‘Complicated men like that are never easy, which is why I’m wary of artists – male ones, that is. Too much ego. Like actors and most creatives. But this is amazing.’ She held up the letter. Just then Felicity’s mobile phone rang. She took the call. ‘Hi… he has!? Well, get him out of the pool immediately, and get the band to start early. Okay, I’ll be there in five.’ She clicked off, then turned to Susie. ‘My idiot stepson has fallen into the pool again. I have to go back – if you want to keep reading, feel free, just switch the lights off and pull the door shut when you leave.’
*
Susie waited until Felicity’s footsteps had faded into the distance, then returned all the letters to the folder – except one. Carefully she folded it along the creases made by previous folding, then slipped it into her clutch.
Before she left she took a moment and stood in the middle of the Chapman Brothers’ installation to murmur a prayer to the art god of revenge.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The hotel room had expensive lighting, the kind that throws a kind of aquatic half-light and makes everything softer, more beautiful. Susie stepped back and admired her handiwork. Felix lay naked and splayed, tied to the four posts of the hotel bed. He’d played along; submissive was a new role for him and he’d come to the conclusion that she might need to feel empowered because in reality she was not; so he’d decided to indulge her.
It had been a bemusing proposition, but now that he was tied up, the bonds around his wrists tight enough to cut into his skin, his legs splayed to each bedpost, he was surprised at how hard he was. It wasn’t so much surrender as the trepidation involved that he found arousing. She was now kneeling astride him, dressed in a bra, a suspender belt, stockings but no underpants. Last time they’d had sex was over three weeks earlier, and now there was something different about her body he couldn’t quite place. At first he wondered whether it wasn’t only the way her bra pushed her breasts up, but then he realised she was more voluptuous.
‘You look different, more… womanly,’ he told her carefully.
‘I said no speaking; you’re spoiling the game,’ she answered roughly, then tied a blindfold tightly across his eyes, plunging him into darkness.
He felt acutely aware of how helpless he now was; but, blind, all his other faculties seemed heightened.
Susie glanced around the room. By the bedside table there was a heavy marble ashtray. She could reach across, lift it and smash it across his head if she wanted. He would die instantly, she thought, momentarily tempted. Would she do it, if she really thought he’d killed Maxine?
No, she would make him pay slowly, ruin him, then let him languish in some dreadful state penitentiary. Until then she had to play the game out.
She stared down at his muscular tanned body, his heavy and hard cock pressing against her sex, his nipples erect, the scent of him delicious and musky rising up from his chest hair, his thick, black armpit hair exposed as his muscled arms lay tied above his head, the pout of his full lips below the blindfold, the beauty of his face… was he capable of something as calculating as betrayal and murder?
She ran a finger across his lips, knowing she would have to conjure up an erotic memory to stay in the moment. She remembered a time when Maxine had tied her up, splayed like this, between the wooden pillars of her London studio. It had been one of the most erotic lovemaking sessions they’d had, and it still made her wet to think of it. She pushed her finger slowly into his mouth. Wet. Beyond wet – pulsating, aching, wanting. Maxine, usually the one to be taken, had insisted she take Susie that day. It had been the day after one of Susie’s openings at White Cube, both of them still wired from the drinking and carousing the night before, both of them wanting release. Maxine had tied her tightly, roughly, and then with a scalpel had carefully cut around her breasts, arse and crotch so that the rest of her had stayed clothed. It had been intensely sensual, the way her breasts pushed out of the fabric of her tight T-shirt, her jeans held together over her hips only by the outer seams, her shaved pussy and arse tantalisingly exposed. She knew Maxine was angry with her, obliquely furious for the great reviews that had appeared early that day. She knew the power play was dangerous, that the scalpel could slip, and yet she had surrendered control, like Felix had surrendered control. She took both of his nipples between her long fingernails and pinched down hard. He groaned.
When Maxine had tied her up, she hadn’t blindfolded her. Instead she had gagged her, so that Susie could watch but not utter a single groan or cry. At the time she had seen how Maxine had made her into a fantasy figure, the opposite of a sexless doll – a body that had no identity. But it was only about genitalia: sex, nipples, glistening lips waiting to be fucked, penetrated. She’d also made her wait, in the way Susie was making Felix wait, and in this waiting was the imagining.
She bent down and bit his left nipple while still twisting his right, then ran her tongue down the centre of his body.
‘Sit on my face,’ he murmured.
‘No.’ Her voice firm, authoritative, remembering how the gag had tasted, pushed hard against the back of her tongue and teeth, how before she was tied up she’d watched Maxine take two of their largest dildos and lubricate them slowly and teasingly in front of her. Then, remaining completely dressed herself, she had slowly bitten and sucked at each of Susie’s nipples, drawing out sensations Susie hadn’t even been aware that she could feel, without touching her clit or bringing her off, despite Susie’s muffled pleading, her writhing at the tight bonds. Only when she could see that Susie’s nipples were raw and swollen in painful pleasure did Maxine drop to her knees and, cupping Susie’s naked buttocks in her hands, draw her sex and clit to her mouth. Knowing exactly what her lover liked, she deliberately played it the other way, sucking and tonguing her erect clit without touching her vagina or anus. Then every time she sensed Susie was near orgasm she would stop completely and take her mouth away, blowing on Susie’s swollen labia, each time taking her to a new plateau of pleasure.
Susie reached Felix’s groin, his hot cock arching high over her face. She deliberately avoided touching it, instead gently biting the inside of his thighs, circling the root of his sex until he was begging her to blow him. His cries kept her in her own bondage memory, of how after an hour of Maxine’s mouth on her sex, Maxine finally reached for the two dildos and, with her mouth fastened firmly around the tip of Susie’s clit, parted her wide from beneath and slowly pushed both dildos into her. Filling her and spreading her in an utterly exposing manner, all her inhibitions lost in the sheer overwhelming pain/pleasure of it, as Maxine, to her surprise, pushed them faster and faster in and out of her writhing body, screaming at her to come.
Susie took Felix’s balls into her mouth, first the right and then the left, sucking gently, her fingers curling up behind his buttocks, finding him and entering him slowly, his torso tensing in expectation. Then finally she took him into her mouth, deeply, thinking about those dildos, the breadth and length of them, the way she felt so completely split and penetrated by them, by Maxine, by her anger, her authority over her at that moment. Then when she felt the beginning of an orgasm at the base, she withdrew and, raising herself over his body, plunged him into her, her sex wet at the thought of what Maxine had done to her two years before, riding him hard until he shuddered into her uncontrollably.
And then she came, not with him but in her memory.
Turning, she noticed Felix’s video camera sitting on the side table. She climbed off but left him still tied to the bed, blindfolded, spent and damp.
‘Where are you going?’
‘Nowhere. Stay there.’
‘Do I have a choice?’
‘No.’ She lifted the video camera and moved as silently as she could towards the door.
In the en suite reception room she checked the screen of the camera. The first set of stills were from the videos he’d taken of them, that first night on the balcony. But scrolling back she came across a still of a half-naked woman standing i
n the centre of Felix’s lounge, angel wings arching out from behind her. For a moment she thought it might be an artwork, then she recognised the woman. It was the waitress, the one who’d accosted her at the Met Gala. So he had lied to her.
Shocked, she touched the screen and watched as the camera followed the woman as, laughing and obviously stoned, she led the way out to the balcony…
‘I want you to fulfil your destiny, to make something of yourself and this will make you great…’ Felix’s voice off screen sounded compelling yet sinister. ‘… this will make you part of the stellar constellation of artists out there, the giants who have made history.’
Susie watched, horrified and fascinated, as the girl climbed up on to the edge of the wall, the wind blowing her hair, the lights of the city cross-beams of tone behind her.
‘Don’t jump, don’t jump,’ Susie moaned out loud. The girl wavered, stretching out her arms – a crucifixion against the sky – and for a moment it looked as if she was going to fall. Unable to watch any more, Susie stopped the film and then scrolled further back along the rows of frozen stills of the stored footage. The image of Maxine’s face leapt out at her. Staring down, she touched the image; immediately the video began to play, the image pulling out to reveal Maxine and Felix, naked on the balcony, eating a meal, wearing the same hats Susie had worn with Felix all those weeks ago. Maxine was laughing and smiling, obviously besotted with Felix, who appeared to be attentive and charming, his gestures almost identical to the ones he’d used to seduce her.
*
Gabriel sat in the thin sliver of sunlight that fell between the buildings and through his window. It was comforting, basking in the warmth; it took him out of his thinking world, which was what he wanted. To just be in the pencil between his fingers, the tip pressed against the rough paper catching graphite in its fibres. He was thinking of how to sketch out the next Hopper; closing his eyes he conjured up the image of Maxine Doubleday in semi-profile, the tilt of her face, the blonde hair catching the light, the slender fragility of her wrists and arms, the sweep of her neck and breasts. He opened his eyes and realised he’d started drawing.
Chapter Twenty-Three
They made an odd couple, Latisha and Susie. Latisha was dressed in her best church clothes: purple dress suit, matching hat, her expensive gloves and her best shoes; while Susie, in a tailored Paul Smith suit, had her red hair piled dramatically atop her head, her Burberry shoulder bag slung over her shoulder. They’d already made an impression at the upmarket restaurant Susie had chosen, the two of them so different in appearance, accent and outlook that they had the waiters (after recognising Susie) and fellow diners alike trying to guess how the two women were connected.
Over lunch, Latisha found she liked the English artist; her directness and evident indifference to both her own success and wealth were endearing. But she was also strong and opinionated. Given Maxine’s brittle psychology, Latisha could see how there might have been less and less space for the sculptor to survive.
It was late closing at the Whitney and they had planned to arrive just before the place was due to close in the hope that by then many of the galleries would have emptied. By the time they got to the antechamber in which the Hopper painting was hanging there was only one loitering spectator: a young German tourist who seemed fascinated by the two paintings facing each other in the small space. The two women waited ten minutes, pretending they didn’t know each other while studying the paintings beside him; finally he left.
Susie checked her watch. ‘We have about 20 minutes. Stand by the door and cough loudly if you spot the guard.’
Latisha took her position by the door while Susie fished out a magnifying glass from her handbag and began to closely examine the surface of Girl in a Yellow Square of Light. Under the glass the brushstrokes appeared convincing; she’d seen other Hoppers and this seemed to have the same sweep of the hand and blending of the pigment. She guessed that the forger had studied Hopper assiduously and was, most likely, a fine painter himself.
‘It’s not going to be the brushwork,’ she told Latisha.
‘Just find something, something that isn’t of the era: that’s what Hector told me to search for,’ Latisha replied, listening out for footsteps. She could hear voices but they sounded as if they were two galleries away. Meticulously Susie scanned the painting, from the top left-hand corner of the canvas to the bottom; as she reached the far right-hand corner she noticed a group of four hairs from a paintbrush embedded in a blob of paint. She peered closer. The hairs appeared to be semi-translucent, as if they might be synthetic. Synthetic paintbrushes were not in existence when Hopper was painting, and anyway, she knew he always painted with the same type of sable brushes.
‘I think I have it.’
Outside the voices were drawing nearer.
‘Hurry, someone’s coming!’ Latisha urged.
Calmly Susie took her tweezers from her handbag and plucked three of the hairs out, carefully leaving one still embedded in the paint. She placed them in a matchbox, then, stepping away from the painting, put everything back into her handbag.
At that moment a guard entered the room. ‘Ladies, we’re closing in three minutes. Please make your way to the exit.’
Susie smiled at him and took Latisha’s arm to lead her out of the gallery.
*
Hector Ortega was taking his time. The scientist was a firm believer in not pre-empting results, through either rushing or simply a projection of hope. Such mishaps had led to his exile from Cuba, and he’d learnt from his mistakes. He adjusted the electronic microscope, which made a whirring sound as it extended and focused. On the viewing plate was a glass slide with two samples of paper side by side: one from the torn pages of the first edition Susie had found in Felix’s library, the other taken from the Jo Hopper letter she’d stolen from Felicity Kocak.
Susie sat anxiously at Hector’s worktable in the dimly lit basement laboratory, in front of a glass of the thick black coffee he had made for the two of them, wondering whether the Cuban had another scientific sideline or whether he confined himself to creating and debunking forgeries. Meanwhile Latisha, unable to deal with the pressure of waiting, was rubbing an old voodoo doll her grandmother had given her for good luck, over and over. Finally, Hector spoke.
‘The paper is from the same source. The weave is circa the late 1930s; I would wager it is from exactly the same publisher and the same batch. There are usually minute variations, but these two samples are identical. The letter was written on old paper from a first edition – a standard con, no brilliance there. If you could bring me the exact book this sheet is from, you’ll have him. What else have you got for me?’
Susie pushed the matchbox across the table. ‘This – a couple of brush hairs I pulled from the surface of the painting itself. They were embedded in the paint.’
‘Careless.’
‘Very, especially when they look like nylon to me.’
‘Nylon? Interesting – Mr Hopper certainly would not have used brushes with synthetic fibres.’ Hector opened the matchbox and carefully removed the hairs with a pair of tweezers, placed them between two glass slides, then put the sandwich under the microscope.
‘Susie… ’ Latisha reached across the top of the worktable and squeezed Susie’s hand. ‘We might have him.’
‘You do,’ Hector growled from behind his microscope. ‘They’re synthetic hairs, for sure. You did leave some still embedded in the painting for proof?’
‘Absolutely.’ Susie grinned.
Not quite believing her ears, Latisha glanced at Susie, then at Hector. ‘You mean we have him? We have the devil by the tail?’
Hector sat back and pushed his glasses to the top of his bald pate. ‘You have the beginning of a good case – faked provenance, synthetic hairs on the painting itself – and you haven’t even examined the back of the painting yet. When you do, I suspect you’ll find that the weave of the canvas is wrong too. Maybe not the placement of the tacks, but th
e canvas itself.’
‘What I don’t understand is why he would go to all that trouble to make the painting so real, then make one stupid lazy mistake like using the wrong brushes?’ Susie wondered out loud.
‘There comes a time in an art forger’s life when he begins to think of himself as untouchable, undetectable, maybe even better than the original artist himself. That’s when he starts making mistakes.’
‘Or else there’s a part of him that wants to get caught,’ Latisha added, grinning.
Susie stood up. ‘Can I have a look?’
‘Sure.’ Hector stepped away from the microscope and she leaned over the machine, peering down into the viewfinder. The magnified fibres were both the same – even and tubular in structure. ‘I guess if they were natural fibres they would all be different to each other?’ she asked Hector, still staring down at the slide.
‘Only machines can reproduce fibres so exactly.’
She thought about Maxine’s hair, the beauty of it, the way she used to wind it around her finger, each blonde strand individual, irreplaceable, how her death left so much of her life unlived, so much of her talent unexplored, how it was a crime against nature. ‘Could you imagine killing someone to hide a forgery?’
Hector sighed, then reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out a half-smoked cigar. Flicking open a gold lighter, he lit it. ‘That would depend on how much I stood to lose,’ he said philosophically. ‘Your friend, I think, had everything to lose.’
‘Has everything to lose,’ Latisha interjected grimly.
*
Later that afternoon Susie went back to her studio. The space, emptied of staff, extras and props, still had a trailing anarchy that hung in the air. She’d only finished shooting the fifth image two days earlier and now she had them all printed out and spread across a large light box. All she was lacking was a final image to draw all her experiences of the last three months together.
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