The Beautiful Dead

by Belinda Bauer

  He shrugged. ‘I couldn’t just leave you to it,’ he said. ‘But I still think it’s a bad plan.’

  ‘It is a bad plan,’ she said. ‘But it’s the only plan we’ve got.’

  ‘It’s the only plan you’ve got. My plan is, we go to the airport right now and fly to Jamaica. Sun, sea and sand while somebody else sorts all this murder shit out. That sounds like a better plan, don’t you think?’

  ‘And what about my dad?’

  Joe reddened. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I was only thinking of you.’

  ‘I know you were.’ She kissed him hard on the cheek, and he looked at her suspiciously.

  ‘You’re not going somewhere, are you?’ He was only half joking.

  ‘Of course not!’

  She looked away from him. She hated lying to Joe.

  Eve started up the stairs to the galleries. As she walked away from Joe, she felt as if she were stepping into quicksand. Suddenly shaky underfoot, and with no safe anchor, she felt she was stepping off the edge of the world.

  She took out her phone to remind herself one last time of the slip-slidey face of William Stafford Vandenberg.

  She had never thought Death would look so ordinary.

  After the Turbine Hall, the white-walled galleries at first felt boxy and nightmarish. She hurried through three rooms without seeing a thing before she remembered that she was supposed to be looking for the killer – and that she was supposed to breathe. She slowed down and tried to focus on faces, but it was crowded and everybody looked like him – and nobody did. His face kept dropping out of her mind, so unremarkable that it couldn’t take root. She kept second-guessing herself. So scared she’d miss him that she kept turning for a second look, and missing someone else …

  She felt dizzy. She was in a panic. She stood still and breathed and breathed and breathed until she felt that air was actually entering her lungs.

  Her head cleared a little and she looked round for Joe. He was there – across the busy gallery, frowning in concern. She looked away from him, so as not to give him away. He was using the hidden camera he’d had at the Barnstormer Theatre, so as to stay under the radar of staff.

  Eve took another deep breath and prepared to move on. She turned and almost bumped into Elvis Presley.

  He was nine feet tall, and silver and black. All quiff and narrow hips, angled for danger and sex. No hint of the drugs or the fried peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches to come. Only his youth and beauty were captured here on this canvas, and standing in front of the painting made her feel somehow connected to Elvis. She smiled and turned so that Joe could share the feeling with her, but there were too many people passing between them and she couldn’t see him.

  She looked around her – half for Joe, half for Vandenberg. She kept expecting to lock eyes with the killer and feel the lurch of recognition and fear.

  But all eyes were on the walls, and even hers could not be dragged away for long.

  Elvis had opened the door, and Eve floated through the galleries like a child turning the pages of the world’s most amazing pop-up book – with every wonder seen through new eyes, and revealed between the shoulders of strangers. After viewing each masterpiece Eve looked around her, but in seeking a killer, she found only more magnetic beauty. The milling crowds would thin and suddenly part to surprise her with Whaam! or refresh her with Splash. There was a Freud nude, all pallid fat and cold light; buxom girls baking on a Matisse beach; a shimmering waterfall of Klimt.

  The crowd split to reveal a surprising Van Gogh. Surely too early for this collection – and even Eve could tell it was not a good Van Gogh. Not sunflowers, or a self-portrait. Only dull, windy cypresses and pinkish skies and a brown ploughed field. And …

  Eve leaned in and felt the breath sucked from her lungs.

  And a thumbprint.

  A single accidental print in the thick paint.

  The realization struck her like lightning.

  She was standing where the artist had stood. Vincent Van Gogh had stood right here – right here – and watched these creamy-pink clouds roll in, watched these cypresses sway in the breeze, travelled every muddy inch of these furrows – first with his boots and then with his brush.

  And then he had reached out and touched the sky.

  Maybe while lifting the canvas off the easel, or holding it as he tilted his uneven head for another view. Or had a bug landed on a cloud? A tiny French aphid, squashed by a quick thumb?

  That left its mark there.

  For ever.

  Had he decided he liked it that way?

  Had he intended to correct it but run out of time?

  Had he even noticed?

  Or had his feverish mind already moved on from the dull field and the trees? Had it already left this staid, unromantic day for a starry, starry night?

  Eve was overwhelmed.

  The whorl of thumb in a swirl of sky was like time travel – connecting her not only to the artist himself but to every other person and animal and tree and rock that ever was, or ever would be.

  This was immortality. Eve knew it in her very core.

  This was what the beautiful dead left behind when they moved out of the corporeal and into the hearts and minds of all humankind. This connection, this sense of sharing something wonderful, something beyond mere life, something that had endured and would endure. The painting was worth millions, but the thumbprint was priceless – a mark made on history, a trilobite, a hieroglyph, a footprint on the Moon. Eve’s heart broke for anyone who had not experienced such beauty. Her throat ached so hard that she thought she would weep.

  If she only lifted her arm, she could place her thumb where his thumb had been …

  She raised her trembling thumb to the canvas.

  ‘Hello, Eve.’

  Eve flinched from the painting.

  The killer stood beside her.

  He looked anything but ordinary.

  His head was newly shaven, red-nicked in places, and unnaturally small. His brows were shaven too, making his pale forehead lumpy and alien. His eyes were as black as the photo had promised, but in life, oddly jittery. Although he was looking at her, Eve found it hard to maintain eye contact.

  Strapped to his chest was his phone, the camera lens pointing at her. She thought of Kevin Barr.

  Now she was the star.

  And she knew how this movie ended.

  ‘This is perfect, Eve. Trust you to get it right.’ He smiled. His teeth were short and white – like a child’s teeth.

  ‘Where’s my father?’

  ‘Have you seen the Bacon exhibition?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We could see it together,’ he said. Then added, almost shyly, ‘If you like?’

  ‘Where’s my father?’ said Eve. ‘We had a deal.’

  He looked disappointed. ‘Straight down to business?’

  The business of her murder. She kept breathing. Kept going. ‘Yes.’

  The killer sighed. Then he took his phone from the clip on his chest.

  Eve glanced at it; she knew what was coming and got angry. ‘Not on your phone! I want to see him here. For real.’

  He ignored her and tapped at the phone.

  Eve watched his wrist. His left wrist. The one that wasn’t moving so much. She’d practised so often. It would be easy. The cuffs were snug on her right wrist. It would be so easy to flick one open and snap it closed …

  She did a quick mental rehearsal. Her thumb releasing the catch. The flick of the wrist. The TrrrrrrT of the ratchet clicking home …

  And then he couldn’t escape. Couldn’t get away. Let him murder her right here beside the Van Gogh. He’d be cuffed to her corpse and Joe and the police would arrest him and make him reveal Duncan’s whereabouts, and her father would be safe.

  She twisted her hand and gripped the free cuff.

  Slid the catch open soundlessly …

  ‘Here.’

  He held out the phone and all thoughts of the cuffs left her mind.
/>
  Duncan Singer was sitting in the dark. Just his head, shoulders and chest were visible, but Eve could see enough to recognize her own father.

  Alive.

  ‘Dad! Are you OK?’

  There was only white noise for a long moment, while Duncan Singer looked around him, seeking the source of the words. Then his irritable voice came out of the darkness, ‘Who’s Dad?’

  Eve nearly cried with relief. ‘Where are you?’

  But the killer snatched the phone away. ‘No cheating!’

  ‘You said you’d let him go. We had a deal.’

  ‘And I’ll stick to it. As long as you do.’

  She pointed at Duncan’s chest, where a line of green numbers flickered. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Oh,’ said the killer, ‘that’s the timer for the bomb.’

  ‘W-what?’

  He grinned and Eve stared at his little white teeth in shock, while a deep, dark pain began to spread just under her ribs, as if every organ inside her were being squeezed dry by a giant fist.

  ‘I like your father, Eve. But if I don’t get what I want … if something happened to me, if I were denied …’ he paused meaningfully and then shrugged.

  She felt numb. But she couldn’t be numb. She had to think.

  Engage brain, Eve!

  She stopped looking dumbly at the killer and focused once more on the phone, searching desperately for clues – seeking more than the dim picture had to offer. The only light was the ghostly green glow of the numbers running down.

  01:58:29 … 28 … 27 …

  Her father had less than two hours to live.

  But there was something else. Something more important. Her gut told her that, and her gut was rarely wrong, but what was it?

  The killer slid the phone back to the harness on his chest.

  ‘Can I speak to him again?’

  ‘No.’

  Shit.

  Desperately, she reran their brief exchange in her head. She was missing something critical. About her father? Or the room? Or the numbers, or the sound of his voice … something! Eve was desperate to speak to him again – to see him again – just one more time! If only she could work out where he was, she wouldn’t have to honour this horrific bargain. She could just turn and run away, leave this nightmare behind her and find her father and live happily ever after. If only she knew where he was.

  If only.

  ‘How do I know you won’t kill him anyway? Afterwards?’

  The killer looked at her intently. ‘Nobody has ever trusted me like you did that first night we met, Eve – and you can trust me now. We have a deal, and I plan to honour it.’

  He looked beyond her to the galleries and the crowds that filled them. ‘Sharing your death with the public is the most …’ he searched for the right word, ‘perfect thing you’ll ever do. Beyond art. Beyond life.’

  His eyes jittered and glittered, but only his little teeth smiled.

  ‘And afterwards I will halt the countdown and release your father, unharmed. We have a special connection, Eve, and it cannot be broken by mere death.’

  His uncertain eyes shone with emotion and Eve felt sick. She wanted to hurt him. She wanted to kill him. She was ashamed by the savagery of her hatred.

  But, however crazy, this was his truth – and it was the only truth that counted here.

  She could only trust him.

  So when he said, ‘Follow me,’ she did.

  Out of the high white galleries and on to the fourth-floor balcony. There were fewer people here – just a half-dozen or so, leaning over, looking down, waving at friends far below, or gazing out into the dark branches of the huge tree.

  She saw Joe. He was keeping pace, maybe thirty yards behind them. She met his eyes briefly and saw growing concern there. She looked away, before she could waver, and focused on the killer’s back. He reached the end of the balcony but didn’t stop. Instead, in one smooth movement, he put his hands on the rail and vaulted lightly off the edge and on to the tree.

  Then he turned and held out his hand to her.

  ‘Come.’

  She hesitated. His hand. His wrist. The cuffs. Do it now! Do it now!

  ‘Eve!’

  She looked over her shoulder. It was Joe, breaking into a run. Trying to stop her. Trying to save her!

  But if she were saved, her father would die.

  So Eve Singer took the killer’s outstretched hand and climbed over the railing and on to the broad branch of the great iron tree.

  Now they really were in it together.

  51

  FOR A HORRIBLE, dizzying moment Eve was on her knees, looking down through the gnarled branches to the floor of the Turbine Hall a hundred feet below. She was frozen by terror, unable to move.

  The killer helped her to her unsteady feet beside him. ‘Don’t look down,’ he told her. ‘Look at me.’

  ‘OK,’ she said.

  He started to lead her along the branch. It widened as it approached the thick trunk, but wasn’t wholly flat, and Eve gripped the killer with one hand while the other reached gingerly from twig to wrought-iron twig to maintain her balance, while all the time she tried to think.

  Her brain raced, still rerunning the video clip. There was something … Something in the dark room. In the vague shape of Duncan. In her father’s words or his voice or …

  Something.

  But what?

  While her feet found safe passage, her head hurt. Her whole life was about hourly deadlines, but never had she been more conscious of time ticking past her – away from her. Running out. She had to suppress panic.

  She had to think fast. Faster!

  With every sway and wobble, the crowd below gasped, as if they were watching a high-wire act. But the killer was sure-footed, and held her hand tight.

  ‘Scared yet?’ he teased.

  ‘No,’ she lied.

  He laughed and said, ‘Always so bold, Eve. That’s why I love you.’

  ‘If you love me, why kill me?’

  ‘Is there any better love than this? That I would kill you, and you would die for me. What are songs and roses compared to that?’

  ‘I think I’m getting the thin end of the stick.’

  He laughed again.

  They reached the massive black trunk of the tree, and he turned and looked down, holding her hand so that they both faced the crowd. ‘We have our audience, Eve.’

  Far below, growing hundreds of pink faces turned up to them in anticipation. Eyes wide, hands over mouths.

  Phones at the ready to capture the thrill of death.

  Eve felt sharp shame. It was exactly the audience she deserved.

  The killer reached into his pocket and drew out a small coil of gleaming gold wire. He knelt and knotted it around the thick branch they stood on.

  Piano wire.

  Eve recognized it from her childhood, when she’d taken lessons. ‘Chopsticks’ and ‘Für Elise’.

  ‘Do you play?’ she said stupidly.

  The killer said nothing as he rose beside her. And before Eve understood what was happening, he’d looped the other end of the wire over her head.

  The crowd gasped and Eve froze.

  Suddenly everything felt very real. Up until now it had been too mad to be real – too crazy to be true. And now it was not. Now it was mad and crazy and true. Eve swayed on the branch and gripped the killer’s arm for support.

  This was how she was going to die. She would jump, or he would push, and the wire would slice through her neck like soft cheese.

  And her head would come off.

  It was real – and the terror was so extreme she couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t hear. Couldn’t think. There was a roaring in her ears that blocked all sound, like a 747 making its final approach—

  And the answer to everything exploded in her head like a wonderful firework.

  The killer said something, but under the thunderous beat of her own blood, his lips moved without sound. She stared a
t him, and he asked again.

  ‘Are you. Scared. Yet?’

  He wasn’t teasing. Not this time.

  ‘No,’ said Eve.

  And she wasn’t lying.

  Not this time.

  Because she knew where her father was!

  Her gut had been right. The clue was right there in the clip. She’d sought answers with her eyes, but the solution was in her ears! That white noise that had faded before Duncan had spoken – she’d known it all her life …

  It was a plane passing over their house.

  Duncan Singer was in his own home! His own fucking home!

  ‘Give me your hand, you beautiful and tender form.’ The killer started to recite the poem in a gentle, sing-song voice.

  Eve almost laughed. A mere second ago, she had been prepared to die.

  But now she was only prepared to kill.

  ‘I am a friend, and come not to punish.’

  He was trying to lull her to eternal sleep.

  But Eve Singer wasn’t sleeping. Eve Singer was thinking like a killer.

  And feeling like one too. Cool. Confident. Calculating.

  ‘Be of good cheer!’ he said. ‘I am not fierce.’

  I am, thought Eve with cold murder in her belly. I’m FUCKING fierce!

  Slowly, she sank to her knees, as if in prayer. He nodded down at her in satisfaction.

  ‘Softly shall you sleep—’

  In one swift move, Eve grabbed his ankles and yanked his feet from under him.

  The audience roared.

  The killer twisted awkwardly and dropped on to his side with a grunt. He half rose; he flailed at her, and overbalanced; he grabbed wildly at a metal twig.

  Then at her leg.

  And then they both fell.

  52

  IF EVE HADN’T been thinking like a killer, she would have been dead. As she was dragged off the tree, she flicked out the handcuffs.

  The crowd screamed—

  TrrrrrrT.

  The cuff locked on a slender metal limb and Eve screamed in pain as she jolted to a cruel halt.

  The killer still clung to her legs.

  They dangled together like baubles from the tree, high above the ground. He clutched at her thighs like a terrified monkey, squealing in terror, his own legs kicking the air below them, weighing her down. Eve looked up and prayed that Aguda’s cuffs and the artist’s welding and her own flesh and bone would hold. The first two looked solid enough, but already her skin was starting to stretch and tear, while her palm folded unnaturally, painfully, in on itself – seeking a way through the sharp metal loop …