The Death Pictures

by Simon Hall

  Suzanne quickly said goodbye, mumbled that she’d be back later and closed the door behind her.

  Outside in the corridor, she toyed with her necklace and breathed out, leant back heavily against the white wall. Would Rachel have to know about the witch’s hat they’d found in the living room, the small black cone of cheap plastic with the white stars and yellow crescent moons, the type children wear at Halloween parties? And that it had been placed proudly, perhaps triumphantly, on the mantelpiece, alongside her family photos? And would she have to know the packaging was screwed up and left inside it, the wrapping which said it came from a party pack of six?

  Dan had once had what he called a mini relationship – lasting for one night – with a Plymouth historian he met in a bar, and from a memory of her conversation guessed the building they were in probably dated from Tudor times. He seemed to recall the city lost much of its historic soul in the Blitz, but the Barbican survived. Funny he could remember that, but not her name.

  The studio wasn’t large and the walls were thick, exposed stone. It was hardly designed for a modern press pack with their TV lights, cameras and radio recorders. The ceiling was low and the stone was an efficient insulator. The room was getting uncomfortably hot with the crowd of journalists, cameramen, photographers and security staff all jammed together.

  On a low dais at the front of the room were two black curtains, tightly drawn and held up by a gleaming gold rail. They were slightly parted with a dagger-shaped slit in the centre near the ceiling, the spotlights in the roof revealing nothing but a hint of colour and shape. An ornate golden cord dangled at the right hand end of the curtains.

  Fanned out around the platform was one of the biggest press packs Dan had seen. Cameramen and photographers stood in the middle, the journalists behind and to their sides, some seventy in all. Outside, the crush against the glass doors had grown, layers of people now stretching back across the road and the cobbled square behind.

  Dan checked Nigel’s plastic digital watch. Ten pounds it had cost him, but it was always accurate. Nigel had the sense to be practical, not flash, Dan reflected ruefully, and wondered if he would ever learn the lesson. It was two minutes to eleven. He still hadn’t thought of what to ask McCluskey yet.

  A man barged into his side, and Dan shoved back.

  ‘Come on, mate, let me in there,’ he said. He was chubby, in his late forties Dan thought, his face shining with sweat, a fat-lensed camera hanging around his neck. He smelt strongly of cigarettes. The pass pinned to the lapel of his leather jacket said Daily News.

  ‘Come on mate,’ he went on, leaning into Dan again. ‘You’re just a reporter. You don’t need to be so close. That’s for us snappers.’

  Dan held his ground. Positioning was all in a press pack. You never knew what could happen. If McCluskey said something extraordinary, he wanted to be at the front to hear it. Besides, a good TV reporter always watched his cameraman’s back. With Nigel focused on looking down his viewfinder, he had no idea what was going on around him. And more to the point, he hated the Daily News. It was a scandal sheet, the kind of paper that gave journalists a bad name.

  ‘Forget it, mate,’ Dan hissed. ‘You should have got here sooner. Didn’t your mother ever teach you about early birds and worms?’

  The photographer leaned into him again, tried to get his shoulder in front, but Dan was too quick, turned his back and pushed the rucksack with the spare batteries and tape into the man’s face. It was a familiar trick.

  ‘Arsehole,’ he muttered and moved away, trying to squeeze through the crowd to a better position.

  ‘You winning friends and influencing people again?’ asked Nigel, looking up from his viewfinder.

  ‘Just holding my ground,’ said Dan with a grin. ‘He was from the News, and you know what I think of them. And…’

  A door to the side of the curtains swung open, interrupting him. A man hobbled slowly out onto the dais. The room instantly quietened and all the camera lenses turned to follow him. Dan had been expecting a big introduction from some master of ceremonies, but none was needed. Everyone here recognised Joseph McCluskey.

  He had been a tall man, perhaps six feet two, but the cancer had bowed him. He walked carefully, almost a shuffle, but he watched the crowd throughout, his eyes dancing over them, a sparkle of savoured amusement in them. He stood by the side of the curtains, took the cord and went to pull it, but then stopped. He looked down at his watch and slowly smiled. He lifted his hand to the cord again, then stopped, lifted it again, then stopped. A rumble of nervous laughter filled the room.

  ‘It’s not quite time,’ he said, and his voice was still clear, although throatier than Dan had heard it in other interviews. He was much thinner now, almost gaunt, but still a handsome man in a haunting way, his hair rich and dark, the flecks of grey adding fine fissures of detail. His trademark eyebrows sprayed shaggy and unkempt. White teeth shone in his smile as he surveyed the press pack.

  ‘All this just for me and my little doodles?’ he chuckled. ‘Or do you think you can solve my riddle? Would anyone like to have a guess?’

  There was another ripple of hesitant laughter. This was like no other press conference he’d known, Dan thought. Always they, the media had the power. They leered down over their prey like a pack of voracious predators. Always the victim needed the media and the journalists knew that. They relaxed in it. The control was theirs. McCluskey had turned that around. They needed him, his final Death Picture and any words he deigned to give them about what it could mean, or how to solve his riddle.

  McCluskey spoke again, his voice harder. ‘OK, here’s how it goes. I’ll unveil the picture. You can get some pictures of me in front of it. Then I’ll say a few words. After that, I’m off.’

  He looked around, challenging the hacks, but no one said anything.

  ‘Unlike you lot, I’ve only got a little more time here, so I want to go and spend it with my wife, not messing around with the likes of you.’

  He smiled again and there was another wave of laughter.

  McCluskey checked his watch. ‘It’s time,’ he said softly. ‘It’s time.’ The room was silent.

  ‘OK then, are you ready?’ he asked. A few hesitant calls of ‘yes’ bounced from the crowd. ‘Then here we go. Welcome to history.’ He stepped to the side of the curtain and pulled the cord.

  A blaze of white camera flashes flared out, making the artist blink as he watched the reaction. The quiet remained, the journalists scribbling notes on the atmosphere of the moment, the details of the canvas before them. Nigel was moving his shot in to the artist, a close up of his exhilarated face, his eyes shining and dancing wildly. They flicked from the painting to the press pack, savouring their entrancement. Outside faces pressed against the glass doors, like children at a sweet shop.

  Dan found his eyes drawn to the painting. All the Death Pictures had been the same size, about five feet high by four wide. All were oils, all framed in black wood, all with different subjects, some places, some people, some abstract and surreal. But this was different. This was a self-portrait, two in fact.

  On the left of the canvas stood a younger Joseph McCluskey, when he was in his 40s, Dan guessed. He was proud and erect, arms folded in front of him, staring out, expressionless. At his feet was the earth, a perfect sphere of blue and green. On the right he looked as he did now, thinner, shorter, older, the 66 years he’d lived for. Now he looked down, not straight out and his arms hung by his sides. And, in this image, there was the earth above him, smaller, as though in orbit around the man. The background to the painting was all black, punctuated by a speckling of stars.

  Between the two men was a clock, the classic alarm type, silver rimmed, two bells on its top, a grey face, the hands set at five to twelve. Below the clock ran a cascade of numbers, like a river flowing down to the bottom of the canvas, numbers Dan didn’t think
had been painted at random. There was a 9, an 11, a 5 then a 3. In the next line a 91, an 85, a 77, a 53 and a 42. In the third line a 29, 31, 32 and 37, then at the bottom a 109 and a 133.

  Dan had no idea what they meant and wondered if anyone else would, but he knew that was the point. Somewhere in there was the answer to the riddle without a question, and people would be buying his prints, newspapers, books and magazines in their hundreds of thousands as they tried to solve it. Around him he could see his fellow hacks staring at the picture, all silently going through the same thoughts.

  ‘So that’s it, ladies and gentlemen, the last of the paintings you kind folk of the media have been so good as to name the Death Pictures,’ rasped McCluskey from the dais. ‘Of this image, I’ve decided there will be three prints made and signed. Two will be auctioned for a couple of charities I have in mind. The remaining print will be placed here on the wall of my studio, along with prints of the nine other pictures, in strict order of their creation. In those pictures, here, you will find the answer to the mystery. That is…’

  He let the words hang, scanned the crowd, smiled mischievously again, ‘…if anyone is clever enough to do so. And as you know, the original painting of the last Death Picture will go to whoever solves the riddle. To who that may be, I say this.’ He paused again, nodded to emphasise the words. ‘Remember the moral of the story well.’

  With that, McCluskey turned and walked out of the door to the side of the picture, ignoring the burst of shouted questions from the pack.

  The cameramen and photographers rushed towards the picture to take their close up shots of its detail. Nigel was right at the front and in the middle, as ever. Dan watched, his mind full of what McCluskey had just said. What did he mean, remember the moral of the story well? Did it mean the answer to the riddle was some kind of lesson McCluskey wanted to teach? But what? What was so important to him that he would hide it in a riddle the whole world seemed to be trying to solve?

  A barge in the back knocked him off balance and he lurched forwards. Dan looked round to see the Daily News man disappearing out of the door. What a pathetic revenge, he thought. But the irritation brought him back to the room and he felt a sudden stab of concern. What happened to his interview with the artist? Lizzie said it had all been set up, was relying on him to bring in a compelling obituary for one of the biggest stories she’d handled. Returning to the office to tell her McCluskey had disappeared and he hadn’t got it would be an invitation to demote him to reporting on church fetes, if he was lucky.

  He felt a panic stirring. As he stood at the back of the room, looking around him, wondering what to do, there was a gentle tug at his sleeve.

  ‘Dan Groves?’ It was a thin, dark haired woman in her mid 50s, pale blue eyes and sharp cheekbones, despite the years. He knew her from somewhere but couldn’t place the face.

  ‘Please don’t say anything,’ she said, ‘but I’m Joseph’s wife Abi. He hasn’t forgotten the interview, but he wanted to do it quietly, away from all this fuss. In a minute I’ll take you to another part of the studio where you can have a chat. He’s looking forward to it.’

  She smiled, but it was rueful, no warmth in it. ‘He says he never thought he’d have a chance to write his own obituary. And he’s got something he wants to show you, something no one else has yet seen. He’s very proud of it. It’s wonderful.’

  Chapter Three

  Dan made a point of trying never to be surprised, and if he was, certainly not to let it show. It wasn’t cool or professional for a hardened hack, but he didn’t know what to say about the room she led them into. He stood and stared, despite himself.

  ‘It’s the memorial he wanted to leave,’ said Abi quietly, standing with them as they gaped at the walls. ‘It’ll be opened to the public so they can come and see them. The answer to the riddle is here. Have a look and do some filming while you wait for him. It’s important to see them in order.’

  They were the Death Pictures, for the first time complete and all together in one show. The room was windowless, the only light coming from the rows of spot lamps suspended from the ceiling. The walls and floor were stone and almost unnoticeable, seemed to fade away next to the paintings. The pictures were the room, thought Dan. They commanded attention, didn’t allow the eye to wander. It was like a Pharaoh’s tomb. Joseph McCluskey’s memorial to himself.

  One picture hung by the door, three each on the other walls. Dan had seen them individually, on the television and in the press, but never as a group. Beside him Nigel drew in a long whistling breath.

  The first picture showed a woman, young, thin, perhaps 30 or so, flame haired against the lush green background of a forest. She was beautiful, pouting at the camera with succulent lips. But what drew Dan’s gaze was the huge mobile phone straddled between her legs, as though she was riding it through the trees. The display had a phone number on it, the Plymouth code, 01752, followed by 225. The last three numbers were missing, looked as though they had yet to be typed in. All the pictures were very limited prints, the originals sold off for the various good causes chosen by the artist. This was number 3/4.

  The second picture was unmistakeably Dartmoor. The gnarled grey tor in the background was familiar, but he couldn’t quite place it. Somewhere around Merrivale he thought. Perhaps Vixen, Kings, or Great Mis Tor? White birds wheeled in a blue sky above it. In the foreground was a vicar, in cassock and dog collar, staring up at the rocks, a hand outstretched pointing to a small plane in the sky. Behind it trailed a banner bearing the legend ‘Goodbye number one.’ A dog dug up the earth at the vicar’s feet. It was print 3/3.

  Dan stood, hands on hips and gently shook his head. There were no doubt clues in the pictures, but more clearly a lot of mischief. He’d understood that from the few words McCluskey had said earlier and the last of the pictures. He couldn’t help but think the man was having a great joke at the expense of the rest of the world. Nigel adjusted his tripod and started filming the first picture. He looked across at Dan who shrugged. He knew his friend wanted guidance about what details to pick out in his shots, what was important and what wasn’t, but what could he say? He had no idea.

  Picture three was a street, unremarkable, terraced houses, probably late Victorian, cars parked along the road. A red legged and beaked bird perched on a streetlamp in the foreground. From his past days as Environment Correspondent, Dan recognised it as a chough. The first few car number plates were clear, the rest blurred. A blue mini had ‘OK 9’, an old blue Ford ‘115 J’, a yellow three-wheeler ‘Yes 04’, a red Peugeot ‘Here 911’. The street sign was a blurred grey, but ‘Road’ was legible. A manhole cover lay open halfway along, a child wearing shorts but no T-shirt looking down into it. Print number 3/7.

  Picture four was an abstract, what seemed to be a blazing, malformed sun in the sky above a desert. It was the simplest so far, just a few rocks, a couple of cacti and what looked like a pool of water. A mirage? By the water stood a clock, similar to the one he’d seen unveiled in the last picture. The hands showed a quarter past nine, but they were drooping. A snake wriggled by in the foreground, seeming to make an S shape. It was print 1/2.

  Why just two prints of this picture, he wondered? Because the artist thought it less powerful than the others? Less of a work? Less important? Or just because he only had a couple of beneficiaries in mind?

  Number five showed the inside of a pub, clearly identifiable by the wooden sign above the bar, the Waterside Arms. Dan knew it well, just out of the city, over the River Plym in the old village of Turnchapel. It was one of his favourites. There were beer festivals every couple of months, a fine range of pies on the menu and an old-fashioned landlord who liked to know everyone’s name. He treated them as treasured guests, not an inconvenience, unlike so many modern publicans. It was print 1/6.

  The oddity was that the pub was deserted, despite there being half drunk pints and glasses on the bar and tab
les and a couple of plates full of food. Four darts stuck from a board, a double two, a nine, a 13 and a bull’s eye. Why four darts, Dan wondered? A fruit machine showed three bunches of cherries on the win line. There was a broken bottle of whisky on the floor, a black and white cat sniffing hesitantly at it.

  A woman dominated number six. Blonde, with a shoulder length bob, she smiled out of the canvas. She wore small rectangular glasses, dangling silver earrings and was holding a newspaper folded out in front of her. It was the Western Daily News. In the top left corner was printed ‘Today’s jackpot bingo numbers; 2, 22, 27, 39’. The paper’s headline was ‘It’s a Fiddle!’ There was a picture of a yellow fishing boat next to it, the number 98 on its prow. It was print 2/3.

  Dan couldn’t stop the run of thoughts in his mind. Fiddle, did that mean the answer wasn’t in here? Or was it a double bluff? Was it some hint that if you went fishing for something to do with 98, you could come up with something? He checked himself. Damn! He was getting drawn into the riddle in exactly the way the artist wanted, and so just how he shouldn’t.

  Painting seven looked the simplest, but that made Dan suspect it wasn’t. It was a portrait of Abi, looking much the same as she did now, except in the picture she had a perfectly formed tear rolling from her left eye. He looked across the room at her and she nodded. In the picture she stood against a coastline, just a simple line of green before the blue of the sea and sky. She wore a white T-shirt with a picture of a key on it, the number 09 alongside. The only other feature was a small red balloon drifting by in the sky on the right of the picture. On it was an exclamation mark. It was print 1/3.

  Dan turned to the final wall. A print of the last of the Death Pictures was already in place, also number 1/3. The other two were the most striking of the set.

  Number eight showed a child reaching into a goldfish tank, the watchful and wary creatures clustered at the sides of the aquarium. It was brightly colourful, the fish, the emerald green of the boy’s jumper, the opaque blue of the water, the primrose yellow of the walls of the room in the background. Three fish faced the dangling hand on the left of the tank, four on the right. In the gravel at the bottom stood a miniature castle, grey but with a white portcullis. Outside it, also embedded in the gravel were five toy soldiers, all pointing rifles, and an armoured car. On its side was ‘17th light infantry.’ It was print 2/5.