by Alex Connor
‘And they didn’t want to keep it?’ Francis replied sarcastically. ‘Mind you, Napoleon’s penis has been going the rounds for decades. Probably getting more action now than it ever did.’
Smiling, Ben tapped Francis on the shoulder. ‘Seriously, keep it quiet. The art world can be a dangerous place. Collectors will pay people to find the skull. By whatever means.’
7
Trying not to show her nerves, Megan Griffiths walked into the Reconstructive Department of the Whitechapel Hospital, situated above the hospital kitchens. The patients in this particular ward were children, the most serious cases sectioned off in isolation wards to allow their wounds to heal in sterile conditions. Not that these areas were only for children. It was to one of the side wards that Abigail Harrop had been taken when she first came to the Whitechapel Hospital. And it was the reputation of Ben Golding – not the surroundings – which had kept her there.
Megan paused, listening. Outside, rain – its rhythm as persistent as a tin drum – scuffed the high windows and dripped from Victorian gutters and lintels. In private clinics around London the rich and famous paid for their treatment, their buttocks filled or noses straightened in privacy. But in the National Health sector burns were treated side by side with deformities and car accident injuries.
Still thinking about Francis Asturias, Ben was preoccupied when he arrived on the ward and surprised to see Megan Griffiths there. Moving into the nurses’ station he paused in front of the electric fire to warm his hands and thought of the heatwave in Spain, hardly able to reconcile the damp London chill with the smouldering dryness of Madrid.
‘How long has she been here?’ Ben asked the sister, jerking his head towards the window which looked out over the ward.
‘About half an hour. Dr Griffiths often comes to see the patients. One of your keener registrars.’
Curious, Ben glanced back through the partition glass, watching Megan examine a patient. The child’s injured head was encased in a metal frame, from which steel rods protruded into her cranium. The metal screws on the helmet were turned twice a day to gradually pull the features into alignment. Brutal. Painful. Necessary.
An old memory came back, unbidden. Of his brother falling out of a tree. Falling flat, like a sandbag, without putting out his hands to break his fall. Leon, bellyflopping into the parched Spanish earth … He had broken his left leg, his jaw and two of his ribs and knocked out four of his teeth. In a Madrid hospital Leon’s jaw was wired back into line and his leg put in traction – and all the time he joked with Ben about why he had fallen.
The tree told me to do it …
What their parents had euphemistically referred to as ‘Leon’s accident’ had determined Ben’s future career. Throughout their teens he had gone through every operation with his brother, sat with him, listened to him, watched him. Known how much the surgery hurt as he observed the slight body pulled back into shape, the face restored, rebuilt. Over a period of years he saw Leon turned from a disfigured misfit back into a normal child. Physically, at least.
Two decades later Ben had notched up over twenty years’ experience as a reconstructive surgeon, treating both adults and children. Twenty years of facial burns, of careless playing with candles, of car accidents, of hit-and-run drivers. Two decades of womb injuries, of nature’s vicious tricks, of hiccups in the DNA. Twenty years, two hundred and forty months, one thousand and forty weeks spent in the company of victims. While his colleagues had made fortunes from facelifts and liposuction Ben Golding had stuck to his principles. He wasn’t interested in making someone perfect; he was interested in making them fit in.
Walking over, Megan interrupted his thoughts. ‘I was reading about one of your cases. Harry Collard—’
‘I’ve got a meeting in ten minutes. I’ve got to get back to my office,’ Ben replied, glancing at his watch. ‘Let’s talk as we walk.’
Together they made their way down the main arterial corridor of the hospital, leading to the consulting rooms.
‘Harry Collard’s had over twenty operations, hasn’t he?’ she asked, almost running to keep up with Ben. ‘Isn’t that a lot for a child?’
‘Harry’s twenty-one now.’
‘But he was a child when you started,’ she persisted. ‘And surely the risks of all those anaesthetics is serious? Research shows that they can undermine a person’s resilience, even do long-term harm.’
Pausing, Ben opened the door of his consulting room and showed her in. The room was crowded with research books, piles of X-rays creeping inexorably across the top of the filing cabinets. On the wall, over a black-painted iron fireplace, was a painting of a landscape long gone, the chimney behind leaking a faint odour of soot.
‘We both know serial anaesthetics are bad for a child,’ Ben said evenly. ‘And much as I commend your interest, I think it’s a front.’
‘What?’
‘Let’s be honest, that wasn’t what you wanted to talk about, was it?’
She flushed, surprised by his perception. ‘I’ve got to make a decision about my speciality.’
‘You could do well in reconstructive surgery.’
‘I don’t want to do what you do. I want to go where the money is,’ Megan admitted bluntly. ‘The National Health’s declining. If it was a patient, they’d turn the respirator off.’ She gestured to the high walls, brown wood below the dado, dark anaglypta wallpaper above, the lamp-shade over their heads a cheap inverted bowl design from the 1930s. ‘I don’t like being poor. I want to get on to the reconstructive gravy train.’
‘But there are a lot of cosmetic surgeons,’ Ben replied evenly. ‘Why don’t you do something more worthwhile?’
‘Maybe I’m not the worthy type.’ She held his gaze, but didn’t pull her punches. ‘That little girl, the one we’ve just seen – I don’t think she should be alive. I don’t think she’ll ever have a normal life.’
‘So what are you saying? We shouldn’t try?’
Tactlessly, Megan blundered on. ‘Whatever you do, she’ll still look terrible. People will make her life a misery. I sometimes wonder if you’re doing all this to help her – or to experiment.’
She had gone too far and knew it.
‘Well, do continue to stand in judgement over me,’ Ben replied coolly, ‘especially when you’re taking a litre of fat from some eighteen-year-old’s backside … I don’t experiment. God does that. Life does that. I just try to repair what’s been buggered up.’ He sighed. ‘Don’t try to provoke me, Dr Griffiths. We’re all mechanics. Every surgeon is a mechanic, every body is a machine. What we do is brilliant and pedestrian at the same time.’ He paused, looking at her. ‘One day a doctor went to a garage to get his car fixed—’
‘You’re telling me a joke?’
‘The mechanic repaired the very intricate fault. Then he said to the surgeon: “You couldn’t fix the engine, but I could. So how come you’re paid so much more than me?”
‘And the doctor replied: “Have you ever tried fixing it when the engine’s still running?” ’
Despite herself, Megan smiled.
‘I could experiment with you, Dr Griffiths. See how far a few well-chosen words on your reference could go to wreck your career.’
‘Just because I disagreed with you?’ She was down, but not out. ‘I don’t care what you say, you can’t make these children normal. Not some of the cases you take on. They’ll always be freaks—’
‘Yes, there will always be freaks,’ he agreed. ‘But as time goes on you come to realise that not all of them are in hospitals.’
8
Madrid
Having completed the equivalent of three miles on a running machine, Gabino Ortega stepped off and wrapped a towel around his neck. He found the sensation comforting, his tingling leg muscles a smug reminder of his triumphant challenge to middle age. After all, the men in his family were recognised as being the most handsome in Madrid – and he was never going to be a disappointment. Showering, Gabino admired his toned
stomach and impressive penis, and thought that although he might be the shortest of the Ortega males, he was the best hung.
His family was an old one, tracing their ancestry back centuries; a family with wealth and business acumen, together with a certain reputation for ruthlessness. But for all their cultured learning and devotion to the arts, the Ortega family had never managed to shake off a veneer of clammy rumour which had come to a head with the infamous Adolfo Ortega. Physically massive, prodigiously gifted in the world of finance and investments, it had been Adolfo who had cemented the family fortune by marrying the listless Fidelia. Knowing at the time of her wedding that the marriage was a union of business, not love, Fidelia had still accepted the deal. In return she was rewarded with a negligent husband – and two stillborn sons.
Becoming anxious that the Ortega line might die out, Adolfo had then acted with his typical ruthless and divorced Fidelia. Within eighteen months his second wife had given him an heir, but the rejected Fidelia was not so easily dismissed. Unbalanced by her abandonment, and jealous of the newborn, she hounded her ex-husband and threatened his new wife. At first merely irritated, Adolfo finally threatened Fidelia – something she made known to her friends. But no one took her seriously, and besides, Fidelia had lost her power. Desperate, she took to self-harming – that mental abyss that sucks the vulnerable in. No longer part of the Ortega family, she had become little more than an embarrassing outcast.
But the final outcome shook Spanish society. After Fidelia had been missing for several days, her body was found in the backstreets of Madrid. Rumours circulated like blowflies. Had Adolfo killed her? Or had he organised her murder? He had the money and power; he could easily have arranged it and got away with it … which he did. The Spanish police couldn’t – or didn’t dare – investigate the killing too deeply and the official conclusion was that the unbalanced Fidelia had wandered off from her home, been robbed and killed. After all, she had been wearing expensive jewellery at the time, Adolfo told the police, and nothing had been found on her.
From then on, the Ortegas were treated with fear as well as respect. Respected for their money but feared for their power which had always been suspect. With the death of Fidelia, Adolfo lavished his wife and his new heir, Dino, with affection and money. As a result, the boy became spoilt, truculent and prone to angry outbursts, by the time he reached his teens he was a drug addict, hell-bent on destroying the family name and fortune. An early marriage produced no change in Dino’s character, but did provide two sons. By now old but no less ruthless, Adolfo disinherited his dissolute son and changed his will, so that the whole Ortega inheritance would eventually pass on to the elder grandson, Bartolomé.
The suicide of the rejected Dino proved it to be the wisest decision Adolfo had ever made.
Having dried himself off, Gabino dressed, finally combing his hair and thinking of his brother. It was tedious, but he would have to visit Bartolomé at his home in Switzerland that weekend to smooth over an unsettling matter with a banker who had reported Gabino to the police for assault. For once the Ortega money hadn’t been enough, and the man had refused to be placated, instead reporting the whole sleazy episode to the press. Although he could hardly have remained ignorant, Bartolomé hadn’t said anything to his brother. None of the usual frigid arguments, no admonishing telephone calls. No remonstrations. Just silence – which was why Gabino was worried.
He had no intention of letting his brother get the upper hand and was keen to protect his lifestyle. Bartolomé might have chosen the life of an ascetic, but Gabino liked the social life of Madrid. It amused him to see the frisson of recognition when he was introduced to a woman, that sliver of interest always tempered by the Ortega reputation; the whispering of business hard-dealing and the ever shimmering ghost of Fidelia, making her presence felt more in death than she ever did in life. Gabino frowned. But had he gone too far this time? Pushed his brother’s patience too much? It was hard to read Bartolomé, harder still to see the workings of his mind behind the flawless face.
Although handsome, Gabino had none of his brother’s elegance: instead he was lustful, greedy and daring. Bartolomé had managed to escape the worst of the calumny, but Gabino had actively courted controversy. So far his charm had prevented a freefall, the actions of his grandfather an ever-present reminder that he could be ousted like his father had been. So for years Gabino had danced on the edges. Always an inch away from disgrace, he had somehow managed to keep his seat at the Ortega table. Many suspected his actions, but only a few dared to call Gabino an outright thief.
But someone had called him a thug. And the papers were busy drubbing the Ortega name again, a fact that would be more than a little unwelcome to his brother’s ears … Aware that he had made himself vulnerable, Gabino thought of what he had heard that morning and smiled to himself. Luck had played him a trump card in the shape of a rumour which was circulating in Madrid. A rumour that – he was hoping – had not yet reached Switzerland. Apparently the skull of Francisco Goya had been found. The skull of the greatest Spanish painter who had ever lived. The skull Bartolomé would covet above anything … But even with all his contacts and money, Bartolomé wasn’t in Madrid. Wasn’t on the spot, ready to grab the opportunity. In fact, Gabino mused, there was a risk that someone else might get the skull before Bartolomé had a chance to.
Unless someone got it for him.
Relishing his newly birthed plan, Gabino decided that he would get the skull. He would win over Bartolomé with a present which would outdo all other gifts. The skull of Goya. The relic with which Gabino would win back his brother’s affection – and ensure his future at the same time.
9
The Prado, Madrid
Sweating in his suit, Jimmy Shaw felt his tongue dry in his mouth. Saliva wouldn’t come, his lips cracking at the corners, a little blood running on to his chin. He looked – without needing the confirmation of a mirror – repugnant. The kind of man no one would want to talk to, or be seen with, let alone some respectable art historian like Leon Golding. Leaning back against the stone wall, Shaw glanced at his hand, sniffing it and wincing at the unmistakable stench of decay. Perhaps he should ring Golding instead, make his case over the phone …
A sudden movement made Shaw glance across the courtyard – Leon Golding was walking through the entrance gates towards the Prado side door. Erect but ill at ease, his long shadow seemed more substantial than himself. Dressed with no little elegance, Golding should have been an imposing figure, but his movements were cautious, almost like a man who had had a drink and was fighting its first effects.
Curious, Shaw watched him, then noticed another figure move across the courtyard. But there was no hesitation in this man’s stride: he seemed confident, almost arrogant, and so handsome Shaw felt an immediate and intense dislike. Surprised, he heard him call out Leon Golding’s name, the historian turning and automatically shielding his eyes from the sun as he watched his approach.
Straining, Jimmy Shaw could just make out what he said.
‘Mr Golding, I’d like a word, if I may.’
The man spoke in English, but with a pronounced Spanish accent. Leon smiled the faint smile of the polite.
‘Can I help you?’
‘You don’t remember me?’
Leon’s recall was swift. ‘Mr Ortega … How are you? I haven’t seen you since the auction.’
Easily, they shook hands, Shaw watching and sifting through his memory. It didn’t take him long to place the Ortega name. Or the reputation. He had lost out on several occasions to their money and their tactics. Fuck it, Shaw thought, don’t let this be what I think it is. Just let them be talking, just talking … Please …
Gabino was intent, leaning towards Leon. ‘It was a good auction.’
‘You did well. Bought that …’
‘Murillo.’
Leon nodded. ‘Yes, Murillo. It was a fine picture. Good price.’ His voice changed gear. Even from where he was standing Shaw could see that
Leon was keen to move off.
But Gabino had other ideas.
‘I was wondering,’ he went on, tucking his hands into his pockets. ‘Have you heard the rumour about the Goya skull being found?’
Shaw swore under his breath, then wearily turned his gaze on to Leon Golding. He had expected a response, a giveaway movement from him, but Golding wasn’t as naive as he appeared and the lie was glossy, almost rehearsed.
‘Goya’s skull?’ He laughed, but the sound wasn’t as convincing as the voice. ‘They find one every few years.’
‘I heard you had it.’
‘Me?’ Leon said, but his tone was losing substance as Gabino leaned towards him, encroaching on his personal space, pushing himself in.
‘Yes, you. Someone was talking about it yesterday. I thought it was rubbish, but then I heard about it again, and I heard that you had it.’ He smiled, veneers sunny, shiny. ‘Have you?’
Shaw was holding his breath. He knew Leon had the skull, but he wondered how the hell Ortega had found out so soon. He also wondered how Leon Golding was going to answer.
‘I had a skull …’
Neither man had anticipated the words as Leon continued.
‘… but it was a fake.’ He shrugged, almost dropping his papers as his shoulders rose and fell. ‘I was hoping – praying – it was Goya. You know my interest – as great as your brother’s. It would have been a coup for me. But it wasn’t genuine. I feel rather foolish about it, actually,’ Leon went on. ‘I’d be obliged if you’d keep this quiet—’
‘How d’you know?’
‘What?’
Shaw could sense Gabino’s rage and disappointment. It came off him like a hiss, a noise so faint it was barely discernible. His hands left his pockets, clasped in front of his body instead. But what should have been a praying motion came off as curiously threatening.