Memory of Bones (24 page)

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 face
against 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
.

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 triumphantly
to 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.’

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:

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?