Free 50/50 Killer by Steve Mosby Page B

consisted of either seven or nine paintings of an object or a person. The first in the series was always photo-realistic, although usually done in strange colours. The face on the left of the screen, for example, had been painted in shades of green and yellow, but other than that it could have been a photograph. When the first painting was finished, he scanned it into the computer and manipulated it with the software: blurring it slightly, perhaps, or hardening the edges of the colours so that the whole picture became blockier. Then he printed it and painted a copy of the image. That was the second piece in the series. And so on. It was an iterative process. He ended up with a row of small canvases showing an image slowly disintegrating, reducing itself to the bare components of colours and shapes.
    Somewhere along that line, the viewer lost track of what the object was. The last painting in this series of self-portraits would be four rectangles of orange and green, dividing the final canvas slightly off centre, like a stained-glass window. Only three images in, the picture on the right of the screen had become alien. It was recognisably human, but Scott couldn't see much of himself in it any more.
    Artwork. There was theory and intent behind what he did, but his degree was far enough in the past for him to have relaxed on that front. A younger version of him might have sniffed at it, but he painted this way because it interested him and, all else aside, the results looked good.
    Other people were starting to agree. A small gallery in town had taken some of his single pieces, sold a couple - it wasn't much money, but it was something. They'd phoned a fortnight ago, interested in showing more of his work, so he'd taken this week off to get a few more together. When he got the call, he'd been enthusiastic, but then disappointed by Jodie's reaction. She was pleased, or she said she was, but it was shot through with the same lack of enthusiasm - indifference, almost - that permeated the rest of their lives.
    Last night, for example. She'd come home from work and flopped on the settee. He'd asked what was wrong and she'd said nothing. But he wasn't the type to let things like that go, so it had turned into an argument, and eventually she'd gone and flopped in the bedroom instead. It often happened. Their flat was well-decorated, clean and spacious, but sometimes when he watched her mentally pacing the place, it was as though she needed to find an undiscovered room or go insane.
    The feeling was contagious. They hadn't been happy for months, and although his instinct was to do something to make it right, he had no idea how. Her refusal to talk about whatever was bothering her created a knot of frustration inside him, and sometimes it grew so hard it hurt him to swallow.
    He looked at the face on the screen. Perhaps it was down to the photograph he'd started with or the choice of colours, but the one thing you could say for sure was that it was sad. So maybe not so alien after all.
    He alt-tabbed back to the list and scrolled up to find it.
Number 87. Even though it's stupid, you support my painting.
    The first bit of that was something like his standard self-deprecation; if you put yourself down first, it reduced the risk of getting hurt. In the early years of their relationship, Jodie would have told him off for that, especially about his art, but now ... he wondered how she would react. Maybe Number 87 wasn't even true any more.
    Scott felt it more than ever, but it was as much a part of their general unhappiness as anything else. It was okay to have dreams when you were younger, but at some point they needed to be abandoned, didn't they? His paintings wouldn't buy them out of here; the menial work they did to make a living wouldn't; and so if nothing changed then this was it. They would carry on in exactly the same way for the rest of their lives, and at the moment that was impossible.
    He scrolled back down.
    Number 274