All five paintings were sold into a private collection two years after their discovery, and very little was known about them until they resurfaced in different hands, and without the self-portrait, in 1982. It has long been speculated that the existence of the self-portrait was a story fabricated by attending journalists and there were only actually four paintings; however, two copies of theoriginal auction house catalogue are still in existence. Though they do not contain sketches or photographs of the lot, it is clear that five separate paintings were listed for sale, one an assumed self-portrait of a male and four portraits of different women.
Further records show that all five were purchased by the same collector. Documents such as these are invaluable when it comes to tracing the provenance of a piece, and in this instance, it shows that the self-portrait undoubtedly existed, even if it vanished from the public eye soon after. The trouble here is the lack of records between the purchase in 1913 and the sale to the next owner, when only four paintings changed hands.
We may never know what happened to the self-portrait. If it does resurface, it will be important to forensically test the paint, as human blood and hair were found mixed with the pigments when The Four were loaned to the National Portrait Gallery for conservation in 1985.
I wrinkle my nose in disgust as I head over to the photocopier and place the book face down. How was there any doubt that this artist was a serial killer after they found bits of people inthe paint? The machine hums and a flash of light passes beneath the lid. I collect the book and the photocopied page andgo back to the desk to sit down. I wonder if you could test the hair to see who it belonged to? That could be one way to trace the women, if the hair came from them. I just wouldn’t know where to start. My stomach rolls at the thought.
No wonder there are rumors it’s a curse.
I close the book and wake up my computer. Aside from psychopathy, which is a huge possibility here, why would someone kill women and use parts of them to paint with? My fingers hover over the keys; I’m unsure of what to type. My earlier searches I can write off as pretend book research, but this? This could get me put on a watch list somewhere. I take a deep breath and type “reasons for collecting human blood and hair,” hoping the computer’s search history has seen worse.
If all else fails, I’ll say I watched too many horror movies.
The first results are disappointing in their mundanity. I ignore anything that has to do with drug testing or forensics, because they’re unhelpful here. I’m about to click through to the next page when one of the generated search terms catches my eye. “Rituals involving human blood and hair.”
I glance around the room, the neck of my T-shirt suddenly tighter. The library is a little busier than when I arrived, but I’m still the only one in this row of computers, and no one is browsing the stacks close enough to be able to read anything on my screen.
I click on the link, and it takes me through to a new search page, this one filled with terms like “ritual” and “ceremony.” I click again, my fingers working independently from my brain asI read the information on the page as fast as I can. I write the web address in my notebook in case I need it in the future and close the whole thing down. I draw a shaky breath as the computer screen fades to black and I’m faced with my own pale reflection, but I’m not alone.
Someone is standing behind me.
EIGHTEEN
“I suppose you’re going toruin my dinner tonight by regaling me with what you’ve found?” I spin round in my chair to face Izzy and start to reply, but she holds up a hand to silence me as my mouth hangs open. “I’m not even angry, I promise.” She pulls up a chair from the empty desk next to me and sits down, dumping her bag on the floor. “Come on, then. Hit me with it.”
“Really?” I say, weirdly excited to share my findings.
“You’re going to tell me eventually anyway, so you might as well do it now.” Izzy leans back and folds her arms. “I know you too well, Fliss. Get it off your chest.”
“Are you sure?” I ask. Izzy raises her brows. “Okay, thank you.” I hand herTracing Provenance. “Look at the last chapter.” I tap the end of my pen on my knee as she reads the passage, watching her eyes flick across the page. I know when she reaches the section about blood and hair when her lips twitch in disgust.
“Jesus. Is that for real?” She hands back the book, and I shrug before placing it on the desk.
“I guess so? It’s a pretty legit source, and it fits with what the guy who verified the painting said.”
“So the self-portrait probably has blood and hair in it, too?”
“Yep.”
“That’s disgusting.” Izzy shakes her head. “How come they’ve never been able to tell who it belongs to? What about DNA?”
“I thought about that too, but the murders took place well before DNA was used in forensics. But look at this.” I quickly type into my phone and show Izzy an article about the Blackwood University murder. “DNA matches were used right here to solve the case decades later.” Her eyes glaze over—she’s heard about that case ever since I found out it had been reopened. “Sorry. What I’m saying is that if we could somehow check the DNA in the paintings, there’s the possibility it could be matched to a distant relative now. It’s a massive long shot, but it would be a great place to start if I knew how to go about it.”
“Okay, I understand that, but what’s that got to do with the witchy stuff?” She nods toward the computer screen.
“The rituals? I was looking for reasonswhysomeone might use blood and hair. It’s so rogue.”
“And?”
“And I found a website that mentioned rituals involving human blood and hair.”
Izzy raises her brows in disbelief. “Youlooked that up? Miss Rationality?”
“Nooo.” I stretch out the word like a petulant toddler. “I looked up something else, and that was generated as a popular search.”
“Let me see,” Izzy asks. I point at the web address I copied down and she taps it into her phone. “This looks like he couldhave been following a spell, some kind of obscure magic.” She looks at me. “This is dark, Fliss.”
“I know. But we don’t know for sure that he was following a ritual. It’s more likely he was a criminal psychopath, or maybe suffering from some disease that made him lose his senses. I think there was a load of syphilis around back then, and that literally melted people’s brains.”