Beneath every story, there is another story. There is a hand within the hand...... There is a blow behind the blow.

Naomi Alderman, The Power.
...

"Oh, he thinks that? Is no news actually."

Klein wasn't surprised by Bellamy's question. He was used to being treated like a plague anyways.
All his life he had been chasing things and running from men like Jorah, who had no ability to understand the ones like him, the runners, the thieves, the sinners.

"Do you really have no feelings?"

"I don't "

"Why?"

"Cause I've never been taught on how to feel."

"What about your family?"

"I never had a family."

Bellamy was standing him, looking straight to his face only a few inches apart, like trying to catch every detail on Klein's person, as if looking through a microscope. He couldn't believe someone had no feelings. He had always thought feelings were innate to every normal human. They were the difference between men and beast.

"I want to see something." The boy stepped back and exited the room. Klein followed him, pushed by an odd feeling he had been feeling all the trip, and escaped his understanding.

The halls outside were dark, barely bathed by a few golden sparks. The boy easily reached another room, like someone who walked through his house, knowing every corner.

"I remember this tiger."

He was staring at an Indian yellow-skinned tiger, kept on a glass box.

"Is Leeds tiger. The man-eater."

"I was terrified of it the first time I saw it, especially after hearing all the tales. I was barely a kid, and I remember escaping from my dad, even crying, as he was forcing me to look at it as a dead thing, and not a living one."

"It's just a tigerskin stuffed with straw."

"I didn't know that back then, or I didn't want to believe it. I wanted to see him now. He gave me nightmares for years. Until we moved to Sheffield and I knew he wouldn't catch me."
He leaned closer, pouting as his eyes were nailed on the tigerskin. "Still spooky."

Klein felt amused by this boy. His expressions came out so naturally and shameless as a kid's. He was simply immature, in a charming way. He wondered if that was a possible thing.

"What scared you when you were a child, Jude."
Klein looked at him, with eyes that were hard to read. A mixture of annoyance and anger.

"I'm sorry. Mr Klein." Bellamy said clenching his teeth, as his lips were shakingly trying to stop a smile from forming in his face, at the thought of how mad was getting the detective at his teasing mention of his name.

It was the first time Klein wanted to laugh while working. The expression in Bellamy's face was priceless. Klein thought he looked like one of those horror clowns. He swallowed the wicked impulse of laughter and starts to think seriously about the question that had sunk in the lonely room.

"When I was a kid, not many things scared me. But I remember being terrified by thunders."

"Oh...I'm sorry. Is a terrible fear. When I was a kid my dad always came to my bed in the stormy nights and dragged me to my mum's room. I never got to be scared of those."

"You were a lucky brat."

"I certainly was..."

Bellamy had been staring at Klein's eyes for a moment which were lost in the grey clouds resting over the horizon, without even noticing, crashing his dark coffee ones with the deadly blue of Klein's. The silent room felt smaller, and his mint shirt too thick. Why it was so hot around him? Bellamy thought it must've been his imagination, but even at the car, he felt his body getting warm by the detective's eyes. The boy changed his sight to the bottom of the room, finally capable of getting rid of the blue.
He walked to a white and gold door, being followed by Klein once again.

A gallery with multiple oils on canvasses opened to them, with more white and cream walls and golden mouldings. Klein thought the loneliness of a usually crowded place was as enchanting as a night full of moonlight.

The boy few steps in front of him walked towards a specific painting, as if he knew the route by memory. He stood up from sudden in front of a small, golden framed canvas with dark blue colours.

"When I was running away from the tiger I crashed against a man looking at this painting. He asked me why was I crying, and told me a story about a lost child in these streets. He told me this kid was his son once, and that he lost him, but he knew he was gonna find him by a painting. I didn't understand a thing about that story. I don't even understand what it means now. Perhaps it was just a cheap tale he came up with back then, but there was something about this man I will never forget. He was tall and imposing, his figure was bigger than my dad's, and mysterious, like the painting itself. Somehow his voice was soothing, and he calmed my tears until my dad found me. His face is blurry, but his voice..."

"Park Row at night by Wilfred Jenkins." Klein almost watched tears forming in Bellamy's dark eyes. He decided to interrupt that strange memory was the best. For some reason, he didn't want him to cry or be scared, nor sad. "I once stole a replica. I thought it was an authentic one. It would've been almost a thousand pounds. Such a shame..."

Bellamy turned to face Klein, with a very amazed tone at his words.
"Stole?"

Klein approached a different painting this time, completely ignoring Bellamy's question like moved by a magic force that pulled him to a dark coloured paintwork.
It was a portrait of a dark-haired man dressed on a black attire, who was holding a paintbrush.
A painter.

"Jacob Kramer."

Klein brought his face near until just an inch was keeping his nose from touching the painting, as his blue eyes scrutinized the fabric where the colours laid as if he was reading something.

Bellamy walked to him, wondering with curious glare what was he doing so close to that canvas.

"Verum est in praeterito."

He finally exclaimed with the widest smile Bellamy had ever seen.

"The truth lays in the past." Said the boy, appealing to his precarious Latin knowledge.

"Exactly."

"What happens with the truth?" Bellamy seemed confused about how the phrase had popped out, and which was the meaning of the smile. He did figure Jude had discovered something.

"Come."

The detective stretched his arm to the boy, inviting him to step forward. Bellamy walked towards Klein, who held him by his slim shoulders, brought him closer, almost pressing his face against the painted linen.

"Do you see? Look at the small marks over the paintbrush."

And Bellamy could read them. They were Latin words as clear as water. No one would ever notice something like that.

"Did he write this?" He asked the thrilling detective, who was oblivious to the boy's touch, and the growing warmth of their bodies next to the other.

"Who else? He wrote over a painter. He knows we call him "The painter". He's close to us, as I suspected."

"What do you mean close?" Bellamy's heart was rising with every word the detective spoke right next to his ear.

"I dunno how close. But he knew I was going to meet Steven yesterday, and he planned the killing of the Belvedere Torso so, it was a surprise when I arrived at my flat."

"You mean he used it as a distraction to kill your friend."

"Exacte. This is the message. I just need to know what does he want me to see..."

"There's something else."

Klein passed his face over Bellamy's shoulder, trying to look closer and see what the boy was talking about.

"MMVIII" He read out loud so Klein could find it. The proximity of his hot breathing was making him feel weird.

"2008."

"What does it mean?"

"I wish I knew...

But I will find out."

A/N: hope you enjoyed reading this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it. These last two were actually one I had to split up cause is easier to review them that way. Besides I get to update sooner. :))
Hope "the painter" is being mysterious enough for you my mystery lover. I also put a little bit of chemistry between the weirdo Klein and the even weirdo Bellamy.

Next chapter goes in Gibbs perspective straight to the morgue where the torso is. Perhaps another clue can help this team to catch the painter.
We're slowly getting closer...
I will keep adding the flashbacks of twenty-one years ago.
I bet you already know who owes these memories.

The picture above is the topic painting of this chapter. I couldn't choose between the one with the message and the one with the story. I guess I chose the latter as I want you to remember it. It is more important than it seems.

Hope you had a happy reading.
Don't forget to hit the star.
Love ya! ;))