Page 26 of All I Want for Christmas

Max’s rejection in the archives had stung and she had needed some validation. She had wanted to feel sexy, desirable, worthy of the chase, but she had felt none of those things sitting in there tonight. Worse than that, she was now left facing the even more uncomfortable truth that it was Max’s actions that had led to this reaction. Indifference should have been her response, not distraction – but all she had proved, whether she liked it or not, was that Max Lorensen was already well and truly under her skin.

Chapter Seven

‘So no breakthroughs?’ Freja panted, dodging a Labrador carrying a large stick that spanned almost the entire path. They were on their usual Saturday morning run in Kastellet, and the promise of breakfast at the end of it was the only thing keeping Darcy going.

‘Nope. Nada. Zilch. It’s painful. I’ve spent the past three days going through Trier’s diaries and letters and it’s one thing having to read solidly in Danish but oh my God, his handwriting! How can someone so proficient with a brush be so hopeless with a pen?’

Freja chuckled. ‘I wonder how he’d have been with a pipette.’

‘My money’s on useless! The man was chaotic. Clearly drank too much, was homeless half the time, sleeping on beaches and getting kicked out of boarding houses.’

‘He sounds like that ex of mine – remember Jasper, the musician? Nose ring; tried to snort cocoa powder?’

‘Fun times,’ Darcy said wryly. ‘But painters were actually the rock stars of their time, you know. They could get away with shit no one else could. Creativity freed them from the usual social constraints.’

‘Oh! Were they cheating bastards then too?’

Darcy grinned. ‘Undoubtedly – although in Trier’s case, noaffairs of the heart that I’ve come across yet. No love letters, no dates – clandestine or otherwise – detailed in his diaries. He used prostitutes, though. He actually lists them as an expense.’

‘Ha!’ Freja snorted, bemused. ‘Why am I not surprised?’

They both jumped a large puddle, landing in sync, their footsteps in perfect unison. Darcy was grateful for the opportunity to be outside, moving. All week she had been crouched over a desk, thumbing through myriad preparatory sketches, receipts, maps and expenses for Trier’s travels in Europe. He had left Denmark for Paris in 1919, enrolling with some of the fine art academies there and working primarily on life drawing studies, before moving down through France to Italy. By March of 1920, he had been staying in Florence, painting the silk weavers and goldsmiths and working mainly in charcoal and pencil, with only occasional forays into using oil.

Darcy’s gut told her this timeframe was still too early for the portrait. At twenty-five years old, the artist was immature and still very much finding himself as he travelled. It wasn’t so much that his hand was underdeveloped – technically, he was already brilliant and had begun the portraiture that would soon attract the attention of his future benefactor Bertram Madsen; but his eye and mind were naive, and although he might have been able to reproduce the woman’s likeness, she doubted he’d have been able to capture her essence at this point. The finer details were still obscured beneath the thick board layers, of course, but there was something knowing in the woman’s posture, the way she held herself; Darcy sensed it, woman to woman. The portrait was accomplished and sure – and Johan Trier in early 1920 was not.

‘So do you think she could be one then, the woman in the portrait?’

‘A prostitute? No, I don’t think so. He made his name painting society ladies.’

‘You mean like John Singer Sargent?’ Freja looked pleased with herself for knowing the name.

Darcy grinned. ‘Exactly like him. He focused on their fashions and hairstyles as much as their faces and figures. He painted them into glamazons. Queens.’

‘So then maybe he glamorized her. Perhaps he painted her after a “session” when the post-coital glow was still strong.’

‘No glow would have lastedthatlong,’ Darcy chuckled. ‘Portraits require multiple sittings.’

‘Couldn’t he have done it in one sitting? As a one-off?’

‘It’s possible, but unlikely. The brushwork looks heavily layered, suggesting multiple revisits – spooled out to allow for drying times,’ she explained. ‘And of course, sittings require scheduling, but there’s no reference to anything like that in his diaries for 1919, or what I’ve read of 1920 so far.’

Freja was quiet for a moment. ‘What if he “bought” her time but instead of shagging her, he painted her? That’s why he claimed it as an expense.’

Darcy considered for a moment. ‘I guess that could be plausible.’ She groaned. ‘God, I hope not. How would I ever trace an Italian prostitute a hundred years later?’

‘Hm. I don’t envy you that one. Maybe you should have gone to detective school.’

They split apart, running either side of a young family pushing a buggy, a toddler standing on a board at the back. The track was stylistically designed in the shape of a Tudor rose and was always crowded at weekends, runners vyingwith dog walkers and families for space on the path. The ground dropped away steeply either side of them, a moat to their right and the red-brick army barracks in the centre to their left. Freja had joked about breaking in many times.

‘Thing is,’ Darcy panted as they fell back in step again, ‘he wasn’t really painting society portraits in 1920. Not yet. He didn’t have the contacts by then, and at that particular point, travelling around Europe, he was doing lots of vignettes of peasants and workers. He had no interest in the artifice of formal portraiture but wanted to depict the working man—’

‘Exactly. And she’s a working girl!’

‘Except I just don’t think she was. Her clothes are...modest. Demure. The dress is high necked; she’s wearing jewellery. If he wanted to paint a prostitute, why disguise her as a lady?’

‘Hm.’ Freja mused on the point for a moment. ‘Okay then, say she’s not a prostitute. She is a lady. Could he have done it as a one-off to earn some money while he was travelling?’

‘Yes. But all things considered, 1919 and ’20 is definitely feeling too early for him artistically to have done this painting.’

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