words sounded rather haughty to her, so she quickly added:

  'Human ornaments have not really caught on yet in Spain.'

  'Art-shocks?'

  She hesitated before replying. She straightened up in her chair - her painted buttocks making a swishing sound - and told herself to stay on her guard.

  'I'm sorry, but where are these questions leading?'

  'We want to know what demands we can make of you,' the man responded calmly.

  'I should warn you, I won't do anything illegal.'

  She waited for a reaction that did not come. She hastened to add:

  'Well, it would depend on the circumstances. But first of all I want you to tell me what you're going to do, where you're going to do it, and which artist is thinking of contracting me.'

  'Your answer first, please.'

  She decided there was nothing to lose by telling the truth. She was not a minor; the two art-shocks she had been bought in that year were not the hardest of their kind, and had been put on only in private for an adult audience. But it was also true that on both occasions elements had crept in that perhaps went beyond the limits of what was permitted. For example, in 625 + 50 lines by Adolfo Bermejo, one of the human canvases chopped the head off a live cat and squirted its blood on Clara's back. Was that illegal? She wasn't sure, but the question had been a general one, so she could respond in general terms, too.

  'Yes, I've done art-shocks.'

  'Porno ones?'

  'Never,' she said firmly.

  'But you've worked with Gilberto Brentano, I believe.'

  ‘I did two or three art-shocks with Brentano last year, but none of them was porno.'

  'Have you ever belonged to any group providing underage material for works of art?'

  ‘I worked with The Circle for a few months.'

  'How old were you?'

  'Sixteen.'

  'What did you do there?'

  'The usual. They painted my hair red, ‘I had to wear lots of rings, and I took part in a few murals like Redhair Road.' 'Was that your first artistic experience?' 'Aha.'

  'As far as I can see,' the man said, 'you like tough, risky art. But you don't seem the tough, risk-taking type. You look quite soft to me.'

  For some unknown reason, Clara liked the man's cold disdain. A smile stretched the oil paint on her face.

  ‘I am soft. It's when I'm painted that I toughen up.'

  The man showed no sign of tak
ing this as a joke. He said:

  'We've come to propose something tough and risky. The toughest and most risky thing you've ever done in your life as a canvas, the most important and the most difficult. We want to be sure you're up to it.'

  All of a sudden she realised her mouth was as dry as her paint-covered skin beneath the gown. Her heart was pounding. The man's words excited her. Clara loved extremes, the dark zone the other side of the frontier. If she was told: 'Don't go,' her body stirred and went, just for the simple pleasure of disobeying.

  If something frightened her, she might try to keep it at a distance, but she never lost sight of it. She detested the instructions vulgar artists gave her, but if a painter she admired asked her to do something crazy, whatever it might be, she liked to obey without question. And that 'whatever it might be' recognised few limits. She was obsessed with discovering how far she would allow herself to go if the ideal situation occurred. She felt she was still a long way from her ceiling - or her floor, for that matter.

  That sounds good,' she said.

  After a few moments, the man went on:

  'Naturally, you'll have to drop everything else for a considerable length of time.'

  ‘I can drop everything if the offer is worth it.'

  'The offer is worth it.'

  'And I'm simply supposed to believe that?'

  'Neither of us wants to rush into this, do we?' The man put his hand in his inside pocket. A black leather wallet. A turquoise-coloured card. 'Call this number. You have until tomorrow evening, Thursday.'

  Before she put the card into her robe pocket, she glanced at it: the only thing on it was a phone number. It might be a mobile.

  Gertrude's office was small, with white walls and no windows. Despite this, to Clara it seemed as if it had started to rain outside. There was, at least, a muffled impression of rain. The two men were staring at her, as if waiting for her to say something. So she replied:

  ‘I don't like accepting offers I know nothing about.'

  'You don't need to know anything. You are the work of art. The only one who needs to know is the artist.'

  'Well then, at least tell me the name of the artist who wants to paint me.'

  'That's something we can't reveal.'

  She accepted this refusal without protest. She knew the man was telling the truth. The great painters never revealed their identity to the canvas until their work had started: it was their way of maintaining an element of secrecy about the painting they were going to do.

  The door opened and Gertrude appeared.

  'I'm sorry, but I'm going out to lunch and I need to shut the gallery.'

  'Don't worry, we've just finished.' The two men picked up the catalogues and walked out without another word.

  While she was on show that afternoon, Clara's breasts moved up and down with her breathing. She was so nervous that a state of quiescence was much more difficult to achieve than usual. But daydreaming helped her to stay still, because when dreaming one can move without moving. The time went by and nobody came down to see her, but she wasn't concerned, because she had her fantasies to keep her company

  The toughest and most risky. The most important and difficult.

  Her greatest desire was to be painted by a genius. Various names sprang to mind, but she hardly dared speculate that it might be one of them. She didn't want to raise her hopes up too high, so as not to be disappointed. She kept in her pose in the silent whiteness of the room until Gertrude told her it was time to close.

  Outside it really was raining: a violent summer shower that had been forecast on TV. On other occasions she would have run to the car park entrance, but today she preferred to walk slowly in the downpour, with her make-up bag slung over her shoulder. She realised her tracksuit was clinging to her like a wet sheet, and the beret was dripping on to her face, but it wasn't an unpleasant sensation. In fact, she welcomed it. Cold diamonds of water showering down upon her.

  The toughest and most risky. The most important and difficult.

  What if it was a trap? It had been known. You were contracted - supposedly on behalf of a great maestro - taken out of the country and forced to take part in porno art. But she didn't think this was anything like that. And even if it were, she would take the risk. Being a work of art meant accepting all the risks, all the sacrifices. She was more scared of being disappointed than of facing danger. She could accept falling into any trap except that of mediocrity.

  The toughest and most risky. The most important and ...

  All at once she felt as though her body was melting. She felt fluid, at one with the rain. She looked down at her feet and saw what was happening. She had forgotten she was still painted, and the raindrops were washing off all the white paint. As she walked along, she was leaving a trail behind her, a curving milky stream that flowed from her tracksuit on to the pavement of the Calle Velazquez, only to be quickly blotted out by the rain, as sharp and precise as a Pointillist painter. White, white, white.

  Little by little, as the water cleansed her, Clara grew darker.

  2

  Red. Red was the overwhelming colour. Red like a huge mass of crushed poppies. Miss Wood took off her glasses to examine the photos.

  'We found her early this morning in a wooded part of the Wienerwald,' the policeman said, 'about an hour's drive from Vienna. Two birdwatchers who had been studying the cries of owls raised the alarm. Well, in fact they told the uniformed police, and lieutenant-colonel Huddle called us in. That's what usually happens.'

  As the policeman spoke, Bosch passed the photos to Miss Wood one by one. They showed a grassy clearing, with beech trees and flowers, and the surprising presence of a flycatcher on the grass next to the pink blouse that had been torn to shreds. But everything was covered in red, including the slipper shaped like a teddy bear lying behind a tree trunk. There was a broad smile on the bear's face.

  'All these things scattered around ...' said Miss Wood.

  It was an enormous table and the policeman sitting opposite Miss Wood could not see what she was pointing at, but he knew exactly what she meant.

  'Her clothing.'

  'Why is it so torn and bloodstained?'

  'You're right, it is strange. It was the first thing that we noticed. Then we found bits of material stuck in her wounds, so we concluded that he cut her up with her clothes on, and tore them off later.'

  'Why would he do that?'

  The policeman wafted his hand in the air.

  'Sexual abuse, perhaps. So far we haven't found any evidence, but we're waiting for the forensic expert's final report. And anyway, people like that don't always behave logically'

  'It's as if ... it were on show, isn't it? All draped around for photos to be taken of it.'

  'Is this how she was found?' Bosch asked the policeman.

  'Yes, on her back with her arms and legs spread out.'

  'He left her labels on,' Bosch pointed out to Miss Wood.

  'So I see’ said Miss Wood. 'The labels are hard to get off, but whatever he used to make this kind of wound would have cut through them like paper. Has the tool been identified?'

  'It was electronic, whatever it was,' the policeman replied. 'We think it might have been a scalpel or some kind of electric saw. Each wound is a deep single cut.' He stretched his hand out across the table and tapped one of the photos closest to him with a pencil. 'There are ten of them altogether: two in the face, two in the chest, two in the stomach, one in each thigh, and two in her back. Eight of them forming crosses, so four crosses altogether. The two in the thighs are vertical. And don't ask me the reason for that either.'

  'Did she die from the wounds?'

  'Probably. I've already told you, we're waiting for the report from—'

  'Do we have an estimated time of death?

  'Taking into account the state of the body, we think it must have happened on Wednesday night, a few hours after she was driven away in the van.'

  Miss Wood was holding her glasses between the fin
gers of her left hand. She used them to gently tap Bosch's arm:

  'I'd say there isn't that much blood in the photos. Do you agree?'

  'I was thinking the same.’

  'It's true,' the policeman said. 'He didn't kill her in the wood. Perhaps he cut her up in the van. Maybe he used some sort of sedative, because the body showed no signs of a struggle or of having been bound. Afterwards, he dragged her to the clearing and left her on the grass.'