by Alex Connor
‘So Leon was wrong about that?’
‘I dunno,’ Ben said, shaking his head. ‘Their relationship was on and off. In the past Gina had left him for a while, then come back when Leon had calmed down. He loved her, but I don’t know how much she loved him. She didn’t take good enough care of him—’
Francis cut him off.
‘But she wasn’t kidnapped, was she? Leon was wrong.’
‘Meaning that if he was wrong about that, he was wrong about the rest?’ Ben asked, his tone challenging. ‘That there was no one in the house? No one after him?’
Francis paused before answering. ‘OK, if someone was after Leon, why?’
‘For the skull.’
‘What?’
‘Goya’s skull.’
‘He didn’t have it!’
‘They thought he did,’ Ben said. ‘I told him to keep it quiet, but Leon couldn’t. He said he hadn’t told anyone, but Gabino Ortega knew about it and Leon said some Englishman had wanted to buy it from him.’ Ben paused, about to confide about Diego Martinez, but changed his mind. Francis was a friend. He didn’t need endangering.
‘Who’s Gabino …?’
‘Ortega. He belongs to one of the richest and most infamous families in Spain. His grandfather was a murderer.’
‘Shit … And who was the Englishman?’
‘I don’t know,’ Ben said honestly.
Taking a long drink, Francis stared ahead for a while before continuing, ‘You really think Leon was murdered?’
‘God, how many times do I have to say it!’ Ben snapped, finally taking the brandy and downing it in one shot.
‘But how likely is it that someone killed your brother? And even if they did, why would they just to get a skull? I’ve got six in the fridge – they’re welcome to them … Oh, come on, Ben, it doesn’t make sense.’
‘Where is it?’
‘What?’
‘Goya’s skull.’
Rising to his feet, Francis moved over to the end of the laboratory and unlocked the fridge, calling over his shoulder, ‘You want the original or the reconstructed head?’
‘Both,’ Ben replied, moving over to Francis’s workbench and watching as he put down the skull. ‘What’s it worth?’
‘Bugger all.’
‘Unless it’s famous,’ Ben went on, staring at it curiously. ‘Could it contain anything?’
Francis stuck his finger into the empty skull and wiggled it round. ‘Nope.’
‘What about inside the bone itself?’
‘Nothing.’
‘The teeth?’
‘Nothing.’
‘How d’you know?’
‘Because it underwent scans when I was trying to authenticate it, that’s how. Anyway, Goya hardly had any teeth left when he died.’
‘What about the bone itself? Anything unusual?’
‘There might have been. But after all these years most defects or diseases would be impossible to detect.’
Sighing, Ben reached for the powerful magnifying glass lying on the workbench beside him. Turning the skull around in his left hand, he peered at it from all angles.
‘What are you looking for?’
‘Anything.’
Disappointed, he put down the magnifying glass and then the skull. ‘There are no markings, just age damage. Nothing clever, no words or symbols.’
‘Not even a bar code.’
‘It’s valuable simply because it’s Goya …’ Ben went on, staring at the skull. ‘I know how coveted these relics are. Museums would love it. The Prado would certainly want it, to exhibit next to Goya’s paintings. I mean, no other museum has got anything like it. The best the Tate Gallery could come up with was Turner’s death mask.’
‘Did a museum or gallery approach Leon direct?’
‘The Prado gave him free rein. It was Leon’s find, it was his triumph.’
‘Maybe there was something else which had caught people’s interest, as well as the skull.’
‘There was. Leon was working on a theory about the Black Paintings. He was researching Goya’s life when he died.’ Ben paused. ‘Not that he needed to do a lot of that. We were brought up by a woman who was always talking about the painter, always filling Leon’s head with stories. Spooking him.’ He glanced over at Francis. ‘This was my brother’s big chance. Goya’s skull would have made him famous and solving the riddle of the Black Paintings would have compounded his success.’
‘How far had he got?’
‘He said he was nearly finished.’
Francis raised his eyebrows. ‘So what do the paintings mean?’
Ben shrugged.
‘I didn’t ask him. When he said he was talking to people involved with the occult I panicked. I warned him off because of what happened to …’ He trailed off, censoring himself, unwilling to talk about Diego Martinez. ‘I didn’t want Leon being so reckless.’
‘But he didn’t listen?’
‘No, he said people were approaching him via the internet. I know for a fact that he’d seen a medium—’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘He was grasping at straws. They had a seance, you know.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ Francis said drily. ‘They got through to Goya.’
‘I think my brother actually believed that they could.’ Ben sighed. ‘The medium’s a friend of Gina’s, a man called Frederick Lincoln. She told me he was trustworthy. But even if no one gossiped outright, people knew that Leon was researching the Black Paintings and had found a skull which he thought was Goya’s—’
‘It was.’
They both looked at the skull, Ben the first to speak. ‘Did you tell anyone?’
‘No,’ Francis replied, his tone injured.
‘I had to ask.’
‘No you fucking didn’t.’
Carefully, Ben picked up the skull again. ‘Can you put it into storage? Mark the box CAUTION – ANIMAL REMAINS so that no one will open it?’
Francis nodded. ‘Easy. But what are you going to do now?’
‘Clear my brother’s name. I know what people are saying about Leon – that he was unstable, that he killed himself. Why not? He’d tried before, it’s an obvious conclusion to jump to. If he hadn’t been my brother, maybe I would have said the same. But he was my brother, Francis, and I loved him and knew him better than anyone on earth. And I know he was murdered.’
‘If you’re right,’ Francis said quietly, ‘then you might be in danger too.’
‘I know … But someone killed my brother and they’re not getting away with it.’ He gestured to the skull. ‘Hide it, Francis, and then forget about it. Forget everything I’ve told you. Everything.’
27
Madrid, Spain
The following day dawned thick with the threat of a storm. Sapping heat clung heavy on the air, the breeze swamped, hardly able to move the dust. Composed, Gina walked into Leon’s study and sat at his desk, fingering the pen he had last used. In front of her some papers were torn, others piled high in no particular order, a few rough drawings tossed into the waste-paper basket. Idly, she reached into the bin and smoothed out a piece of paper, an amateur drawing of a bull staring inanely at her. Leon had never been a gifted artist. He had wanted – longed – to be able to paint, but it wasn’t his forte.
Holding the paper to her lips momentarily Gina turned as she heard footsteps behind her. ‘Are you all right?’
Nodding, Ben moved over to the desk, avoiding her eyes. ‘They’ve finally agreed to do an autopsy on Leon.’
Her voice was dull. ‘Why did they change their minds?’
‘I insisted – called on some of my medical contacts.’
‘Why an autopsy?’
He paused, staring past her into the hall beyond. Childhood memories came swinging back – Leon running down from the hot summer playroom into the hallway and slipping on the floor which Detita kept as shiny as a plate of black glass. Leon as a child, struggling like a netted fish against the suffocation
of his instability. Leon as a young man, passionate but muted with medication. Happy at times … Ben kept staring, almost seeing his brother coming from the back garden with a handful of soil.
We have to keep this, Ben.
What for?
If you keep the soil from the place you love most, you’ll never leave.
And now Leon as Ben had last heard him on the phone, panicked, his voice urgent. Running down the same stairs, skidding on the same black-ice floor, racing for safety. And not finding it.
‘Ben?’ Timidly Gina reached out her hand and brushed his. ‘Ben, I’m sorry …’
He looked down at her, his voice puzzled. ‘What for?’
‘For not being here. For leaving Leon,’ she answered, tears beginning hot and slow like the Manzanares river beyond. ‘I should have stayed that night.’
‘So why did you go, Gina?’
‘He was angry with me for disturbing him. He wanted to be left alone to work.’
‘But he’d stopped taking his medication. Why didn’t you make him take it?’
‘You couldn’t make Leon do anything he didn’t want to!’ she snapped back. ‘You know that as well as I do.’
Her hand reached for his again, but again he didn’t take it. He couldn’t offer comfort because he wanted to blame her, punish her, even though it wasn’t her fault. And he knew that. Had always known that one day Leon would go too far, drop too fast, before any of them – parent, brother, lover – could catch him. His decline had been inevitable, as much a part of him as his expressions and habits. The rapid reflexes, the way he put his feet up on his desk and clasped his hands behind his head. The way he gobbled up information and then passed it on, his hands working with the words as though – if either paused – the whole conversation would evaporate.
‘I loved him, you know.’
Ben nodded but didn’t reply immediately, and when he did, his tone was incisive.
‘You should never have put him in danger—’
‘I didn’t hurt him! How did I endanger him?’ she hurled back.
‘You encouraged him with his book about the Black Paintings. You let him get involved in the occult, when you knew it would be bad for anyone as fragile as my brother. You shouldn’t have introduced him to people like Frederick Lincoln. You knew how vulnerable he was. Didn’t you realise he might be in danger?’
‘From whom? Frederick is a friend. I told you, I’ve known him since I was a kid. His family lived in America for a while, near us. We used to play together, then they went back to Holland when Frederick was in his early teens.’ She took in a ragged breath. ‘I would trust him with my life—’
‘You certainly trusted him with Leon’s.’
Stunned, she leaned forward in her seat, her eyes hostile. ‘I would never have done anything to hurt your brother! If you were so worried about Leon, why didn’t you come over to Spain more often? I was always there for him—’
‘Except when you walked out.’
‘We had a fight! Couples do. We were no different.’ She was openly hostile. ‘You were certainly relieved when we got back together. It took some of the pressure off you, didn’t it, Ben?’ She kicked out at the chair in front of her. ‘Don’t try to attack me to cover up your own feelings of guilt!’
Shaken, Ben struggled to breathe, Gina’s words resonating in his head, their accuracy damning. It was true, he had been glad that Gina was back in his brother’s life. He had wanted a breathing space, time to work on his own relationship with Abigail. Time to catch up on his own life.
‘I’m sorry for what I just said,’ Gina murmured, shamefaced. ‘I shouldn’t have been so hard on you.’
‘Maybe we should both have looked after him better.’
She took a breath, choosing her next words carefully. ‘I have to know something … Will you tell me the truth?’
‘If I can.’
‘Why was Leon in danger?’
‘There was someone in the house. Leon heard them. He thought he was going to be killed.’
Incredulous, she shook her head. ‘Killed? Why?’
‘You know why.’
‘No, I don’t!’
‘Didn’t Leon tell you what had been happening lately?’
‘Like what?’
He couldn’t tell if she was lying and continued warily. ‘D’you know someone called Diego Martinez?’
She shook her head.
‘Gabino Ortega?’
‘I’ve read about the Ortega family.’ She paused, staring at Ben. ‘What have they got to do with any of this?’
‘Leon didn’t kill himself. There was more to it than that.’
She shook her head impatiently. ‘You can’t make a conspiracy out of this, Ben. You have to admit the truth. Your brother was only ever a danger to himself. We both know he’d been suicidal before—’
‘Leon didn’t kill himself.’
She stiffened in her seat, her eyes suspicious. ‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Because my brother was on to something. He had the one thing he’d been searching for all his life. A way to make the big time. He would never have killed himself.’
‘He was hyper, manic,’ she blundered on. ‘I kept telling him to go back on his medication. I begged him, but he refused. And then he told me was taking it again. I didn’t believe him, but I didn’t want to argue with him in case he did something stupid.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like go away. Cut me out entirely.’
‘Leon would never have gone away,’ Ben replied dismissively. ‘He was committed to what he was working on. He was excited about it—’
‘He was sick!’
‘He was winning,’ Ben insisted. ‘You knew him, Gina, but I knew him better. When he attempted suicide before, it was because he was lost, drifting. But when he got that skull, Leon knew he was on the edge of a triumph. That’s why I know he didn’t kill himself.‘
‘But if he didn’t commit suicide, that means someone killed him.’ She shuddered. ‘Who?’
‘I don’t know.’
Unnerved, she struggled with the idea. ‘But why would anyone kill Leon?’
‘I don’t know that either.’
He wasn’t sure of anything any more – whether Gina was in some way culpable, or whether she was also in danger. He couldn’t read her.
‘Leon told me that he was talking to people on the phone and over the internet.’
‘He was,’ she agreed. ‘And a man came to talk to him last week … What’s all this about? The skull?’ She turned to Ben, her face as white as a dying moon. ‘Does someone want that skull?’
‘Gina—’
‘But he didn’t have it!’ she shouted, suddenly panicking. ‘He was having it authenticated in Madrid. You know that. He didn’t have it.’
‘Gina, try and calm down—’
But she was scared, getting to her feet and moving around restlessly. ‘I don’t know where it is now. God, what if someone thinks it’s here? They could come here … Could they hurt me?’
‘No one’s going to harm you—’
‘How d’you know that?’ she countered. ‘You’re talking about Leon being murdered, and going on about that bloody skull. Well, I was involved. Jesus, I was involved.’
Levelly, he held her gaze.
‘It might be safer if you left here. Go home to the USA, Gina. Let me sort this out.’
‘I can’t go away! I can’t just up and leave. This was my home too. Leon was my partner – how can you expect me to walk away?’
‘It would be safer for you—’
‘Why don’t you just find the skull?’ she asked, impatient and rattled. ‘Don’t you know where it is?’ Suspicious, she stared at him. ‘You do, don’t you?’
A beat passed between them. Ben saw the hesitation and noted it. Did she think he was lying to her? And if so, why? Did she think he suspected her of something?
‘Well, do you know where the skull is?’
‘No,�
� he lied.
‘But surely you could find out? You could ask around, track down Leon’s contacts. They would talk to you … Find it, Ben. Please. I’ll help you.’
Her voice dropped suddenly, as though she had lost power. Moving to the window, she closed the shutters, the house stifling and silent around them.
‘You don’t trust me, do you?’
He ignored the question and returned to something she had said earlier. ‘What did the man look like? The man who called here?’
She closed her eyes to help herself remember. ‘He was dark-skinned, maybe African, tall, about thirty-five.’
‘What was his name?’
She shrugged. ‘I dunno.’
‘Did he come by car?’
‘Yes, a cab.’
‘And he was on his own?’
‘Yeah … I showed him into the library and called for Leon.’
‘How did he react when he saw him?’
‘Fine. Said hello and offered him a seat. They seemed to get on.’
‘As though they already knew each other?’
She thought for a moment. ‘No, not like that. But the man was very charming, easy to like. In fact I could hear them laughing when I went to make some coffee. When I took it in to them the man was saying that he would contact Leon by email.’
‘Then what?’
‘A little while later Leon came to bed and fell asleep.’
‘He didn’t seem upset? Afraid?’
‘No. He fell asleep almost at once,’ she replied. ‘Is the visit important?’
‘I don’t know. But I want to see Leon’s emails.’
Surprised, Gina stared at him. ‘He never mentioned any emails from this man—’
‘You said he was being secretive.’
‘About some things!’ she snapped. ‘But not everything. Your brother always told me if he was worried. There was nothing he was scared of, nothing that spooked him. He would have told me.’
‘I still want to see the emails,’ Ben repeated. ‘Please.’