‘Sure is.’
‘Is it a secret?’
‘Huh?’
‘Can I see it?’ Ben asked wryly.
Francis hesitated for a moment. ‘In a minute. I wanted to ask you about something else first. A policewoman came to see me this morning – with a head they’d just fished out of the Thames. She said she’d already talked to you about it.’
‘She had.’
‘Is there something you want to tell me?’
Ben smiled. ‘A unknown man was killed and dismembered. Various parts of him have turned up. Some in a canal in Little Venice—’
‘But why involve you?’
‘Roma Jaffe – the detective – wanted me to look at the mutilated head because it had undergone surgery in the past. She wanted my opinion.’ He paused, wondering why he wasn’t telling Francis about the card. ‘Have you got it now?’
‘Been a bit of a rush on heads lately. Up to my knees in them,’ Francis replied. ‘The police want a reconstruction.’
‘How long will it take you?’
‘Not long. I’m working with the pathologist.’
‘I’d like to see the reconstruction when you’re done,’ Ben said evenly. He was more than a little curious to see what the head had looked like when it had been a breathing, living man. Curious to know if Francis Asturias’s reconstruction would jolt his memory – and explain the victim’s link to him and Leon.
‘I knew you’d be aching to see it,’ Francis replied, walking back to the Madrid skull and standing by the plinth. He had the air of a third-rate Las Vegas magician about to do a creaky trick. ‘Ready?’
‘I thought it was all done on computer now.’
Francis gave him a withering look. ‘I don’t work on computer – that’s for amateurs. I work in the old-fashioned way, by hand … First you take the skull—’
‘Hang on,’ Ben interrupted him. ‘So you don’t make the reconstruction over the skull itself?’
‘Never. You make a copy of the original skull, then use the copy for the reconstruction. That way you can poke about the replica without doing damage to the original.’
‘Go on.’
‘First you work out the landmark sights.’
‘Which means?’
‘The tissue and muscle depths,’ Francis replied, shrugging, delighted to have an audience. ‘Going on the shape of the skull, this man was a Caucasian, so from that I can work out the angle of the planes of the face.’
‘Then what?’
‘Then I gradually work out the outline of the bones, add muscle tissue, and try to reconstruct the forehead angle and the eyes. Of course the tip of the nose, the ears, eye and hair colour are always guesswork. We can only ever be sure of the bones we have, not the colouring or the skin texture of the subject.’
Patiently, Ben folded his arms. ‘What about the Madrid skull?’
‘Quite straightforward. Of course the age of the head had to be taken into consideration. And the fact that there were some parts of the skull missing.’
‘I saw that,’ Ben agreed. ‘A few rough holes. You know what caused them?’
‘Could be just wear and tear—’
‘Were they peri- or post-mortem?’
‘Post.’
‘Could they be a result of violence?’
‘Like what?’
‘Blows to the head?’
‘Doubt it. They were jagged. Uneven. Looks more like burial damage, animal attack.’ Francis shrugged. ‘I’ve done a lot of reconstructions for archaeologists and I’ve seen damage like this before on old skulls.’
‘What about getting the pathologist to look at it?’
‘I’ve already done that and he didn’t know much more than I did. Although he did say that the marks could have been caused by rubbing or by persistent scuffing.’ Francis paused. ‘Which sounded macabre – until I remembered that case about the kids in Liverpool using a skull as a football. When they found it it was filthy and they couldn’t make out what it was – just this grubby round object, so they kicked it around for a while. Boys will be boys!’
‘Especially in Liverpool.’
Putting on his glasses, Francis picked up some papers next to him, reading aloud. ‘The results have come through for the isotope and carbon dating. Having discovered what our man ate, it is consistent with Spanish grains from around the Madrid area, and the carbon dating puts him bang smack in the middle of your time period.’
‘So?’
‘Dates are accurate. Looks good so far.’
Unable to suppress his enthusiasm any longer, Francis snatched the cloth off the reconstructed Madrid head. Caught in full daylight, it seemed eerily realistic, the glass eyes gazing darkly into the laboratory, the chin flaccid, the outline of the cheeks slightly concave to represent the fact that they would have dropped a little with age. But the high forehead, the heavy mouth and the eye shape were disturbingly familiar.
A shiver of recognition, followed by unease, slid down Ben’s spine. He knew this man almost as well as a member of his own family. A face which had gazed out of books and down from cheap calendars throughout his childhood. A face that belonged to the man Detita had talked of repeatedly, slipping him into the brothers’ early life, into that hazy Spanish heat of their youth.
It was, without doubt, the face of the Goldings’ long-dead neighbour in Spain. Francisco Goya.
‘Jesus …’
‘So,’ Francis prompted him. ‘What d’you think?’
Staring at the reconstruction, Ben hesitated. And felt – for an instant – not triumph for his brother, but fear.
‘So,’ Francis repeated. ‘What d’you think?’
‘I think we’re looking at an old man. An old man who was arguably the greatest painter Spain ever produced.’
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.