Текст книги "Memory of Bones"

Автор книги: Alex Connor

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

17

Madrid

The heatwave had finally broken, a storm marking the end of the freak weather, persistent rain making the weathercock rotate madly over the decrepit stables of the Madrid house. Inside, Leon drew the curtains and locked the windows, rechecking the back and front doors. He hadn’t shaved and his clothes smelled of stale sweat as he moved back into his study. After his last visit to the Prado he had avoided the gallery, even been tempted to go back on his medication. But gradually his panic subsided. How could he stop when the answer was finally in his hands? All he had to do now was to write his theory up, put it down on paper, then – when it was completed – turn it over to the world.

He knew how the art world worked. How critics, writers and collectors all vied for the top slot. Men searched for decades to uncover something unknown, some detail previously unexplained, some nuance gone unnoticed. But the Black Paintings were in another league. No one had ever known their true meaning. Theories mushroomed but dwindled into supposition. A hundred explanations had been offered, but never proved, never fulfilling the hunger for the truth about the most macabre pictures ever painted.

So it followed that the man who solved the enigma would become famous. The man who cracked the cipher would be the envy of the art world. He would become an authority no one could question. Respected, revered, admired.

Locking the door of his study, Leon checked his mobile, hearing the messages from Ben. For a moment he was tempted to call his brother, but found himself uncertain, chewing at the side of his index fingernail. The piece of paper Jimmy Shaw had given him had no name written on it, just a mobile number. Tucking the edge of the note under his desk lamp so that he could read the digits without needing to touch it, Leon wiped his hands.

To his surprise he felt sympathy for the man. Obviously dying, Shaw had managed to elicit some compassion in Leon – and an unwelcome guilt. But it was his skull! Leon thought desperately. No one else’s. And now everyone was after it. And after him. People had no right to be following him, questioning him. As for Gabino Ortega – what made him think he could demand details? He had been impertinently high-handed, almost imperious, although he was little more than a thug, challenging Leon outside the Prado. On his turf, talking to him as though he was a lackey!

Of course he had lied! What else could he do? Leon asked himself. He was hardly going to admit that he had Goya’s skull … Slumping into his seat, Leon felt an overwhelming desire to kick out. All his life he had longed for an opportunity to dazzle everyone. To finally put to rest the rumours about his mental instability. No one could deny him respect when he had the Goya skull. That, together with his explanation of the Black Paintings, would silence everyone.

Calming himself, he reached for his papers and began to read. A buzzing sounded in his ears as he read about Goya’s first major illness. About how the artist had been temporarily paralysed, his head full of noises. Normal speech and communication over … Sighing, Leon leaned back in his chair, placing the cut-outs he had made of each painting in the order in which they had been hung in the Quinta del Sordo. Soon he had the complete floor plans – upstairs and downstairs – in front of him, reading the paintings in the order they had been viewed.

Ground floor – Deaf Man, with the dead man talking to him:

The Pilgrimage:

Judith and Holofernes, the woman killing her rival:

Saturn eating one his children:

The Witches’ Sabbath:

and lastly, Leocardia leaning on a burial mound:

Six of the fourteen Black Paintings which had been an enigma for centuries … Leon glanced at his notes, excitement rising. So it begins. The first painting, Deaf Man, was Goya himself. Goya had entered the Quinta del Sordo as an old, deaf man. The weird figure next to him, whispering into his deaf ear, was Death itself. He had come to the country house to die. But why? Leon looked at the next painting. Here began Goya’s testimony of his country, The Pilgrimage – a series of deranged people walking blindly in the semi-darkness. The Spanish people, driven insane by war and brutality, no longer human, walking into the abyss.

Then he turned to the third painting – Judith and Holofernes. Throughout art history it had represented the story of the Jewish queen who had seduced and then decapitated her lover and conqueror. But Leon knew this was no historical reference – Goya had not been depicting Judith, but Leocardia, his lover at the Quinta del Sordo … Excitement building, he scribbled down his thoughts, his hands moving rapidly. It was as though something had unlocked his brain and body; as though he had an open channel through which the information was pouring.

God, if only he had the skull! Leon thought desperately. What wouldn’t it tell him? What inspiration wouldn’t it magic on to the page? He thought of Gina and the medium, then Detita – and smiled to himself. His triumph was close. Close, breathable, touchable. If he kept working … His eyes moved on to another painting – the same queasy colours, background darkness swampy with malevolence. This time it was The Witchy Brew.

But now there was no Biblical prophet, only an aged female, grinning maniacally, and next to her the same half-human, half-dead figure, leaning – always leaning – towards what still lived.

Leon blinked as a searing thought occurred to him, then moved forward to study the right-hand figure. He stared into blank eyes, his heart rate speeding up as an idea came to him. Was that what Goya was painting? Swallowing, he tried to control his emotions as he looked back at the picture. Had the artist made dangerous enemies? Had he risked his own safety? Was it true what Detita had said so many years earlier – that Goya had been cursed, made ill and deafened deliberately, not by witches but by someone altogether more human?

Goya had become Court Painter and won the admiration of Spain, but he hadn’t kept it. What followed was his fall from grace, his questioning by the Inquisition, the Royals’ favourite out of favour because of their fall … Leon stared at the paintings intently, thinking of Goya. Who knew more about the caprices of fate? Who else had painted so much depravity and madness? The pictures were hardly finished – rough works, painted hurriedly as though the artist was in a frenzy.

Avidly, his gaze moved from one painting to another. He saw the Jewish queen cutting off her seducer’s head in Judith and Holofernes; he saw Saturn devouring the head of one of his own offspring, and the solitary, struggling dog, its head sticking above the quicksand, its body already sucked underneath into some gobbling, inescapable mass. So many decapitations, so many disembodied heads. Cut from their bodies. Stolen – just like Goya’s own.

Jesus! Leon thought desperately. Was the answer that obvious? He looked around, afraid that someone could overhear his thoughts. Was that the truth? he asked himself, his heart rate increasing, blood fizzing in his ears. Saturn … He knew! Christ! Leon thought. Was it that? Was this the evidence?

Was Goya – in that remote, secluded house – leaving a testimony behind? He was ill, old, beaten down by tragedy and cynicism. Did he dream of the Inquisition coming back to his door? Asking questions about him and Leocardia? Reeling, Leon leaned back in his seat, putting some distance between himself and the illustrations. He could suddenly picture the deaf world Goya lived in. A candle-lit, silent place, hermetically closed, the old man casting his long shadow on the walls.

He rubbed his temples. He was too tired to work but too tired to stop. He had to write it down – and then hide it. Along with the skull he would secrete the riddle of the Black Paintings. He would write it down, spell it out. On paper it would serve as a testament. And perhaps, once written down, it would loosen its grip.

In his excitement a cry escaped his lips. Sweating, he found himself light-headed, a queasy giddiness about to overwhelm him. Bartolomé Ortega would be so jealous … Leon laughed to himself, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. All the Ortega money wouldn’t be enough. In the end it would come down to insight – Leon’s insight. The solving of the Black Paintings was simple for him. After all, it was only one madman talking to another.

One madman talking to another … Leon repeated the words in his head, disturbed by the thought. Getting to his feet he felt the room shift around him and knew he had pushed himself too far and gambled with his stability. Staggering to the door, he clasped the handle. He would go for a walk – get out of the house, away from the reproductions which were calling out to him from the desk.

But no longer from the desk.

Now they were all around him. Panicked, Leon turned, staring frantically at the hallucinations which filled the room. Witches were turning into goats, men’s faces were grinning without eyes and whispering without voices. He could hear the paintings talking, whispering, making catcalls in the dimness, as behind him the sound of unfolding wings beat like thunder against his skin.

His heart was pumping in his ears, his mouth open, gasping for air. The paintings vibrated in front of him, first becoming larger, swelling towards him, then retracting into murky black slivers of pure malice. And then he saw the painting of La Leocadia, Goya’s mistress, dressed in widow’s black, leaning on the huge dark mound of the artist’s grave. But as Leon looked, the paint peeled away and under the earth was not Goya, but himself. Still alive but deaf, blind and mute, clawing under the weight of earth. And the mourner wasn’t Leocadia but Detita, pressing Leon further and further into the suffocating earth.

In uncovering the secret of The Black Paintings Leon Golding had gone too far. Not only was he risking his sanity, but his life.

18

New York

Roberta Feldenchrist got out of the car, her chauffeur holding the door open for her. The warm air felt oily as she moved into the air-conditioned lobby of the apartment block. All her life Roberta – known to everyone as Bobbie – had lived on Park Avenue. All her life she had been surrounded by money, and when her parents divorced she stayed on with her father in the penthouse apartment, although the family actually owned three floors of the block. Her mother remarried but they had little in common and Bobbie rarely visited in France, even after Harwood Feldenchrist died.

Being an only child, it was not surprising that Bobbie inherited the Feldenchrist fortune and had full control. She left the property and banking interests to the board of directors her father had set up, but the running of the Feldenchrist art collection was entrusted to her. A lifelong chauvinist, Harwood had made it clear that although Bobbie wasn’t a boy, she had been as near a son as he would ever get. She had often wondered if that was why her father shortened her name to Bobbie.

Walking into the apartment she paused, glanced at her mail and then moved into the drawing room overlooking the park and the view beyond. The view spoke of privilege. Here she was above the streets, up with the gods – spoiled, preserved, chosen. Just like the paintings on the walls which surrounded her. The picture closest to her was Fragonard. Her father had loved French art and so had she, only later being introduced to the Spaniards and finally revelling in Goya. Something about the darkness had appealed to her, the bullfights and carnivals showing a side of life that was cruel as well as celebratory.

Her gaze travelled across the wall, finally coming to rest on a small, dark-toned painting. Idly, Bobbie flicked on the overhead picture light to study the most controversial work in her late father’s collection: a painting by Goya of two old men reading. There had been an argument over the piece for years, some experts denying it was by Goya, others pointing out that it was a perfect – if much smaller – facsimile of the Old Men Reading which had been at the Quinta del Sordo. No one could prove it was genuine, but then again, no one could prove it was a fake.

Bobbie studied the work thoughtfully. People might think she was a spoilt woman in her thirties with two failed marriages behind her and nothing between her ears, but they were wrong. Bobbie Feldenchrist had longed to settled down, have a family, and continue to build the collection in her spare time. She dreamed of a Ralph Lauren life – all fawn sofas and honey-haired children, all polished New York winters and summers in the Hamptons. She would be one of the old school Swans, the American ideal of the rich life … Dully, she shook her head and turned away, walking back to the window to look at the familiar view and smiling bitterly to herself.

Half an hour earlier she had been told that the adoption had fallen through. Apparently the mother of the child Bobbie was about to adopt had changed her mind and no amount of money could change it back … Bobbie stared ahead blindly, remembering another shock. In the very same room, two years previously, she had been told that she was sterile. Her breast cancer had been cured, the specialist reassured her, but the chemotherapy had made her barren. Bobbie had gone to the ladies’ room and stared at her reflection in the mirror: a tall, slender, elegant woman dressed immaculately, her face made up skilfully. But inside the pristine form of honed skin and tailored muscle, the body had been corrupted by disease. Inside the perfection sickness had eaten into Bobbie Feldenchrist and the therapy had burned away the cancer. She might look perfect, but her womb wasn’t going to carry a child and her breasts were never going to fill with milk. Bobbie had the Feldenchrist power and money, but she was the last of the Feldenchrists.

For a long time she had stood staring at her reflection, fighting a desire to smash the glass, to scream with frustration. But the Feldenchrists never behaved that way. It wasn’t classy to be vulgar. If you could control your feelings, you could control your life … Bobbie had smiled with bitterness. Her father had been wrong about that. Some things no one could control, not even a Feldenchrist. Not even with Feldenchrist money.

Taking in a slow, measured breath, Bobbie’s thoughts came back to the present. The baby wasn’t coming. She wasn’t going to be a mother after all, even an adoptive one. As for the party, the celebration party she had planned for the weekend, she would have to cancel it. It was to have been her triumph – the moment when she introduced her one-month-old adopted son to the world. But now there was no baby. No triumph.

She could imagine how everyone would talk. How they would commiserate with her to her face but mock her behind her back. God, she couldn’t even buy a baby – what kind of failure did that make her? Chilled, Bobbie moved around the apartment. She had been beaten by a slum girl – some Puerto Rican tart had cheated her. Tears stung her eyes, but she drove them back. She would put a brave face on it, would tell her friends that there had been a legal difficulty in the adoption. Better still, she would imply that the child had been ill in some way, perhaps mentally retarded … Anything other than admit that the Feldenchrist finances had been of no to use to her at all. For a woman who had always taken money for granted, it came as a chilling realisation that its power was not absolute.

Her face expressionless, Bobbie controlled her anger and regained her poise. She would have to find something else to think about – to keep her occupied. Something to take her mind off her loss for a while. Turning, she moved back into the drawing room and began to flick through the Sotheby’s catalogue. She would think about the Feldenchrist Collection for a while. Paintings wouldn’t change, grow old, divorce her or die. They would endure, as would the Feldenchrist name. Not as a family, but as a collection.

It was something to hold on to, Bobbie told herself, then paused. Who was she kidding? Paintings were important, but they weren’t going to fill the longing to be a mother. Her thoughts crystallised as she drew in another breath. Perhaps – if she found a child quickly – she wouldn’t have to cancel the party and lose face. She could just postpone it.

She wanted a child. And, by God, she was going to get one.

19

‘Leon, is that you?’ Ben asked, startled by his brother’s tone when he picked up the phone on his landline. ‘Why haven’t you returned my calls? Are you all right?’

‘Fine.’

‘You don’t sound fine.’

‘I’m busy.’

‘Why didn’t you call me back? I left messages all day.’

‘I told you, I’m busy!’ Leon snapped, his tone petulant. ‘What’s the fuss about?’

‘Something odd’s happened.’

‘Same here,’ Leon added wryly, thinking of how close he had come to collapse, and the run-in at the Prado with Jimmy Shaw. But he wasn’t about to confide in Ben, to give his brother the satisfaction of being right.

‘Why? What happened to you?’

‘Nothing,’ Leon said hurriedly. ‘Go on with what you were saying.’

‘The police came to see me today. They found a murder victim in London – a man with your mobile number in his pocket.’

‘Who was it?’

‘That’s the point – they don’t know yet. It just seems strange, that’s all. I mean, that’s your personal mobile number – you hardly ever give it out.’ He paused, then carried on. ‘Don’t use that mobile again. Toss it. Get yourself another one.’

‘Was my number written on a piece of paper?’

‘No, it was on the back of one of my cards.’

‘Oh … So, did you write the number on it?’

‘No, it was written in your handwriting, Leon. I recognised it – the funny way you write the number four.’

There was a pause on the line before Leon spoke again. ‘Who was the murdered man?’

‘His face was virtually destroyed. I couldn’t recognise him. But we’re doing a reconstruction here—’

Stung into action, Leon was quick to react. ‘What about Goya’s skull? I hope that’s being worked on first—’

‘Francis has already done it,’ Ben said patiently. ‘That’s one of the reasons I was ringing you. The reconstruction looks good. I’ve seen it—’

‘And?’

‘It’s Goya. What d’you want me to do with it?’ He waited, expecting an answer. ‘Leon, are you there?’

‘It really is Goya’s skull …’ He was whispering, hardly audible. Unnerved, spooked.

‘Are you OK?’

‘I dreamt it would be Goya’s and it really is …’ Leon’s exhilaration fluttered, then faltered as he remembered Jimmy Shaw. The enormity of the situation overweighed his excitement and he found himself – as always – turning to Ben for reassurance.

‘Gabino Ortega was asking me about the skull—’

‘How did he know about it?’

Leon stood up and closed the window. Even though it was hot and the room would be suffocating within minutes, he didn’t want to risk being overheard.

‘I don’t know how he heard. No one was supposed to know apart from me, the Prado, and obviously the builder who found it.’

‘D’you think he talked? Regretted giving the skull to you when he could have sold it to someone like Ortega?’

‘No! Diego Martinez is a simple man, a good man. His father owed our parents a favour and it was his way of repaying them. By giving me the skull …’ Leon trailed off, clinging to the phone. ‘I told Gabino Ortega it was a fake, that I’d got rid of it. I said I’d given it to the church for burial.’

Knowing Gabino Ortega’s reputation, Ben was wary. ‘Did he believe you?’

‘I think so … no, probably not.’ Leon turned away from the window. ‘Gabino’s brother, Bartolomé, lives in Switzerland. He’s the respectable face of the Ortega clan – and he’s desperate to solve the riddle of the Black Paintings. We’ve talked about it on the few occasions we’ve run into each other at auctions – he’s always asking me how my research is going. As though I’d tell him!’ Leon’s voice speeded up. ‘He’s obsessed by Goya. He’d do anything to get the skull off me.’

‘But you said it was Gabino who approached you.’

‘Yes, it was. But think about it! Gabino would want to get the skull for his brother. He’s always sucking up to Bartolomé, because he funds his lifestyle. Gabino would see the skull as a way to ingratiate himself. Besides, he’s here in Madrid. He probably thinks he has a better shot at getting it than Bartolomé in Switzerland—’

‘Leon—’

He wasn’t about to be interrupted.

‘Gabino’s a thug. Everyone knows that. Their grandfather killed his own wife, for Christ’s sake! Of course they couldn’t prove it and bought the police off. With that kind of blood in your veins, it’s no surprise Gabino turned out the way he is. Always in fights. All kinds of rumours follow him around. I heard he’d—’

‘Leon,’ Ben said quietly, ‘donate the skull to the Prado. That way it belongs to Spain and no individual can own it.’

‘Give it away?’ Leon shouted. ‘Are you bloody crazy? Can’t you see that all these people who want it only prove how important it is?’

‘Who are “all these people”?’

‘What?’

‘You said “all these people”, but you’ve only told me about the Ortega brothers. So who are they?’ Ben was silent for a minute, then pushed his brother. ‘Leon, tell me what’s going on.’

‘The other day … a man approached me in the Prado. A big fat Englishman. Sick, very sick.’ Leon automatically wiped his hand down his trouser leg as though wiping off all traces of Jimmy Shaw. ‘He said someone had hired him to get the Goya skull. Said that he had a buyer for it. He warned me that the man was very dangerous—’

‘Christ!’

‘He scared the hell out of me!’ Leon admitted. ‘He offered money, any amount I wanted – just said that if I had any sense I’d get rid of the skull. He said, “If you knew what’s coming to you, you’d sell it to me now. You’d get the fucking thing off your hands and keep yourself safe.”’

‘Go to the police—’

‘He said he was trying to save me. And that I could save him.’ Leon thought back. I’m trying to save you, Mr Golding. Please, save me. Once he had started to confide, he couldn’t stop, his panic rising. ‘That was two days ago. I came back home and I haven’t been out since. Just been working on my theory about the paintings. Just stayed home working … you know, working …’

Anxious, Ben tried to calm his brother down. ‘How did you leave it with Gabino Ortega?’

‘I said the skull was a fake.’

‘And the Englishman? Did you get a name?’

‘No.’ Leon glanced at the paper half hidden under the desk lamp. ‘Just a mobile number.’

‘Give me the number.’

‘I won’t have time,’ Leon said suddenly.

‘Time for what?’

‘To finish! To finish!’ he cried, distraught. ‘I nearly solved the last part this morning … I have to write it down, Ben. If I don’t get there first, I’ll lose. Someone will get the answer before me; they’ll get the glory—’

‘What answer?’

‘To what the Black Paintings mean!’ Leon snapped. ‘I’ve got it solved. I know what Goya did. Why he was ill. I know something that could have changed history. But I need the skull back now. I have to get it back!’

Ben could hear the staccato rhythm of his brother’s voice, the threat of hysteria which always precipitated another attack.

‘Leon, you are taking your medication, aren’t you?’

‘I don’t want the fucking medication! It makes me slow; I can’t think when I take it. I’ve found out so much – things you wouldn’t believe—’

‘I don’t care about your work, I care about you. I’m worried about you.’ Ben’s voice was steady. ‘Go to the police—’

‘Fuck off!’

‘OK, then give me the number of the man who approached you—’

‘Why?’

‘I’ll give it to the police.’

‘And then they’ll know about the skull!’ Leon shrieked. ‘It would be all over the papers within hours. You’re worried about me now – what about then? When it’s public knowledge, how many more people will want to get hold of it?’

‘Then do what I suggested, Leon. Get it off your hands. Donate the skull to the Prado. Make an announcement publicly so everyone knows you don’t have it any more—’

‘I can’t give up on it! I’m inches away from telling the world what happened to Goya. I can’t just walk away now!’

‘You can’t do this alone—’

‘I’m not doing it alone! Gina’s trying to help—’

It was the last thing Ben wanted to hear. ‘Gina!’

‘She told me that we have to keep the skull safe. She wants to protect me and my work.’

‘What the hell does she know about it?’

‘We had a seance—’

‘Oh, Christ, Leon!’

‘The medium thought that if we had Goya’s skull we much be able to reach him.’

Incredulous, Ben struggled to keep the irritation out of his voice. ‘You really think you can get in contact with Goya?’

‘Why not? The medium contacted Detita.’

The name swung into action and with it a malignancy which took Ben straight back to his childhood.

‘Detita is dead. No one can bring back the dead. Detita is dead and Goya is dead, Leon … Listen to me. This is bloody ridiculous. You can’t let people fill your head with all this crap. As for Gina, I know you care about her, but she’s not reliable—’

Leon dropped his voice, almost shamefaced. ‘She’s done some research on the internet for me—’

‘Please, stop this.’

‘I can’t,’ Leon replied, his tone distant, resigned.

Behind Ben, the door of his consulting room closed suddenly, making him jump. Looking round, he checked that no was listening and then realised that he was clinging on to the phone so tightly the bones of his knuckles were straining against the skin. The hand found in the Little Venice canal came into his mind unbidden, followed by an image of the head the police had found later, the face mashed into nothingness.

‘It’s dangerous, Leon. I told you people would be after the skull – I knew this would happen. Didn’t I say we had to keep it quiet?’

‘I have to get on with my research—’

‘You’re endangering yourself.’

‘I just have to write up my notes and it’s finished. I’ll stop then, I promise. I just have to get it down on paper … Anyway, not everyone’s against me. Some people are trying to help me. Some leave messages, others get in touch over the internet.’

Ben could feel his skin prickle. ‘Do they know you have Goya’s skull?

‘But I don’t, do I?’ Leon replied. ‘You have it.’ There was a note of malice in his voice, suspicion mixed with anger. ‘Don’t treat me like a child, Ben. I’m just as important in my field as you are in yours. This is my big chance and I’m not going to let anything stop me. Even you.’

‘I’m not trying to stop you—’

‘You’re jealous, aren’t you?’

‘I’m just worried about you—’

‘Stop worrying about me!’

‘Leon—’

‘Stop getting in my way!’ he replied, his voice speeding up. ‘I need that skull! I want it back! It was given to me! I need it. It’s mine!’

And then the line went dead.