Still Life (Chief Inspector Armand Gamache #1) - Louise Penny Page 0,107

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.

There was silence for a moment while they all considered.

‘Can you take this face off and get an idea of the original?’ Gamache asked.

‘Maybe. Depends how thoroughly the original face was removed. Do you think the murderer did this?’ Clara asked.

‘I do. I just don’t know why.’

‘You said, “she”,’ said Beauvoir to Clara. ‘Why?’

‘I guess because the new face is female. I assumed the person who did this would paint the easiest thing and that’s what we see in the mirror every day.’

‘You think this is the murderer’s face?’ Beauvoir asked.

‘No, that wouldn’t be very smart. I think it’s the murderer’s gender, that’s all. Under pressure a white man is most likely to paint a white man, not a black man, not a white woman – but the thing he’s most familiar with. The same here.’

It’s a good point, thought Gamache. But he also thought that if a man was painting to deceive he might very well paint a woman.

‘Would it take skill to do this?’ he asked.

‘Remove one face and replace it with another? Yes, quite a lot. Not necessarily to take the first face off, but then again most people wouldn’t know how. Would you?’ she asked Beauvoir.

‘No, not a clue. You mentioned mineral spirits and a rag, but the first time I ever heard of mineral spirits was a few days ago when you needed them for your work here.’

‘Exactly. Artists know these things, but most people don’t. Once the face is off she’d have to paint on another, using Jane’s style. That takes skill. Whoever did this is an artist, and I’d say a good one. It took us quite a while to find the mistake. We probably never would have if your Agent Nichol hadn’t been so obnoxious. She said this was Yolande. I was so pissed off I went in search of Jane’s Yolande to see if it was true. And it wasn’t. But it forced me to look more closely at the face to see who it might be. That’s when I noticed the differences. So you can tell Nichol she helped solve the case.’

‘Anything else you’d like us to tell her?’ Beauvoir smiled