Jose Somoza - Art of Murder

Early on the morning of 29 June 2006, Susan's bleeper went off unexpectedly on her bedside table, and woke her from a deep sleep. She dialled her code number on the hotel telephone, and was instructed to proceed immediately to the airport. She was sufficiently experienced to know this was no routine matter. For the past three weeks she had been in Hanover, for six hours a day – with intermediate breaks – lighting a small meeting room where debates about biology, painting, and the relation between art and genetics took place. Susan had not heard a word of them, because she had been wearing ear protectors the whole time. Sometimes she was also given a mask to put on, when she supposed that the guests were well-known faces who wanted to remain anonymous. As a Lamp, she was more than used to ignoring everything. But she had only rarely been called so urgently in the middle of the night, and hardly given time to get dressed, grab her bag with her equipment in it, and rush off to the airport. There a ticket was waiting for her on a flight that left for Munich half an hour later. In Munich she met up with other colleagues (she did not know them, but that was common among decorations). They were taken by private bus guarded by four security men to the Obberlund building, a squat steel and glass complex of offices and conference halls situated very close to the Haus der Kunst, next to the English Garden. During the journey she got a phone call from the decoration supervisor, a thoroughly unpleasant young woman by the name of Kelly, who explained briefly the position she was to occupy in the room she would be working in.

Once they had arrived at the Obberlund, she had only twenty minutes to get ready: she took all her clothes off, put on a porous swimsuit and a colour cap for her hair, and then waited for the paints to dry. After which she took off her suit and cap, checked her body painted a rosewood pink and her dark teak hair, took the lamp fittings out of her bag, clamped the base round her right ankle, and limped to the meeting room with cable in hand, trying hard not to stumble and fall. Her colleagues were also silently and efficiently occupying their positions. Susan lay on her back on the floor and took up her pose: hands on hips, backside in the air, the right leg lifted out straight and the left bent over her face. The lighting circle with four cold bulbs was attached to the ankle in the air. The cable was not wrapped round her leg, but curled off across to the plug. All Susan had to do was to stay still and let the lights shine. It was a difficult posture to maintain, but training and habit had turned her into a first-class object. Her operating time was four hours.

A short while later, someone – Kelly, in all likelihood – came and switched her on. The bulbs were lit, and Susan began to illuminate the room. Then a workman arrived to put on her ear protectors and the mask, then she was left in darkness and silence.

The meeting took place on the tenth floor.

The room the Obberlund managers had offered them was square, hermetic and soundproof. It had dark-tinted windows. There were only a few non-human pieces of furniture: metal and plastic chairs on a single leg were scattered around an enormous steel-grey-coloured carpet. All the other decorations were painted human bodies. There were Tables, Lamps, Ornaments by the window and, in the corners of the room, one stationary Trolley and eleven mobile Trolleys. Apart from the latter, which had to go from one side to another serving the guests and therefore had to see and hear clearly, the rest were wearing ear and eye protectors.

The working breakfast was served by the eleven Trolleys: freshly baked croissants, five kinds of bread, and three different butter substitutes, as well as coffee, coffee and tea substitutes -these last for Benoit, in particular, as he was very nervous. There was also a variety of fruit juices, pastas, cheese spreads and glasses of mineral water full of gleaming ice cubes. Finally, there was a selection of dried fruit in a bowl on one of the Tables (the guests had to go and get these, because the Table – a boy lying with his back on the ground, legs in the air, and a girl balancing on his feet, both of them painted a fuchsia colour – could not move) and a dish of multi-coloured sweets between the breasts of a red Marooder Trolley, its body arched backwards with hands and feet on the ground, shiny copper hair brushing the floor.

One of the guests was eating these sweets non-stop: he would lean over, grab a handful of them and stuff them one by one under his moustache, as though they were peanuts. He was a young man with black hair and a high forehead. His eyebrows were as bushy as his moustache. His maroon suit was impeccable, and beautifully cut, although not as expensive as Benoif s. He looked like a cheerful, friendly, talkative sort: in other words, someone of little importance. But Bosch instinctively realised that this individual, this anonymous-looking young man with a moustache who was devouring all the sweets, was the most important of all the important people in the room. He was the Head Honcho.

Bosch had been appointed moderator. When he felt he had allowed them enough time, and caught a nod of approval from Miss Wood, he cleared his throat and said: 'Shall we begin, ladies and gentlemen?'

The mobile Trolleys, who were not wearing ear protectors, immediately left the room. Unavoidably curious, the eyes of the guests followed the procession of tall, varnished, naked bodies out of the room. For a minute, no one spoke. Finally, it was Paul Benoit who seemed to awaken out of a dream and opened the discusssion.

'Please, Lothar, how did he get in? Just tell me that. How did he get in? I don't want to get nervous, Lothar. Just tell me… I want you and April to explain to me… to us, right now, how on earth that bastard got into the suite, Lothar. How did he get into a hermetically sealed suite crammed with alarms, with five security men permanently on guard in the lifts, stairs and doorways of the hotel… How do you explain it?'

'If you'll give me a chance, Paul, I will explain,' Bosch replied calmly. 'He didn't have to get in: he was already inside. The Wunderbar hotel has hyperdramatic decorations. There was one in the suite: an oil painting by Gianfranco Gigli…'

'A worthless disciple of Ferrucioli’ Benoit spat. 'If he hadn't killed himself, his works would be sold by weight.' 'Paul, please.' 'Sorry. I'm nervous. Go on.'

'Four models take turns to be the Gigli work. Somehow, this guy managed to pass himself off as one of them – Marcus Weiss, forty-three years old, from Berlin. Weiss was the work on Tuesdays. When we discovered what had happened we went to the motel where he was staying. We found him bound hand and foot to his bed, and garrotted. The police calculate his death took place on Monday night. It was, therefore, not he who turned up the next day at the Wunderbar wearing the paint and the mask for the Gigli painting.'

'Have I understood correctly?' asked Rudolf Kobb, from the Foreign Office. 'We're looking for a guy who disguises himself as someone disguising himself as something else?'

'A guy who disguises himself as a model who is a work of art on show inside the suite,' Bosch corrected him.

'No. No. No, Lothar.' Benoit shifted in his seat, straightening the crease on his trouser leg. 'I'm sorry, but I'm not convinced. Who was the idiot who let him into the suite?'

'My men are not responsible, Paul. In any case, I have no problem assuming responsibility for them. On the dot of seven on Tuesday evening, a man who looked like Marcus Weiss, wearing the labels Marcus Weiss wears, and carrying Marcus Weiss' credentials, arrived at the Wunderbar. My men checked his papers, made sure everything was in order, and let him in. They had been doing exactly the same with Weiss for several weeks.' 'Why didn't they search his bag?'