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 triumphantlyto 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.’
38
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:
DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN?
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 …’