Текст книги "Memory of Bones"

Автор книги: Alex Connor

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

BOOK THREE

… I should like to know if you are elegant, distinguished or dishevelled, if you have grown a beard, if you have all your own teeth, if your nose has grown, if you wear glasses, walk with a stoop, if you have gone grey anywhere and if time has gone by for you as quickly as it has for me …

LETTER FROM GOYA TO MARTIN ZAPATER

Spain, 1821

Shuffling across the dry stretch of grass outside the Quinta del Sordo, the old man paused beside the fountain, plunging his face under the fall of water. The coolness shimmered against his skin, pumping the aged blood into the pores, making his pulse thump to the liquid sensation of cold. His mind wandered from the hot day back to the court, to the past. When he had dabbled with colour and women, mocking the majas while he slept with them. Taking a salary from the king while the ruler slept and hunted his days away, and his Minister in Chief, Godoy, ruled over Spain and the bed of the Queen Maria Luisa. Godoy, a suspected murderer. The man rumoured to have had the Duchess of Alba killed.

Goya lifted his head out of the water, letting the heat dry the flutter of hair. Not bald, even past eighty, but deaf as a stone tomb. Inside his head the dull humming of blood beat in rhythm to the vibration of his footsteps as he made his way into the largest room of the house, on the left of the ground floor. Insects, plump with feeding, made trapeze movements over his head, alizard basking on the window ledge outside. Once, many years before, he had lain on a bed with the Duchess of Alba, both of them watching a lime green lizard making its showy way across the bedroom floor …

She had been poisoned, taken from him, the motive unclear. Jealousy, greed, her fortune up for the taking after her death. Or maybe she had been killed because she was, in truth, most frightening. Too wild, too reckless, her reputation tainted by rumours of her dabbling in the occult.

Soon it would be dark … Sighing, Goya picked up a paintbrush. The handle was worn, smeared with grease and an echo of old paint. No one was paying him for his work. There was no sponsor, no collector, to please. The house and the walls were his, to do with as he chose.

Like the bulls he had admired so often in the ring, Goya sighted his target and moved towards it. The wall fell to the onslaught of darkness, figures emerging half-completed, half human, winding in a mad procession. Mouths gaped, eyes extended, insanity in the turn of bodies, a demented congregation smearing their ghoulish progress across the wall.

‘… I have painted these pictures to occupy my imagination, which is tormented by all the ills that afflict me …’

He had sent the confession to a friend, but knew he could not risk confiding the whole truth in words. Anything written could be retained and used as a weapon against him.

The written word had held danger before. Earlier in his lifehe had scrawled captions under his works, the most damning reserved for The Disasters of War, the eighty aquatints which he had never published. Under the drawings he had made comments like a war correspondent writing from the front:

One cannot look at this.

This is bad.

This is how it happened.

I saw it.

And this too.

Why?

He had charted the war atrocities and recorded them, but kept them secret. The reason was obvious. A famed liberal, Goya could not risk retaliation from the vicious Ferdinand VII. He was too old and too weak for political grandstanding. Too frightened to rebel publicly.

Staring at his work, Goya moved up to the belly of the wall, his breath warm against the paint and plaster underneath. He knew the pictures wouldn’t survive in the Spanish climate. Oils mixed with white preparation of calcium sulphate, together with the adhesion of glue, would fade quickly in the heat and the damp from the nearby river. But that wasn’t important. He wasn’t creating the paintings to be admired, but to leave behind a testimony of what was happening to him.

His mind slipped backwards, losing its hold on the ratchet of memory. He was back in the summer of 1796, in Andalusia, at the country estate of the widowed Duchess of Alba. They were lovers, of course, and Goya ran the gauntlet of the Inquisition in return for her soft mouth and violence of nature. Resting his faceagainst the wall, the old man felt the wetness of the paint and remembered leaning his head against his lover’s moist thigh. So extraordinary had she been, the Duchess’s image had repeated itself constantly in his work. Chief sorceress, witch of the heart.

Witches in the Spanish court, witchcraft in the Spanish court. Satanism a sop against the grinding control of Catholicism and the Inquisition. Where there was ignorance there was superstition, and he had painted it … Pushing back from the wall, Goya turned, facing another mural, startled by his own vision.

Slowly the day began to shift, dusk at the windows and the open door. Lighting the oil lamps, he turned back to his work. Blisters on his palms made his actions intermittently clumsy, the straining of weak eyes made his head throb, and the swelling of worn muscles ached in the heat.

But still he carried on.

37

London

The first soft rains of April had given way to a truculent temper of wind and early dark afternoons, spring taking her time. The previous night Ben had slept intermittently, troubled by noises and the image of his dead brother. When he woke he remembered that the skull had been stolen and sat on the side of the bed, his head in his hands. Who had broken into his house? And, more importantly, how had they known the skull was there?

The answer unnerved him.

They knew because they had been watching him.

They had followed the skull from Madrid to London. From Leon to Ben. From the hospital to the house. Someone out there wanted the skull badly – and they were determined to get it. Leon had not taken his own life. The skull was important enough for someone to kill for it. Leon hadn’t just been hearing noises and voices – he had been followed, robbed, hanged. And meanwhile, what had Gina been doing? Hadn’t she encouraged Leon to write about Goya? Brought Frederick Lincoln into his life? Confused Leon’s thoughts with mediums and the raising of the dead?

It would have been amusing to some, Ben thought. But not to Leon. Not to a man who had heard voices all his life. And then there were the Black Paintings. Pictures so disturbed they had confounded generations. Paintings which had spooked – and, some said, cursed – anyone who had tried to decipher them.

Getting to his feet, Ben moved into his study and reached behind the largest bookcase, his fingers scrabbling to catch hold of the edge of an over-stuffed envelope. Finally he pulled out Leon’s hidden testimony. To his relief all of his brother’s paperwork was intact, which meant that whoever wanted the skull either didn’t want the theory or didn’t know of its existence.

The phone rang suddenly, interrupting Ben’s thoughts. Roma Jaffe’s steady voice came down the line.

‘How are you? I was told you were back in London.’

How did she know that? Ben wondered.

‘I’m coping. How’s the Little Venice investigation going?’

‘Slowly.’

‘No leads?’

‘Nothing concrete,’ Roma replied. ‘We did a reconstruction, but no one recognised the victim.’

‘No one?’

‘No … Did you?’

Surprised, Ben took a moment to answer. ‘Why should I?’

‘He had your card in his pocket.’

‘That doesn’t mean I knew him. As I said before, there could have been a dozen reasons why he had my card.’

‘But why was there nothing on his body apart from your card?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘It’s a mystery,’ she said slowly. ‘You couldn’t identify the facial surgery either, could you?’

‘No. I just know I didn’t do it.’

There was a stilted pause before she spoke again.

‘I’m very sorry about your brother. It must have been a terrible shock. Duncan said that you didn’t think he’d killed himself, and that you wanted to prove it.’

Closing his eyes momentarily, Ben regretted his uncharacteristic outburst and tried to mend the damage.

‘I was very upset when I spoke to your colleague. I’d just found Leon’s body.’

There was another swinging pause.

‘What were the findings of your brother’s autopsy?’

‘They said it was suicide.’

‘But you don’t think so … So that means you must think that someone murdered him? Who?’

‘I don’t know.’

Even over the phone Roma could sense that he was holding back. ‘Do you know why your brother was killed?’

Detita was standing by the stove, stirring something in a pot. Behind her, at the kitchen table, sat the young Ben and Leon arguing good-naturedly over a book. Finally, Ben let go of the book and Leon leant back in his chair, holding the volume triumphantlyto his chest. In the distance came the angry sound of a dog barking, the wind clapping in the trees outside. The atmosphere changed in an instant, from homely to threatening.

‘You hear that noise?’ Detita asked, turning to the brothers. ‘That’s Goya. The old man’s come back. He’s looking for his head …’

Snorting, Ben laughed, but Leon glanced over to the window, unnerved.

‘Someone came to see the old painter at the Quinta del Sordo. Goya knew them, knew what they wanted to do …’ She paused, making sure the words were leaving an imprint on the cloying air as she pointed beyond the window, the outside lamp shuddering in a late summer wind, Leon transfixed. ‘He heard devils passing his house at night, on horseback—’

The firelight caught in her eyes for a heartbeat, yellow darts of flame in the blackness of her pupils. And behind that, somewhere Ben had never gone, was the place where she had taken Leon a long, long time before.

‘Mr Golding?’ Roma said, raising her voice slightly over the phone. ‘Do you know why your brother was killed?’

‘No.’

He was lying, she could sense it, and she fired a volley into the dark.

‘Why were you asking about the Little Venice murder?’

He fielded the shot. ‘Why wouldn’t I be interested, since I’m involved in the case?’

‘But Duncan said you were talking about your brother being killed, and then you asked about the murder. And you’ve just asked me about it too.’ She pressed him. ‘I wondered if you thought there was a connection between this killing and your brother’s death?’

‘How could there be?’

‘I don’t know. You tell me.’

There was a temptation for him to confide, to tell her that someone had broken into his house. But then she would ask what they had stolen and somehow Ben wasn’t ready to talk about the skull, or his suspicions. Because they would sound absurd, and because she might write him off as a hysteric. Certainly she would exclude him from being involved in the Little Venice murder investigation – and he couldn’t have that. He needed to know as much as he could about Diego Martinez. In case his death held a clue to Leon’s.

So he didn’t confide. He lied. ‘I’m sorry I can’t help you.’

‘Really? You don’t know anything?’

‘No,’ he said, his tone final. ‘Nothing at all.’

38

Fiddling restlessly with his house keys, Carlos Martinez sat outside Roma’s office, waiting to be seen. He had been at the police station for half an hour, his gaze constantly moving over to the wall where there was poster of the reconstruction. Underneath were the words:

DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN?

He had seen it for the first time coming out of the Underground. Had stopped, taken aback, trying to work out if the face was who he thought it was. The eye colour was wrong, so was the styling of the hair, but he knew who it was. When he saw the second poster he found himself shaking, the eyes of the reconstruction looking blankly at him, not as they had done in life. But then again, this wasn’t life, was it?

He hadn’t gone home. Instead he had walked to the police station and told the desk sergeant that he wanted to see a detective. After showing them the photograph of Diego that he carried in his wallet it was clear that his son was indeed the face in the poster.

Leading the shaken man into her office, Roma closed the door behind them and showed him to a seat.

‘I’m Inspector Roma Jaffe. I’ll be handling your son’s case, Mr Martinez. I’m very sorry for your loss …’

He nodded, started fiddling with his keys again, his head down.

‘Can I ask you when you last saw your son?’

‘A week ago,’ the old man said, lifting his gaze, his eyes blurry with cataracts. ‘He’d come to London to visit me. He did twice a year, and we’d promised to meet up again last night. But Diego didn’t call or come to my place, and I was worried. It wasn’t like him.’

‘You said he was visiting London?’ Roma prompted him. ‘Where did he live?’

‘Madrid.’

The word took a swing at her. ‘Madrid … Did he work in Madrid?’

‘He took over my business there.’ The old man went on, his voice dropping then hurrying on, the accent obvious. ‘He wasn’t making a lot of money, but he’d kept it ticking over. You know, times are hard everywhere …’

She nodded.

‘Diego was my only child. He grew up with me, but when he was in his twenties I met someone and I moved over to London to be with her.’

‘And your son stayed in Madrid?’

‘He had friends there.’

‘Family?’

‘No, Diego was divorced.’

Roma nodded, her voice gentle. ‘Do you know if your son had any enemies?’

‘Because he was killed? He was, wasn’t he? He was killed.’

‘Yes, I’m afraid he was.’

‘Who did it?’

‘I don’t know,’ she replied honestly. ‘But now we know who he was, we can move the case forward. Did your son have any enemies?’

He shrugged. ‘No, he wasn’t a man like that. No one envied Diego.’ There was a long pause. ‘I don’t think he knew a lot of people in London, apart from me.’

‘What was the business?’

‘Builder.’

‘Had he had any arguments with clients lately?’

‘Who would kill him? No!’ Carlos Martinez replied shortly. ‘Diego kept himself to himself. He was quiet. He would do anything for anyone. He was kind, almost too kind.’

Pausing, Roma remembered the card found on the body and fired a volley into the air. ‘Did your son know a Doctor Ben Golding?’

‘We all did,’ Carlos said, smiling. ‘A long time ago, Dr Golding’s parents gave me a loan which saved my business. I never forgot it. We owed them a lot.’

‘So you knew the family?’

‘Dr and Mrs Golding were killed when the boys were in their early teens.’ Carlos paused, rubbing his right eye. ‘I’d known Miriam – Mrs Golding – when she worked at the Prado. I’d done some building repairs there and she hired me to work on their family house.’ He was looking back, remembering. ‘It needed work. Big old house, with bad plumbing. Rundown, always something needing repair. I had to replace the guttering too …’ He trailed off, then rallied. ‘There were two boys – Ben and Leon. Ben came to London—’

‘Did you know him here?’

He shook his head. ‘Nah, we weren’t in touch. I haven’t seen him since he was a teenager.’

‘What about Leon?’

‘Oh, I knew Leon. And Diego knows – knew – Leon quite well.’

Roma leaned forward in her seat, intrigued. ‘Did your son work for Leon Golding?’

‘On and off,’ Carlos replied. ‘Leon’s a bit … troubled, but pleasant enough. Diego did some repairs for him quite recently. I know because he told me all about it on his visit and about Leon’s girlfriend. He said she was beautiful, but he didn’t trust her.’

‘Why not?’

‘He knew her already,’ Carlos continued. ‘Diego said that she didn’t remember him, but he’d done some urgent repair work for Gabino Ortega in Madrid – and she’d been Gabino’s girlfriend at the time. He remembered her because they’d argued and Gabino had ended the affair and she’d taken it badly. Threatened him, said she’d pay him back.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Gina … I don’t know her surname. Diego would know …’ He trailed off, biting his lip to stop himself crying. It took him several seconds before he could speak again. ‘On his last visit, my son seemed different. He said he’d just seen Leon Golding and that he’d done him a favour.’

‘A favour? What kind of favour?’

‘Diego found something in the cellar of an old house in the centre of Madrid. They had been digging up the floor, which hadn’t been touched for centuries, and he found this skull. It was interesting because Diego knew the history of the house, knew that Goya had stayed there.’

She was baffled. ‘Goya?’

‘The painter, Goya. He’d lived there for a little while,’ Carlos went on. ‘The skull had been hidden for a long time and when Diego found it he thought it might be the painter’s … Leon had talked to Diego about Goya for years, so he gave it to him. Our whole family owed them a debt. I mean, I paid back the money a long time ago, but there was more to it than that. Leon was the right person to give the skull to. And besides, Diego knew how much it would mean to him.’

Roma studied the old man. ‘I don’t understand. Why would it mean so much?’

‘Leon Golding’s an art historian, very well known. An expert on Goya.’ He took in a breath, tugging at his keys, making them jingle erratically. ‘Diego said he was over the moon with it. Thought it would make his name. Leon took Diego out for dinner as a thank you.’

Was this the time to tell him that Leon Golding was dead? Roma wondered. He had just found out his son had been murdered – did he need to know about Leon? Thoughtful, she glanced away, making some notes. So there was a link between Ben Golding and the victim. More than a link – a bond. And he’d denied it. Why?

‘I was going to come and talk to the police anyway,’ Carlos said quietly, lifting his head and fixing his eyes on Roma. ‘Diego wouldn’t say anything, but he was being followed.’

‘Did he know who was following him?’

‘No. It was in Madrid.’ Carlos sighed. ‘He came to London to see me, but also to get away from Spain. He said his house and his business had been watched. He was scared. Really scared. I told him to go to the police, but he wouldn’t.’

‘Did he say why he thought he was being watched?’

‘The skull,’ Carlos said flatly. ‘It’s worth a fortune. The art world would want it, and private collectors. I know because of the conversations I used to have with Miriam Golding. She said that one day the skull would turn up—’

‘Why isn’t it with the body?’

‘It was stolen,’ Carlos said. ‘A long time ago. The story’s well known in Spain. Not over here, but at home, yes. Goya’s our most famous painter and the tale of the skull’s a legend. You know, folklore. People have been looking for it for a long time. They say it’s cursed, but who knows …’ Again he trailed off, remembering his son. ‘Maybe they were right.’

‘Did your son say anything about the people he thought were following him? Any descriptions?’

‘No, nothing like that.’

‘Did he receive any phone calls? Messages?’

‘Not that I know of.’

‘Did you know that Diego had Ben Golding’s card in his pocket?’

He didn’t react as Roma reached into her desk drawer and pushed the evidence across to him. After another moment, she flipped the card over to reveal the mobile number on the other side.

‘D’you know this number?’

‘Of course I do. It’s Leon’s number. Leon Golding’s.’

She sighed deeply, the old man watching her. ‘I’m very sorry to have to tell you this, Mr Martinez, but Leon Golding is dead.’

39

In the Whitechapel Hospital Ben was walking down the Loggia with Sean McGee’s file under his arm, Megan Griffiths running behind to keep up. The boy’s operation had been a success, but Ben was late for his afternoon clinic and had missed lunch. Having stood in for Ben when he was in Madrid, Megan was surprised to see a file she didn’t recognise – the notes on the Little Venice murder.

‘Can I look at it?’ she asked.

Ben shook his head. ‘No, it’s confidential.’

‘It’s all over the newspapers. It can’t be that confidential.’

‘My part in it is,’ he replied, putting the file into his briefcase.

Expecting his registrar to leave, Ben was surprised to find Megan hovering as they reached his consulting rooms.

‘You were asked for your medical opinion, weren’t you? Can I help?’

‘I’ve already done the examination,’ Ben replied, curious. ‘Why do you want to be involved?’

‘It’s not the kind of thing that happens every day. Murder, involving a patient who had had facio-maxillary surgery—’

‘Which is something you couldn’t have known unless you had already looked at the file,’ Ben replied, infuriated. ‘I’ll have to put that in your assessment, Dr Griffiths–’

‘Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have done the same!’

‘I probably would have, yes,’ he admitted, ‘but not for the same reasons. I suppose you want to write up the case?’

She nodded, holding his gaze defiantly. ‘It would be the chance of a lifetime. You know how difficult it is to get a posting at a good hospital. A doctor needs every bit of help they can find. And an innovative paper, with a well-known case, would help me a lot.’

Sighing, Ben moved behind his desk and sat down. He knew that if he tried to stop her, Megan Griffiths would do the paper anyway. She would gamble on the notoriety of her work outweighing her mentor’s disapproval. He was tired and under stress, and her interference rankled.

‘You realise that it would be unethical for you to publish anything until the murder becomes public knowledge? Or until it has been solved?’

‘What if it isn’t solved?’

‘There’s nothing to stop you from writing it up anonymously,’ Ben replied, ‘but that would defeat the point, wouldn’t it?’

Defiant, she went on the attack. ‘You don’t like me, do you?’

‘You’re right, I don’t.’

Without saying another word, she turned on her heel and left.

For the remainder of the day Ben regretted the altercation and he knew he had made an enemy out of a colleague – something he would normally have avoided at all costs. But life wasn’t normal at the moment. Leon was dead and the police were asking him questions, and instead of seeking their help, Ben was lying to them.

Returning home later that evening Ben paused at the doorway, almost reluctant to enter. When he did walk in and turn on the light, he half expected his house to be broken into again. But the furniture was in the same place as it always was, the post on the mat at his feet. As he bent to retrieve it, he could hear the answerphone clicking off in the study.

By the time he got to it, the caller had rung off, the red light flashing three times. Three messages. Checking the room, he pulled the curtains closed, then flicked the PLAY button.

‘Ben, hi, it’s me …’

He relaxed at the sound of Abigail’s voice.

‘… I just wanted to say hello. I wondered when you were coming round. Anyway, phone me when you get in.’

A pause followed, then her voice again, gentle.

‘I miss you. Bye.’

Saving the message, Ben played the next, smiling when he heard Francis Asturias’s booming voice. His tone was pretend outrage, mock angry.

‘Bloody Golding! Call me back, you prick. I’ve got some news.’

Replaying both messages, Ben realised that Abigail would be safer if she returned to France and stayed with her father. In France she would be away from him. In France, she would be safe … An unexpected noise behind him made him turn, but it was only a pigeon on to the window ledge outside. Rolling his head to loosen his neck muscles, he clicked on the answerphone to access his last message.

The voice was a man’s. Disguised and ominous.

‘I’ve got the skull, Mr Golding …’

Ben stared at the phone as the muffled voice continued.

‘If you’re tempted to talk to the police, remember Leon. Remember your brother and what happened to him.

‘I’m watching you.’