PAINTED

by Kirsten McKenzie

  “Find anything?” Scott asked, shivering on the porch.

  Callaghan shook his head. Pacing around the lawyer’s car, the blanket of snow a giveaway that no one had touched the little red sports car since the snow had fallen. Callaghan rubbed his forearm against the driver’s window and peered in.

  “What’s he looking for?” Anita whispered to Yvonne.

  “A body?” Yvonne offered.

  “Stop it you two,” Scott snapped, before turning around and vanishing inside.

  “What are you looking for?” Anita called out to Callaghan. Regardless of the fact it was freezing, Alan going missing made her uncomfortable. The others hadn’t even met him. What if they thought she’d done something to him? She huddled further into herself. Her ankle aching in the cold, and on her opposite foot, her heel throbbed from standing on the broken pottery. It wasn’t helping her mood any that Callaghan had vanished from sight.

  He reappeared, his cheeks rosy from the bitter weather, his breath puffing out in great plumes. He climbed the steps, his face a picture of confusion. Turning to look at the cars in the driveway, he finally answered. “He’s not in his car, and he hasn’t been out here. The only footprints out here are mine. There were paw prints going around the side of the house but no sign it’s attacked a grown man out here, so we can safely discount that theory. He’s got to be inside.” He looked at Anita, holding her gaze a moment too long until she dropped her eyes. “Do you think he’s hiding from us?” he asked, his question barely audible over the waves at the bottom of the cliffs.

  Anita shook her head, inexplicable shame infusing her cheeks. “No, sorry, I don’t know,” she said, avoiding Callaghan’s eyes, looking instead towards a sky slicked with flickers of pink and yellow. The sun set early at this time of year. She stretched out her hand and rubbed her tingling fingers, the pins and needles sensation now travelling up her arm.

  Callaghan continued to stare at her. “We’ll do a proper search inside,” he said, walking inside, leaving the girls on the doorstep.

  Anita and Yvonne followed him, grateful to be closing the door on the cold behind them.

  If they’d looked up they would have seen two figures behind the windows of the turret, staring at them. Conferring between themselves before the sun sank too far below the horizon for anything to be seen other than shadows.

  Chapter 26

  It was a subdued group who convened in the drawing room but the sight of the beginnings of a fire inflated the mood. Scott had coaxed one up using the pine cones and kindling and the team mingled uneasily within reach of its warmth. Anita focused on a cone tottering atop the pyre. It brought back memories of one portrait she’d catalogued. She imagined the man from Jerusalem laying his pine cone on the fire, watching the flames lick at the scales, charring the edges until the fire took hold and the cones surrendered to the heat.

  Pained howling of a dog saw four heads swing towards the window. The flame’s reflection distorting the view outside, making the landscape buckle and dance. The depth of the blackness swallowing any sign of the howling creature.

  “Did he go out this door?” Yvonne asked, hand on the door handle. It turned easily and ushered in a gust of icy tentacles which whipped around the room. The fire spluttered in the hearth. Anita shivered. The anguished howls of the dog echoed through the room. No one moved, the spell of the hound holding them motionless.

  “I went out that door,” Anita said, breaking the silence. Normality struck the room.

  “So the lawyer could have gone out here then?” Callaghan said.

  “And he’s out there. With that dog, who’s starving to death, ripping him to shreds as we speak…”

  “Yvonne that’s not helpful. Come on Scott, we’ll have a look. Keep the door shut after us and don’t let the dog in if it comes sniffing around.” With that, Callaghan ducked outside, still wearing his bulky jacket. Scott trailed behind, his expression thunderous.

  Anita pushed the door shut behind them and pressed her face to the window, her forehead leaving an oily imprint on the thin glass.

  “Can you see anything?”

  “No,” Anita said.

  Yvonne cupped her hands around her eyes and peered out into the gardens, ignoring her obese rings which scratched against the glass. A dog hurled itself against the fragile doors. A furious baying bundle of fur, teeth, paws and tail.

  The old brassware strained under the assault, threatening to give way. The flames of the fire reflected in the dog’s wild eyes. Its teeth stark white against its black coat. It threw itself again at the glass, snarling. The doors rattled, their wooden frames flexing under the weight of the huge animal.

  A crash of statuary. A yelp. The dog fled. The shouts of the men yelling at the creature echoed out through the night.

  Yvonne and Anita fled to the safety of the far door when the dog appeared, screaming like schoolgirls. Their screams gave way to embarrassed laughs. It was just a dog. Scott and Callaghan had thrown something at it, something heavy which smashed on the paving stones.

  They pushed off from each other and crept away from the window, as if the mere sound of their voices would tempt the dog back. The door handle turned and the men hurried inside stomping snow from their shoes. Mid conversation, they didn’t acknowledge the others.

  “You didn’t hit it.”

  “I did. Didn’t you see it limping as it ran off?”

  “You should’ve let me throw the bloody statue,” Scott said, slamming the door shut behind them.

  “There wasn’t time to agree on a plan,” Callaghan replied.

  “It could’ve turned on us you know. You should’ve told me what your plan was. Damn stupid thing to do, What if you’d missed? We’d be dog food now?”

  “I didn’t miss. Anyway, it’s gone now.” Moving over to the fire, Callaghan rubbed his hands in front of the flames, “Christ it’s cold out.”

  “Did you hit the dog?” Anita asked.

  “He didn’t hit, just scared it off. It’ll come back. Meaner than before,” Scott said.

  “Stop it,” said Callaghan.

  “Stop what? I’m just saying what the others are thinking. That the dog attacked Anita’s lawyer, and now it’s hungry for more. When a dog attacks a sheep, the dog gets put down because once it’s tasted a sheep, it wants more. Same thing here.”

  “It is not the same thing. We found nothing to show the lawyer had even been outside, let alone attacked by a starving dog. Now give it up. I’ve got work to do and you should carry on with yours, too. I don’t give a toss about the lawyer. He’s a big boy. He can sort himself out. If his leg is as sore as you said it was Anita, maybe one of his friends came to pick him up. I for one will not worry about it. Now excuse me.” Callaghan marched off.

  Anita rubbed her arm. The tingling hadn’t abated. It had worsened.

  “I’ll be in the dining room,” she said, and returned to her seat at the table, hopeful that a fraction of the fire’s warmth would follow her into the room.

  Yvonne was next to leave, back to the kitchen to work on the selection she’d gathered earlier, leaving Scott standing by the fire.

  Scott took a brittle pine cone out of the wood box and pulled out the scales, tossing them into the flames one by one, the sap spitting and sizzling in the heat. His watch said it was only four o’clock, yet it felt closer to eight. This job would be a long drawn out one. It was then he noticed the netsukes Callaghan had left on the mantel. Such tiny pieces of workmanship. Each figure its own work of art. Most of them were macabre. There was a miniature skull entwined with a serpent; a stylised dog, standing over another skull, which was particularly disconcerting… And the last one which took his eye was a heaving morass of rats gnawing at a decomposing skeleton.

  Scott imagined he could feel the hungry rodents chomping at his shadow. Shuddering, he moved back into the dining room where Anita was hunched over her laptop. Someone else could pack the gruesome netsukes up, he wasn’t going to touch them.

&n
bsp; “How many portraits are left to do?” Scott asked.

  Anita thought about it for a moment, “I haven’t dared to count them. I’m doing one room at a time. There are so many, I don’t think I’ve even scratched the surface.” She considered her next words. She didn’t want her colleagues to suspect she was losing her marbles, but Alan going missing was eating her up. “What do you think happened to Alan? I mean, I know you didn’t meet him, but I don’t understand why he left without saying. And without his car?”

  “Did you scare him off?” Scott asked, laughing at his own joke.

  “No, but he damaged some of the art, and I’m worried he’s taken a few of the pieces. At least three I can work out.”

  “There you go, he worked out they were more valuable than the others and whipped them from under your nose. Case closed, Sherlock.”

  Anita shook her head, it wasn’t that simple. Scott laughing it off made her doubt herself more. Maybe it was that simple?

  “The missing pictures aren’t valuable, I don’t even know who the artist is yet. They’re responsible for at least a third of the pictures here, but…”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Scott sniffed. “I’ll go work in another room and leave you to it. He’ll probably waltz back in at any moment. Don’t even think about him. I won’t be.”

  Scott walked out, his back straight, hands in his pockets. Hands clenched tight. He may have put on a brave face for Anita, but the missing lawyer and his experience in the lawyer’s room unsettled him more than he wanted to admit.

  The clock in the drawing room struck six o’clock. Its melodic chimes reverberating around the house. Four heads lifted and as one, they made their way to the kitchen. The darkness outside complete, and the chill inside pervasive.

  The Nickleby’s team had brought with them the required ingredients for any great dinner. Wine, cheese, crackers, quality eye fillet steak, and readymade salads. Anita coaxed the ancient stove into life, the flame sputtering with the strike of a match. The hiss of the gas filled the room, followed by the heat from the flames.

  Scott wielded a heavy duty iron skillet he’d found buried beneath a mountain of baking trays, whilst Callaghan pulled the cork from a bottle of wine. It was a convivial setting. Four friends eating together, unencumbered by modern life, no one checking their cellphones, or firing off a quick email. There was no one saying I’ve just got to make this quick call.

  The aroma of well-cooked steaks filled the kitchen, as did inane gossip about coworkers and pay rates, the art market and the president. Normal topics of conversation — the gold price, the cost of food in the staff canteen. The weather. By unspoken agreement there was no mention of the lawyer, or the dog. During the dinner, somewhere through the second bottle of red, one of them would pause, gaze into the blackness outside, and strain for any sound of the dog, or the sound of anything troubling. An impartial observer may not have noticed the sudden dip in conversation as each of the participants trailed off at different times, their thoughts elsewhere.

  The phone rang.

  Not an iPhone, a Nokia, or even a Samsung ringtone, but an old fashioned one with a cord and a bakelite handle. A phone you only saw in the movies or museums. The phone in the study.

  “I’ll get it,” said Yvonne, and shot out of the kitchen.

  The others lapsed into silence as if the absence of their lynchpin had rendered them incapable of conversation. Callaghan fiddled with the jadeite dog head in his pocket. Scott pulled out his redundant cellphone and scrolled through the pictures he’d taken during the day. Sideboards, bookcases, balloon backed chairs, plant stands and campaign chests. All nice and all saleable, nothing extraordinary though, just run of the mill good quality stuff. It bored him senseless.

  Yvonne returned, a curious look on her face. In one hand she held an unframed canvas. Her other she held in front of her, rubbing her fingers together as if she trying to rub away a foul substance she’d accidentally touched.

  “I found this in the study,” she said, offering the canvas to the others. “The paint’s still wet, so which one of you painted this then?”

  Anita reached for the canvas, her fingers smearing the edges of the still wet paint. The likeness was unmistakable. It was a perfect rendering of Alan Gates, the lawyer. His eyes wide. Mouth held open as if he were mid shout, or scream.

  Her own mouth frozen open, her legs crumpled from underneath her.

  Chapter 27

  “It’s Alan, Alan Gates, the lawyer,” Anita said. “Where did you find it?”

  Callaghan and Yvonne struggled to lift Anita from the floor and onto the chair. Yvonne’s fingers leaving smears of red oil paint on Anita’s sleeves.

  “It was in the study,” Yvonne said.

  She’d emptied the study of all the portraits. This one hadn’t been there. Unframed, just a stretched canvas. Her nostrils flared at the smell of fresh paint, panic poured off her. She dabbed at a corner. Wet white paint transferred to her finger, like some hideous skin condition. Alan must have painted it. He was toying with her. It couldn’t have been anyone else. As much as she tried to make sense of it, her body wouldn’t react to any of her signals. It wanted to run, far away from this house, and the art which filled it.

  Scott sat nonplussed at the table. He didn’t know Anita well but this portrait thing was taking things too far. Doubts crowded in upon his head. Was this girl for real? What game was she playing at?

  “Who was on the phone Yvonne?” he asked.

  Irritation flashed across Yvonne’s face. She and Callaghan were still trying to manhandle Anita into the chair.

  “What?”

  “Who was on the phone? Remember, you ran off to answer the ringing contraption somewhere in the house?”

  “Does it matter? God, can’t you see Anita is unwell,” Yvonne spat.

  Callaghan filled a glass from the tap. The ancient pipes shuddering with the sudden shut off of the flow of water. He passed it to Anita, whose trembling paint tainted hands struggled to hold it.

  The portrait stared at Anita. The eyes of the man open wide, catatonic with paint. Anita reached out one finger, as if she were trying to close his eyes, the way you would with a corpse.

  “How do we know that’s a painting of the lawyer?” Scott asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

  Anita snapped from her reverie. “You don’t, but I do. And it is Alan. He’s playing with us. Trying to scare me. I don’t know why, but he is.” She looked at her hands, streaked with oil paint, wiping them her on her legs, leaving a rainbow of doubt on her jeans. “I can’t deal with this, sorry. I’m off to bed, see you in the morning.”

  “Unless you disappear too,” Scott said as Anita left the room, leaning back in his seat, hands linked behind his head, a smile on his face. What a farce this whole thing was.

  Yvonne dumped the dirty plates into the sink, running the water and wielding the dish brush as if she were imagining it was Scott she was beating with the brush and not the serviceable ceramic plates and crystal glasses. “You’re an idiot,” she said, thumping the dishes into the drainer.

  “Not an idiot, just wise to her tricks. Don’t know how you two have fallen for it. She’s playing us like a puppet master. I’ve no idea why. It’s ludicrous. But let her have her fun. I’m going to bed too. I take it that our rooms are upstairs too. See you in the morning.” Stretching, he smiled at the others, grabbed his wineglass and sauntered out of the kitchen, scooping up his bags on his way through.

  Yvonne paused in her violent scrubbing of the dishes to look at Callaghan. In his usual verbose way, he raised his eyebrows and sipped his wine. The whole performance had shaken him. He didn’t know what to think about Anita, and the painting, and the rabid dog outside. There were too many coincidences, but maybe they were just that, coincidences. He couldn’t explain why the paint on the portrait was still wet, but he’d only been here for less than a day. In this weather it would take a good number of days for oil paint to dry. Anyone could’ve pain
ted it.

  Callaghan picked the portrait off the floor. The edges were indistinct, and the eyes smudged beyond recognition as if someone had tried to gouge them out. There was no salvation for the painting now. If it was a portrait of the lawyer, no one could recognise him now.

  Chapter 28

  Anita thrashed about in bed, struggling against the heavy covers pinning her down. Fighting imaginary assailants, their faces in shadow, stalking her through her dreams, her nightmares.

  The man in her room stepped forward and reached out for the feather comforter. Pulling it back, he released her from her baseless fears. She quieted, unaware of the presence of another. Her breathing slowed. The cold air washing against her exposed skin brought out goosebumps. She shivered, burrowing further into the soft mattress. He hesitated a moment before picking up the light throw hanging over the back of the nursing chair in the corner of the room and laying it over her.

  Turning his back to her, he looked over the jewellery Anita left on the dressing table. Reverently he touched each piece until he came to the star brooch. This he picked up. Its pointed corners pressing into his flesh. He’d not seen it for a long time but he remembered it well. It had caused so such misery, and yet it was worthless. Thirty-six paste stones, backed with silver foil. A tiny safety chain which had been broken and repaired more than once. Yet how many people had lost their lives over it? It would be better for everyone if it disappeared, again. He slipped it into his suit pocket. The threads of the silk lining snagging on the misshapen pin at the back.

  He looked back at Anita. She was still now, her breathing steady, her face relaxed. He left her sleeping and walked back into the hall. He could join the others upstairs, but he had no desire to revisit those wounds. This wasn’t a life he wanted to lead. It wasn’t his life either. That was over.