Page 95 of Close Up

“He needed the money all right. His life was at stake. I paid him a thousand dollars in cash. There was to be another thousand afterward. But that bastard betrayed me.”

“What do you mean? He made the call to the hotel, just as you paid him to do.”

“He telephoned youtwo hoursbefore he was supposed to do it,” Fenella said, her voice rising to a shrill pitch. “I had a feeling I couldn’t trust him. I followed him that night when he left that cheap auto court where he was staying. When he went into that phone booth I knew he had decided to warn you. When he went back to his car I saw my chance to get rid of him and I took it. I knew then I’d lost the opportunity to get you. I had to drive back to Adelina Beach that night because I had to do something about the car. There was so much damage. I had no idea it would be that bad. When I read in the papers that Deverell had been struck and killed by a car it sounded so simple, so easy.”

“Nick was right—there was a connection between the murders of Deverell and Flint. It wasn’t a coincidence. You got the idea for using a car from the newspapers. You copied the technique.”

“The drive back to Adelina Beach was a nightmare with only one headlight and a cracked windshield. I didn’t dare wait until daylight because I was afraid someone here in town would see the car and ask questions.”

“You hid your damaged car in the garage behind your shop.”

“I didn’t know what to do with it. Do you have any idea how hard it is to conceal a well-known automobile that has sustained so much damage? I couldn’t take it to a local repair shop. I didn’t dare drive it to my home. The housekeeper and the gardener would have noticed. I decided to leave it in the old garage behind the gallery until I could figure out what to do with it.”

“You think your car is going to be a problem?” Vivian reached the landing and stopped. “Wait until you have to figure out how to get rid of my body.”

“That’s going to be the easy part, thanks to your snooping around. Open that door.”

Vivian walked halfway along the balcony and stopped in front of the door. She tried the knob.

“It’s locked,” she said.

“Of course it is. Here’s the key.”

Fenella tossed a key onto the floor. Vivian picked it up and inserted it in the lock. She got the door open and took two steps into a long, dark chamber.

“The light switch is to your right,” Fenella said as she stepped in and closed the door. “Turn it on.”

Vivian groped for the switch, found and flipped it. Most of the room remained in shadow but three carefully positioned and focused lights winked on. They illuminated three large, elegantly framed photographs on the wall.

Vivian tried to steel herself because she was almost certain now that she knew what Fenella wanted her to see. But that did nothing to mitigate the shock of raw horror that slammed through her.

She recognized all three pictures. She had shot the same scenes while surrounded by homicide detectives, uniformed officers, and other news photographers. But her front-page photos had revealed the harsh, gritty reality of violent death. The three death scenes on the wall had been manipulated using every trick in the pictorial photographer’s repertoire to make them appear to be paintings.

“You were the photographer who composed the pictures,” Vivian said. “Not Morris Deverell. There were two Dagger Killers, not one.”

“You’re wrong. Until I was forced to get rid of Toby Flint I’d never actually killed anyone. I was theartist. Deverell was just my assistant. I chose the subjects and booked the evening appointments. While wediscussed new acquisitions for their art collections I put a little something into their drinks to make them go to sleep. Deverell helped me set up my camera and arrange the lighting. When all was ready, he used his dagger. He loved that part. When I looked through the lens and saw true perfection I took the picture.”

“No wonder you got nervous when you found out the police were looking for a photographer working in the pictorial tradition.”

“Nervous? I was frantic. I couldn’t believe someone had figured it out.”

Vivian studied the image of Clara Carstairs’s body. It was rendered in sepia tones. The picture had been printed using a variety of special effects and tints. The modern furniture behind the ornate sofa in the Carstairs mansion had been painted out and replaced with the scene of an ancient Greek temple.

The photos of the Attenbury and Washfield murders had been manipulated in a similar manner. Attenbury appeared to have been killed in an ancient Roman bath. Washfield looked as if he had been stabbed in an Egyptian pyramid.

“I call the series Dreams of Antiquity,” Fenella said.

“Such a terribly old-fashioned, outmoded style,” Vivian said.

“It’sart,” Fenella hissed. “Fineart. The real thing. I do not make sleazy photos for the front page of a scandal sheet.”

“How did you and Deverell come to know each other?”

“The first time he walked into my gallery there was a spark between us, a certain something. I showed him some of my early work, imaginary death scenes. He had the eye of an experienced collector. He saw my potential but he sensed that my vision could only be truly realized if it was inspired by the reality of death.”

“I get it. He seduced you by pretending to praise your talent.”

“He was mymuse.”

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