Still Life (A Three Pines Mystery)

'How do you know?'

'Over there,' Clara pointed to the wall she'd been examining. 'That's Yolande as painted by Jane. There are similarities, but: not many.'

Gamache had to see for himself, though he knew Clara . would be right. Sure enough the only thing she'd been wrong about was saying there were similarities. There were none, as far as he could tell. The Yolande on the wall, even the child, was clearly Yolande. Physically, but also emotionally. She radiated contempt and greed and something else. Cunning. The woman on the wall was all those things. And just a little: needy. In the painting on the easel the woman in the stands was simply blonde.

'Then who is she?' he asked when he got back.

'I don't know. But I do know one thing. Have you noticed that Jane never made up a face? Everyone on these walls was someone she knew, someone from the village.'

'Or a visitor,' said Gamache.

'Actually,' said Ruth, joining their conversation, 'there are no visitors. People who moved away and would come home to visit, yes, but they're considered villagers. Everyone on the walls she knew.'

'And everyone in Fair Day she knew, except her.' Clara pointed a cashew at the blonde woman. 'She's a stranger. But there's more. I've been wondering what's wrong with Fair Day. It's clearly Jane's, but it's not. If this was the first thing she'd done I'd say she just hadn't found her style. But this was the last.' Clara leaned into the work, 'Everything in it is strong, confident, purposeful. But taken as a whole it doesn't work.'

'She's right,' said Elise. 'It doesn't.'

The circle around Fair Day was growing, the guests attracted by the mystery.

'But it worked when we were judging it, right?' Clara turned to Peter. 'It's her. Jane didn't paint her.' Clara pointed a ramrod straight 'J'accuse' finger at the blonde in the stands next to Peter. As though sucked down a drain, all heads leaned into the center of the circle, to peer at the face.

'That's why this picture doesn't work,' continued Clara. 'It did before this face was changed. Whoever changed it changed the whole picture without realising it.'

'How do you know Jane didn't paint this face?' Gamache asked, his voice becoming official. Across the room Beauvoir heard it and went over, taking out his notepad and pen as he arrived.

'First of all, it's the only face in here that doesn't look alive.' Gamache had to agree with that. 'But that's subjective. There's actual proof if you want.'

'It would make a nice change.'

'Look.' Clara pointed again at the woman. 'Jesus, now that I look more closely I must have been blind not to see it before. It's like this huge carbuncle.' Try as they might none of them could see what she meant.

'For God's sake, just tell us, before I spank you,' said Ruth.

'There.' Clara zigzagged her finger around the woman's face, and sure enough, looking more closely, they could see a tiny smudging. 'It's like a wart, a huge blemish on this work.' She pointed to nearly invisible fuzzy marks. 'That's done by a rag and mineral spirits, right, Ben?'

But Ben was still peering almost cross-eyed at Fair Day.

'And look at that, those brush strokes. All wrong. Look at Peter's face beside her. Totally different strokes.' Clara waved her whole arm back and forth then up and down. 'Up and down. Jane doesn't do up and down strokes. Lots of sideways, but no straight up and down. Look at this woman's hair. Up and down strokes. A dead giveaway. Do you notice the paint?' She turned to Peter, who seemed uncomfortable.

'No. Nothing strange about the paints.'

'Oh, come on. Look. The whites are different. Jane used Titanium white here, here and here. But over here,' she pointed to the woman's eyes, 'this is Zinc white. That's Ochre Yellow.' Clara was pointing to the woman's vest. 'Jane never used Ochre, only Cadmium. So obvious. You know, we've done so much art, teaching it, and even sometimes picking up extra money restoring things for the McCord, that I can tell you who painted what, just by their brush strokes, never mind their choice of brushes and paints.'

'Why would someone paint in a face?' Myrna asked.

'That's the question,' agreed Gamache.

'And not the only one. Why add a face, yes, great question, but whoever did it also took out a face. You can tell by the smudges. They didn't just paint on top of the existing face, the one Jane did, they actually erased that whole face. I don't get it. If Jane, or anyone, wanted to erase a face it would be easiest to just paint over the existing one. You can do that with acrylic, in fact, everyone does that with acrylic. You almost never bother erasing. Just paint over your mistakes.'

'But if they did that could you remove that face and find the original underneath?' Gamache asked.

'It's tricky,' said Peter, 'but a good art restorer could.

It's like we're doing upstairs here, taking off one layer of paint to find the image underneath. With a canvas, though, you can also do it with x-ray. It's a little blurry, but you might get an idea of who's there. Now, well, it's destroyed.'

'Whoever did this didn't want the face found,' said Clara. 'So she removed hers and painted in another woman's.'

'But', Ben jumped in, 'they gave themselves away when they erased the original face and drew a new one on top. They didn't know Jane's work. Her code. They made up a face not realising Jane never did that

'And they used the wrong strokes,' said Clara.

'Well, that lets me out,' said Gabri.

'But why do it at all? I mean, whose face was erased?' Myrna asked.