My phone rang as I was gripping it. Hamish from the gallery. I picked up.
“Darling, you’re not going to like this. Not one bit.”
“That’s not a good way to start a call, Hamish.”
“I’ve sent you a video of an interview with Kristoff Klein. He’s a new up-and-coming Algerian artist who’s getting a lot of buzz.”
“I’m not going to be jealous of every bright new thing making their way up. I’m a bigger person than that. I celebrate those—”
“Just watch the video.” Hamish hung up.
Ping, my phone went again.
Class 1RM, Caroline Wilfie Mum Class Rep: Don’t forget it’s International Day tomorrow. As always, homemade costumes preferred!
I gritted my teeth, and forwarded the message to Fox with a series of expletives and question marks. Let him deal with how to fashion an American flag out of colored felt and a glue gun.
Then I clicked on the video link Hamish had sent. Kristoff had spiky blue hair, blue eyeshadow, blue lipstick, and thickset glasses. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-three. He was talking about his process as he walked the interviewer round his loft studio. God, he was so pretentious.
“I am the voice of my generation, chronicling our loves, our hates, our passions. We are messy and unafraid.”
The camera moved past his face to linger on two of his canvases hanging on the back wall. I zoomed in on them and frowned. They looked near identical to two of my canvases. MyBeat It(2014) andBite Me(2018) were not as well-known as some of my other works but were still lauded and both had sold for large sums. Kristoff had used the same color palettes for each, and had mimicked my painting style. There was even a screwed-up rag in the center of the larger canvas.
It was painstakingly clear to me that the four-eyed Smurf had ripped off my work.
I rang Hamish back. “What the actual fuck? What can we do? Kill him? Sue him?”
I was cut off from Hamish’s response by the high-pitched wail of the baby monitor. A hurried goodbye, and I went to get Reggie.
I channeled my rage at the copycat by spending the afternoon finishing my new painting, while imagining the different ways in which I could inflict pain on him. I rocked Reggie’s bouncy chair with my foot and alternated making silly faces at him with each ferocious brushstroke.
My art. My baby. I knew what I needed to feel better. Couldn’t Fox work out the same? To help yourself you needed to know yourself. A serial killer wasn’t ever going to find peace in downward dog and the broken chords of U2’s “With or Without You.” Why couldn’t he see that?
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Fox
I’d come home from workto find Haze and Jenny in the kitchen. The kids were already in bed and a Thai takeaway was laid out, with the table set for three. They had at least waited for me before digging into the spring rolls and divulging the latest on Drake.
I hadn’t yet told Haze about Jenny lying to us about being at the bank. With Haze being so dismissive last time I’d caught Jenny in a lie, I wanted to go to her with more evidence. Not a story she could rebuff by saying perhaps Jenny was too embarrassed to tell us she had money issues.
“Drake has been at the station,” announced Jenny. “He’s been asking for everything we have on Bill. He mentioned to my boss something about Interpol wanting to finally close their file on the Butcher.”
“Haven’t they already closed it?” I asked.
“Not according to Drake.”
“Fuck.”
Jenny shrugged. “He won’t find anything. I’ve checked everything a hundred times. We tied everything up.”
Who should we fear more? The shadowy Chameleon who was hoping to kill us, or the tenacious Interpol agent who was trying to catch us?
I felt that the younger me might have relished this challenge.Coming up against two sparring opponents and getting the better of them both. What a thrill! Adrenaline burning. The race to win. But old me was just too tired by it all. It was too much to handle. I felt like I needed to get away from it all. But how to take a holiday from anxiety?
“What about the bodies?” I asked. Drake was sniffing around, and we’d disposed of two corpses in the last two weeks.
“Both dump sites are clear, and neither Clark nor Danny have been reported missing yet. But even when they are, there’s nothing linking us to them.”
