Authors: Alex Connor
The tree told me to do it
…
Little Venice, London
Hand in hand with dusk, the restaurant lamps came on, lighting the water of the canal below. It was a mild, humid evening and people had taken the tables on the terrace, the soft lapping sound of the water and the muted breeze making a little city ripple of cool. In the distance, Paddington station huffed and shuffled its trains in the dusty night and the evening traffic slid under a shimmer of street lamps.
And in Little Venice – a knot of white stuccoed town houses bordering the canal in West London – the local high-grade supermarket closed for the night, the lights went out in the window of the French patisserie, and a middle-aged couple entered a nearby restaurant. Shown to their seats a moment later, the woman took off her jacket in the unseasonable warmth, the man beckoning to the wine waiter. On the table next to them, a younger couple were sitting in silence. The woman had taken a
lot of care with her clothes, her dark hair glossy, makeup subtle. Beyond them, sitting alone, was a pale blond man reading the late copy of the
Evening Standard
.
Listlessly, the brunette scrutinised the menu, the waiter hovered, the blond man ordered paella and the middle-aged woman looked up to the night sky.
‘Did you feel that?’ she asked, surprised. ‘Rain.’
Her husband scoffed. ‘It can’t be—’
His words were drowned out by a clap of thunder, violent electric lightning impaling the sky, its jagged white light reflected in the water below. At once the diners fled into the shelter of the restaurant. On the canopy outside the rain pelted down, splashing upwards as it landed, the thunder snapping overhead.
‘Bloody weather,’ the brunette’s companion said, brushing the rain off his suit. ‘You want a drink?’
She nodded. Beside her, the middle-aged couple squabbled and the blond man stood under the canopy by the door to watch the storm. The rain drummed incessantly on the metal tables outside, food washed off plates, some spilling on to the floor, the wine diluted, glasses overflowing as the waiters hurried to clear the tables. And then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the storm ended.
Apologising, the waiter showed his customers to other tables inside, only the blond man resisting.
‘Just dry off my table and chair. It won’t rain again tonight.’
Surprised, the waiter did as he was told.
Below, steam rose from the canal and spring trees shed
pendulous water droplets. Dividing his paper into two parts, the blond man sat on one half of the
Evening Standard
and then calmly began to read the remaining pages.
‘Moron,’ the middle-aged man snorted, moving to the bar.
His wife followed as the younger couple took a table by the window. Curious, the brunette watched the solitary diner on the balcony, his figure illuminated by the outside light.
‘I thought you wanted to come out for a meal,’ her companion said, irritated, ‘but you look so bloody miserable …’
She shrugged, staring ahead.
‘You not feeling well?’
‘I’m fine. Let it drop.’
A sudden movement on the balcony made her turn and look over to the blond man again. He was standing up and leaning on the stone balustrade, his eyes fixed on the water below. From where she sat, the woman could see nothing, only the restaurant’s lights reflected in the still, unblinking, water.
‘We could have a weekend away …’
‘Maybe.’
‘Don’t sound so bloody excited.’
The woman’s whole attention was now centred on the blond man. He was standing, rigid, looking into the water below.
‘Are you listening to me?’
The brunette no longer heard her lover. Watching the
fair-haired man, she again glanced out to the canal as he leaned further out, bending over the balustrade.
Christ! she thought suddenly. He’s going to jump.
Leaping to her feet, the woman raced over and caught his arm, pulling him back. Surprised, the man turned and then quickly motioned for her to look down into the water.
‘Look over there!’ he said, pointing. ‘There’s something’s over there.’
Hurriedly, she snatched a candle from an inside table and then leaned over the balustrade, holding the light as far as she could towards the water.
‘No!’ the man said urgently. ‘Not there. Look over there!’
Leaning out even further, the woman shone the candle light over the flat, black water. The night was very dark, the moon obscured by cloud, the canal deep, its surface unbroken apart from a smattering of reeds and the dripping of water from underneath the balcony.
And then she saw it.
Floating on the water at the edge of the canal, hardly visible, was a bundle, wrapped tightly in a soiled white blanket. It was small, benign, but eerie. Gently, it glided away and began its grisly procession down the middle of the canal, on an almost imperceptible current. Transfixed, they watched its progress, the bundle finally passing under the full glare of one of the restaurant’s outside lamps. The beam illuminated the blood-spattered wrapping – and the place where the parcel had come partially untied.
From which a disembodied hand, fingers outstretched, clawed its way to the light.
Madrid
Clasping his notepad, Leon walked towards the Museo del Prado, on the Paseo del Prado. The sight of the white ghost of a building, with its arches and columned entrance, never failed to move him, and this evening its ivory pallor seemed to shimmer against the purple evening like some vast, bottomless opal on a bishop’s habit. Skirting the main entrance, Leon entered by the side door, reserved for staff and art historians working full time or on a consultancy basis for the Prado. Sliding his entrance key into the lock, he pushed open the heavy wooden door and passed into the web of back rooms and archives.
Originally built in the late sixteenth century as a science museum, the Prado was redesigned by Napoleon’s brother, Joseph Bonaparte, and turned into an art gallery. But it was only when Ferdinand VII mounted the throne that it became the Royal Art collection, continuing the theme of royal and religious collecting begun by his
ancestor, Queen Isabel La Catolica. Few visitors realise the massive scale of the Prado Museum, or know that it owns over nine thousand works of art: a collection so vast that despite the building’s size, only fifteen hundred exhibits can ever be shown at any one time. Most of the most important works of Velasquez and El Greco are on permanent display, but many other paintings circle the gallery relentlessly in an ebb and flow of tidal genius.
Fittingly, Goya is triumphantly represented; and, equally fittingly, his work is housed separately from the main gallery in its own sumptuous architectural island. The visitor walks through the spectacular gallery rooms of the main part of the museum and then finally comes upon a small rotunda, swollen with Goya’s paintings. But, interestingly, even here Goya could not be penned in; and gradually the accumulation of his works spread from the rotunda downstairs, to an anthill of darker rooms on lower floors.
Scurrying down the back stairs, Leon relished the quiet of the closed gallery, the crowds of tourists all tipped out into the street, the lights dimmed, only the necessary illumination marking out his pathway. Preoccupied, he hurried on, then paused in front of the painting of
The Family of Charles IV
. By the time Goya was painting the royal family he had become well known, respected and acid in his judgement. Yet although highly sexed himself, the artist was – like most of his contemporaries – outraged that the plain, vain and mendacious Queen Maria Luisa had given power over to her young bedfellow, the despised Manuel
Godoy. Duped, and glad to be relieved of the burden of kingship, Charles IV restricted his royal duties to asking Godoy nightly ‘whether affairs were going well or badly’.
Leon studied the familiar figures, as always in awe of Goya’s acerbic daring. The painter had held nothing in reserve. The Queen had been made plain and ridiculous, the King an idle buffoon. A noise from below jolted Leon out of his reverie. He had work to do, and he had to hurry. Admittedly the gallery was open to him at any time during the day, but at night he could only stay by special dispensation and had to leave by twelve.
Past the royal portraits Leon hurried, clutching his books, his shadow crossing the faces of
The Naked Maja
and
The Colossus
. He wasn’t interested in the earlier images, just the ones which hobgoblined their way through his dreams and trick-or-treated into his studies. Leon knew that he was taking a chance, that by cutting down on his medication he wasn’t just trying to please Gina or improve his condition. He knew exactly what his medicinal Russian roulette might mean, but cocked the gun anyway. By his reckoning he had a week, maybe two, before he would collapse and be forced back on to the drugs. He had to make sure that he found the answer in time.
Letting out a sigh of nervous excitement, Leon entered one of the rooms exhibiting Goya’s Black Paintings and then paused. In front of him hung Deaf Man, originally painted on one of the walls of the Quinta del Sordo before being transferred to the Prado. He studied the work intently: the weird blacks, ochres and malevolent whites,
the scurry of paint, hurried, as though the artist’s hand was being guided. The left-hand figure in the picture was benign – an old man like a sage or a Biblical scholar – but leaning on his shoulder was a beast, half-man, half-skeleton, bald, blank-eyed, whispering into the old man’s ear. But whispering what?
‘Leon Golding?’
He spun round, almost losing his footing as a corpulent man called out from behind a pillar. Jimmy Shaw was limping slightly, his suit stained and crumpled, holding his hand across his chest, half-tucked into his jacket. His face was puffy, his eyes small in the swelling folds of flesh. He looked decayed, sick, like someone who had just stepped out of one of Goya’s pictures.
‘What …?’ Leon stared at the vision, then realised it was only a man. A sick, fat man. ‘What are you doing here? The gallery’s closed to the public.’
‘I had to talk to you,’ Shaw said, keeping to the shadows and breathing heavily with the effort. ‘I’ve been trying to talk to you for days. I called you on the phone, then lost my nerve.’ He paused, running his tongue over his bulging lips. ‘I thought I
should
talk to you in person about the skull …’
Immediately, Leon glanced around him.
‘There are no guards here, Mr Golding. Only the ones on night duty at Reception. I hid here when the gallery closed—’
‘What?’
‘I hid here,’ Shaw repeated. ‘I stood over there, stock
still, for nearly a fucking hour. You’re late tonight. I didn’t think I could stand so still for so long.’
Nervous, Leon stepped back. ‘I don’t know what you want—’
‘The skull. The Goya skull.’
‘I don’t have it!’
‘Yes, you do.’
‘I don’t!’ Leon replied, his tone shrill. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I’m not going to hurt you,’ Shaw went on, his speech muffled until he cleared his throat. He was dying – anyone could see that. He could see that. He just had to get the skull, get it to Dwappa, and he’d be all right. ‘Give me the skull. I’ll buy it from you.’
‘I told you, I don’t have it—’
‘I’ll give you a good price,’ Shaw said, stepping out of the shadows into the full overhead light. His face was bloated, red weals under the eyes, his hand double-bandaged, although there was still a slight stench coming through the dressing.
Horrified, Leon stepped back again. ‘You’re ill—’
‘Yeah, and I won’t get better until I get the skull,’ Shaw said earnestly. ‘Listen to me, Mr Golding. You’re going to get into deep trouble. Real trouble. There are people worse than me after that skull. One man in particular, he wants it. He’s got a buyer for the skull. He hired me to get it for him and he won’t rest until it’s in his hands. You’ve got to listen to me—’
He reached out and Leon stepped further back.
‘I’m trying to help you! Keep that fucking skull and you’ll end up like me. Worse.’ He sighed raggedly. ‘What d’you want for it?’
Leon stood mute. He was terrified of the man in front of him, but he wasn’t about to give up the skull. Around them the Black Paintings hummed under the lights and the fat man leaned against the pillar again.
‘I could kill you—’
‘
What?
’
‘But what would be the point? You don’t have the skull on you.’ Shaw laughed shortly. ‘So name your price.’
‘The skull I had turned out to be a fake.’
‘Oh, I heard you tell Gabino Ortega that. He didn’t believe it either. I suppose Ortega wants it for his brother.’ Shaw sighed again. ‘Yes, I’ve been watching you, Mr Golding. I’ve seen who you’ve talked to. We’re all watching each other.’ He smiled, the oily skin of his cheeks creasing. ‘Give up the skull, otherwise you’ll regret it.’
‘I tell you, I don’t have it!’
Shaw bowed his head for a moment. ‘I’m not used to all this, you know. Usually I have minions doing the dirty work … And that’s what it is.’
Leon frowned. ‘What?’
‘Dirty work,’ Shaw explained. ‘It’s very dirty work. And I’m stuck in it. Stuck tight. I can’t get out of it, but you can. Just give up the skull and you’ll be safe. I don’t want it for the Ortega brothers. I’ve told you, I want it for someone else entirely. Someone much, much more dangerous. The Ortegas have money, but the African …’ He
passed Leon a piece of paper. ‘That’s my number. Call me when you want to meet up. Bring the skull and I’ll pay you what you want.’
‘But—’
‘I’m dying, Mr Golding,’ Shaw said helplessly. ‘If I don’t get that skull I’ll be dead soon. You want that on your conscience?’ He stared at Leon. ‘I don’t think you could manage that – you’re not that kind of man.’ He tried to shrug, but winced. ‘It’s just a skull. It’s just the head of a dead man … I’m asking you,
begging you
. What’s it worth? I want a dead man’s head to save a life.
My life
. And I don’t expect any favours, I’ll pay you—’
‘It’s not the money.’
Shaw shook his head incredulously. ‘It’s
always
the money, Mr Golding.’