by Lesley Kara
The bathroom is empty and so are the two bedrooms at the front of the house. My muscles tense. There’s only one place left where she can possibly be. The back bedroom.
Hardly breathing, I turn the handle and push open the door. My eyes roam each corner of the room. It’s not a bedroom at all but an art studio. Several unfinished paintings are stacked against the wall. There’s an old oak table she obviously uses as a desk. It’s cluttered with jars of pens and pencils, big pots of paintbrushes and piles of newspapers and scrapbooks and photocopied cuttings. Coils and slivers of paper litter the surface of the table and the floor beneath. The closed blades of scissors of various sizes have been stuck into lumps of Blu Tack and ranged in order of height along the side of the table.
I sag against the door frame. This isn’t an episode of Midsomer Murders and Liz isn’t lying face down in a pool of blood. Nor is she hanging from a loft hatch. She’s just nipped out to the shops or something and forgotten about the unlocked gate and back door. She’s an artist. A creative. They have a tendency to be absent-minded, don’t they? I almost laugh.
I must get out of here. Now. If she comes back and catches me in her studio, I’ll be mortified. Would she believe me if I told her I thought she’d collapsed?
I’m just about to leave when I spot an unusual picture leaning against the wall. It’s nothing at all like her other stuff. This is an incomplete self-portrait. Unflattering to the point of ugly. I can’t resist staring at it, this brutally honest depiction of a Liz I’ve never seen before yet instantly recognize, even in this raw, unfinished state. There’s something odd about it, though. It looks as if it’s created out of something other than paint.
I step a little closer and see that I’m right. Of course. That explains all the cut-outs on the floor. It’s made out of tiny scraps of paper, some white, some black. The black bits are used for the shaded areas of her face – the hollows under her eyes, the pupils of the eyes themselves and the sunken cheeks, the nostrils. Such a labour-intensive process. It must have taken her ages just to get this far with it.
Then my eyes snag on the headline of one of the newspaper cuttings on the desk and my heart does a weird little flip. ‘“I still remember the blood,” says child killer Sally McGowan’s former friend and neighbour Margaret Cole.’ It’s the same article I read online, from the Daily Mail, dated 3 August 1999. It’s been printed off the internet on to a piece of A4 paper, and right in the middle, where the picture of Sally McGowan’s face used to be, is a hole.
Blood pumps in my ears. Are those scraps of paper that make up Liz’s self-portrait what I think they are? Are they cut out of images of Sally McGowan’s face?
The floorboards behind me creak and I spin round. Liz is standing in the doorway, a carving knife in her hand.
33
The knife clatters to the floor. Liz stares at me.
‘Joanna!’ she says. ‘What are you doing in my house?’
I open my mouth to explain, but all I can think of is the self-portrait behind me and how it’s been made.
I swallow hard, eyes glued to the knife on the floor.
‘I thought you were an intruder,’ she says, picking it up.
My whole body stiffens.
‘I thought someone had broken in.’
‘I’ve been ringing you for ages,’ I say at last. ‘I sent you emails. I was worried about you so I came round and …’
She’s staring at me through narrowed eyes. The knife hangs loosely in her hand.
‘You didn’t answer the doorbell, so I … I came round the back. The gate was open. I called out for you. You weren’t in the garden and the shed was locked up. The back door was unlocked. I thought maybe you’d … I thought maybe you’d collapsed somewhere.’
Her shoulders sag as she exhales.
‘Oh dear. I was round the back of the shed, clearing ground elder.’ She raises her fingers to her earlobe. ‘I don’t have my hearing aid in.’
‘I didn’t know you were deaf.’
She frowns. ‘I’m not deaf, I’m just a bit hard of hearing. Come on,’ she says, turning to leave the room. ‘Let’s put some coffee on. We’re lucky we didn’t give each other a heart attack.’
I follow her downstairs. Why isn’t she saying anything about the portrait? She must know I’ve seen it. My face was only a couple of centimetres away from the canvas when she came into the room. And she must know I’ve seen the cuttings on her desk.
Thoughts slide about and crash into one another in my head. Could this mean what I think it does? Is Liz Blackthorne Sally McGowan? Why else would she make a self-portrait out of pictures of a child killer? Is it Liz who’s been sending me threatening tweets? Did she alter the class photo too?
My knees tremble. I touch the handrail for support, the palm of my hand sticking to it as I concentrate on planting each foot squarely down. My eyes slide to the black-and-white photographs on the wall and it’s like I’m seeing them for the very first time. One is of a stocky man in a striped apron standing outside a butcher’s shop, legs apart, arms folded. Another is of a little girl in a cotton frock and knitted cardigan pushing a toy pram along a dirty street.
My stomach contracts into a tight little ball. Some are shots of rooftops, a whole sea of them all jutting up against each other, and, in the distance, huge industrial chimneys belching out smoke. Others are of children crouching at kerbsides or clambering over burnt-out cars. Children clustered near derelict buildings.
They’re just like that documentary Michael and I watched the other day. Why didn’t I notice them before?
Liz is at the bottom of the stairs now, and I’m just a few steps behind. If she were to turn round and run up at me with that knife, I wouldn’t stand a chance.
She turns and walks towards the kitchen. I could open the front door and leave. Tell her I’ve just remembered I’ve got to be somewhere else. Tell her I’ll call her later. But I don’t. I follow her into the kitchen and watch as she opens a drawer and drops the knife inside, pushes it shut.
I breathe out. She switches the kettle on, then unscrews a metal cafetière. She opens the drawer again. I take a step back, but she’s just getting a spoon out. She fills the cafetière with three heaped dessertspoons of coffee. She plucks two pottery mugs from one of the open shelves above the counter.
This is Liz. Liz from book club. Clever, funny Liz, with her love of books and art and conversation. This isn’t Sally McGowan. It can’t be. And yet … I know something’s coming. This fussing over coffee is just a prelude. I sense it in the way she’s moving. Slowly. Deliberately. She’s playing for time. Working up to it.
She puts the cafetière and two mugs on a tray. ‘Do you take milk and sugar?’
‘Just milk, please.’
She’s almost at the fridge when she freezes. ‘Oh.’ She pulls an apologetic face. ‘I don’t think I have any milk. I’m sorry.’
‘That’s fine. I’ll drink it black.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘I taught myself to appreciate black coffee when I was at art school,’ she says. Her voice is warm and friendly, as if this is any old day and we are just two friends having coffee. I try to tell myself that this is any old day and that we are just two friends having coffee. I haven’t just found a disturbing self-portrait in her studio and a pile of newspaper cuttings about Sally McGowan.
‘It went with the territory,’ she says. ‘Along with copious amounts of red wine and lots of bed-hopping.’
She smiles and hands me the tray. ‘Why don’t you carry this into the dining room and I’ll cut up some cake.’
I take the tray and, as I turn, I feel the weight of her gaze on the back of my neck. Why am I still here? I need to get back to work. Dave will be wondering where I am.
When I’ve put the tray on the dining-room table, I take my phone out of my pocket and speed-dial the office.
‘Sorry, Dave, I’ve been held up at Sea Breeze Court. Should be with you in about
twenty minutes.’
‘No worries,’ Dave says. ‘It’s nice and quiet this morning. See you later.’
While I wait for Liz to come in with the cake, I look at the pictures on the wall. Her paintings. They are fierce and abstract. Kaleidoscopic swirls of colour and form. Which is what makes the realism of the self-portrait upstairs all the more striking.
‘Some people don’t get my kind of work.’
I didn’t hear her come in. She’s standing next to me, so close that our shoulders almost touch.
‘I don’t know much about art,’ I say, afraid she’ll hear my heart beating.
The weird thing is, I don’t know if I’m genuinely frightened of her or whether it’s just a heightened awareness that I should be frightened, and that’s producing the same physical sensations. I feel like I’m a character in a film. None of it is really happening. But it is. It is.
‘I really like these, though,’ I say. ‘I don’t know what they’re meant to represent, but they draw me in.’
‘That’s why I prefer not to give my paintings titles,’ she says. ‘If you read the title of a painting it directs your thoughts in a particular way, and I’d rather people drew their own conclusions.’
She pushes down the plunger on the cafetière. ‘I have my own, private titles, though.’
What, I wonder, is her private title for the unfinished portrait upstairs? Will she tell me? Will we even speak about it? We have to. We can’t just drink coffee and eat cake. We can’t just have an intellectual conversation about the meaning of art when there’s a bloody great elephant in the room.
I take a chance. ‘You’ve heard what’s been going on at Stones and Crones, I suppose.’
Liz takes a bite of her cake, washes it down with a mouthful of coffee.
‘I have. And it sickens me. Poor Sonia.’
I shift position in my chair. Does she hold me responsible for what’s happening with her friend? I want to tell her that it’s almost certainly Maddie’s friend Anne Wilson who put that picture up, but then it will look as if I’m trying to push the blame on to her when, actually, Maddie wouldn’t even have known about the rumour if I hadn’t blurted it out in the first place.
And how do I know for sure that Maddie is telling the truth? Maybe Maddie hates Anne Wilson for an entirely different reason. Maybe Anne has been flirting with Maddie’s husband and it’s Maddie who’s the vindictive one. After all, how well do I really know her? How well do we know anyone, come to that?
If only I’d never said anything at book club. If only I hadn’t told Cathy and Debbie what Michael told me about the ‘dry-town’ theory, then Cathy wouldn’t have told everyone at the babysitting-circle meeting and none of this would be happening. Without fresh gossip, the rumour would have fizzled out by now.
‘Michael and I tried to help her,’ I say.
Liz widens her eyes. ‘Michael?’
‘Yes, Alfie’s dad. My … my partner. He’s living with me now.’
Liz goes very still. ‘How does he think he can help her?’
‘By doing a story about false accusations. Making it clear she’s not McGowan.’
‘You mean, he’s a journalist?’
‘Yes.’
Liz presses her lips together. Something about her has changed. There’s a strange sensation in the pit of my stomach.
‘We were wondering if … if you’d speak to Sonia. Try to persuade her to talk to Michael. She got very angry when she found out he was a journalist. I can’t say I blame her, but Michael says it’ll get worse. There’ve been cases where people have been hounded out of their homes because of false rumours.’
‘I know,’ she says. Her voice is clipped. She won’t meet my eyes.
I want to tell her I feel bad for passing the rumour on. I want to tell her it was only that once. At book club. But knowing me, I’ll go red when I say it. My face always lets me down when I’m lying, and then she’ll know I feel guilty. Better to say nothing. I’ll only end up tying myself in knots. And besides, another question burns in my mind.
The question I daren’t ask her.
34
‘You need to know something about me,’ Liz says.
I brace myself. This is it. She’s going to tell me who she is. Our eyes meet briefly, then we both look down at our coffees. Part of me doesn’t want to hear what’s coming next. I want to get away from her. Away from this house. Back to Dave in the office. Back to normality. But another part knows I’m staying. I have to know the truth. Not just because of Michael and his book – my God, what he wouldn’t give to be here now – but because I’m curious. I need to know.
‘I don’t live like other people,’ Liz says. ‘I like my solitude. It’s the only way I can work.’ She pushes her mug away from her and folds her arms on the table. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to see other people. I do. But only when I’m able to socialize. When I feel up to it. It sounds a bit pretentious to say it’s because I’m an artist, but …’ She twists her mouth into an odd little smile. ‘… it’s because I’m an artist.’
I wait for her to continue. I have the feeling that, if I speak, I’ll break the spell of her confession. If that’s what this is.
‘When I’m working on a project, it consumes me,’ she says. ‘Nothing else matters. Nothing. The normal niceties of social interaction. Commitments like book club.’ She points to her dishevelled hair and smiles. ‘Personal grooming. It all falls by the wayside. This morning was the first time I’ve done something else. I needed to get out in the fresh air, do something physical. And I never remember to lock my back door.’
She takes a sip of coffee. ‘It’s nice to know you were concerned about me, Jo,’ she says. ‘And I’m sorry I frightened you with the knife.’
I make myself smile and nod. When is she going to mention the portrait? Surely she’s not going to leave it like that?
‘I’ll speak to Sonia,’ she says. ‘But I doubt very much she’ll give Michael an interview. She’s a very private person. Like me.’ Her eyes narrow. ‘Sometimes it’s better to let things run their course. People will tire of it soon enough, when they see her getting on with her life, when she refuses to rise to the bait. A story in a paper will just fan the flames, in my opinion. Sonia needs to carry on as if nothing has happened.’
I can’t hold my tongue any longer. I have to ask her about the portrait.
‘The project you’re working on at the moment …’ I say. The words hang in the air between us.
Liz gives me a sharp look.
‘Is it that self-portrait I saw in your studio?’
She straightens her spine. ‘I don’t usually talk about things I’m working on. Not until I’ve finished them,’ she says, gathering up our plates and mugs, signalling that the conversation is over. This part of it, at least.
‘Can I ask you something before I go?’
I’ve crossed into forbidden territory. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing but, now that I’ve started, I can’t stop.
Liz leans back in her chair and scrutinizes my face. She blinks several times in quick succession.
‘I saw the cuttings.’ I say. ‘I know what the bits of paper are.’ My breath catches in my throat. What comes out is barely even a whisper. ‘You’re not … you’re not her, are you?’
A faint smile plays at the corners of Liz’s mouth. I can’t believe I said that. Can’t believe I’m sitting here asking Liz from book club if she’s Sally McGowan. I ball my fists between my thighs.
‘Did you ever see the painting Myra, by Marcus Harvey?’ she says.
‘No, but I vaguely remember reading something about it once. Didn’t someone throw paint at it?’
‘It was vandalized, yes. It caused a huge controversy when it was hung at the Royal Academy. Not just because of the subject matter, but because it was made up of prints taken from the cast of a child’s hand. People thought it was an outrage. The victims’ families wanted it removed to protect their feelings. Even Myra Hindley hersel
f wanted it taken down, but it wasn’t. It stayed for the duration of the exhibition, and rightly so, in my view. Art should divide opinion. It should provoke emotion. Art should make us think.
‘When you told us about the rumour I was interested to see the different reactions in the group. It got me thinking about the case. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. That’s how I know an idea’s got legs. When it doesn’t let me go.’
‘But … but why is it a self-portrait?’
‘Remember Nietzsche?’ Liz says. ‘“He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.”’
She fixes me with her eyes, and though I want to look away, I can’t.
‘There’s darkness in everyone’s soul,’ she says. ‘That’s what my portrait is all about. We’re all of us capable of evil thoughts and evil acts under certain circumstances. I’m an artist, Jo. This is what I do.’
‘I didn’t mean to accuse you, I …’
‘You didn’t accuse. You asked.’
‘Same thing, isn’t it?’
She clasps her hands together in front of her chin, her elbows on the table. Her eyes flash. ‘What if I’d said yes?’ she says.
I laugh, except the noise that comes out of my mouth sounds more like a whimper.
It’s only when we’ve said goodbye and I’m walking to my car that it occurs to me she didn’t actually say no.
35
When I get back to the office Dave is with a client. I slide into the chair behind my desk and switch on my PC, immerse myself in routine tasks. Anything to push the last half-hour to the back of my mind.
Do I believe what Liz just told me? Is that really what her portrait is about? An exploration of the monster in all of us? It has a ring of truth about it. Artists do get obsessed with certain subjects. I watched a series of programmes once on BBC Four – What Do Artists Do All Day? – and it was a fascinating insight into the creative process. But the way she reacted when I mentioned that Michael was a journalist – I wasn’t imagining that. I know I wasn’t. Something about her changed.