She was smart. Did she have it? He didn’t doubt for one moment that she had the intelligence to fool him, but then realised that Francis would not have directly endangered his wife. So what had happened? Ben wondered. As Francis heard of the deaths of Diego Martinez and Leon he was spooked – he had admitted as much, so unnerved that he had taken it on himself to protect the skull by hiding it.
Ben frowned, thinking of their last conversation. Of how alarmed Francis had become. But what had prompted him to change the skulls? Had someone threatened him? Had the blank email with the ominous address Gortho@3000.com come with a warning? And, most importantly, how long had Francis had to react? Perhaps that was the most important factor. Perhaps time had dictated the hiding place. Think again, Ben willed himself. Suppose Francis had been under threat and had had to act quickly. He would have gone to the storage room and taken Goya’s skull, leaving another in its stead. With the real skull in his possession he would have looked for a hiding place in a hurry. Somewhere near. Somewhere accessible. Close by.
Hurrying out, Ben headed for the anatomy theatre. Over 250 years old, it was built in a semicircle so that the medical students could look down on the wooden stage in the centre and watch dissections or examinations. Now only used for lectures, it was still an impressive place.
Ben pushed open the heavy mahogany doors and walked towards the raised dais. At the back of the stage, on the right, was a human skeleton. Having been used for centuries, it stood like a macabre old soldier, baring its teeth at Ben as he moved towards it. His heart pulsing, he touched the collarbone, the skeleton shifting, then reached up and felt the top of the skull.
There were no holes in it.
Exhaling, Ben sat down. He had been sure he was on to something … His gaze moved round the anatomy theatre. Where is it, Francis? Why the hell didn’t you tell me where you put it? He looked around again, thinking, forcing himself to work it out. Francis knew everything about the structure of the human anatomy. He had studied it for years. No one understood the workings of a body like Francis Asturias.
No one understood the workings of a body like Francis Asturias …
In a second Ben was on his feet, leaving the anatomy theatre and moving across the hospital towards the Medical Exhibition Hall. Nodding to the assistant curator, he walked through the entrance doors. For the purpose of study, bodies of all ages had been preserved. There were parts of bodies too, and organs – a whole motley collection of human pieces dried out and wired up, or bobbing for eternity in formalin. But they weren’t what Ben had come to see. He was aiming for the far room, where the earliest specimens were held. The bodies of man before he became man. The bodies of their ancestors, the apes.
As he entered he was faced with rows of stuffed chimpanzees and the skulls of assorted monkeys. Torsos which told of the journey from trees to towns surrounded him. But Ben didn’t stop to look at any of them – instead he aimed for the exhibit half hidden in the far left-hand corner. Pushing back the obscuring screen in front of the case, he was faced with an antiqued, weathered skeleton, humped over, the wires bending from its years of standing to attention, the bone and teeth yellowed. And crowning the body of the great ape was its skull.
No one would have noticed it. Tucked away in a badly lit corner, one of the least impressive exhibits, it could have remained undiscovered for weeks. But Ben noticed it. Slowly, almost in awe, he approached.
The torso was simian, but the skull was Goya’s.
73
New York
It had been a spectacular week for Bobbie Feldenchrist. Not only had the Goya exhibition been phenomenally successful, but the reviews for the Feldenchrist Collection were almost sycophantic. She had, the papers reported, pulled off an amazing coup in obtaining the skull of Goya. Trumping all her rivals, even the Prado, she had managed to secure an artistic legend.
Oh, yes, Bobbie thought, it had been a victory – one of many. She was now a mother, with an heir to carry on the Feldenchrist name. She was more successful than any of her peers. And, most triumphantly, she had Bartolomé Ortega back in her life. The man who had rejected her for Celina had returned. Their affair would soon be public – Bobbie would see to that, and add his head to Goya’s in her own personal memento mori.
The reasons for Bartolomé’s return did not overly concern her. Bobbie had little belief in love and less in integrity, but she did believe in revenge and had been happy to consider Bartolomé’s offer. Apparently he had solved the riddle of the Black Paintings and had suggested that it would be in both their interests to join forces. The Ortega Collection working with the Feldenchrist Collection – one with the skull, one with the theory. And so came into existence twin towers of Babel, teetering on the precipice of their own deceit.
Bartolomé’s motives were revenge on his wife and brother. He would never divorce Celina – her silence had been bought with the wedding ring – but he would relish humiliating her. He would not disown his son either. Juan was an Ortega, after all. As for Gabino? No, he would not be exiled. Instead Bartolomé would watch Gina’s exquisite and prolonged torture of his brother and encourage it. The Ortega fortune with which he had purchased Gabino’s private hell would be a constant encouragement to keep Gina as head jailer and his brother under the cosh.
Some of this Bartolomé had told Bobbie. But she wasn’t privy to all the details, although worldly enough to know that love had little to do with their relationship. Sex might play a limited role, but ambition was the amyl nitrate which stimulated both of them. But of one thing she was certain – Bartolomé Ortega would never know that the skull wasn’t genuine. And Ben Golding was never going to expose her – because he couldn’t prove it was a fake. Otherwise he would already have done so. From that quarter she was now safe. As for her assistant, Maurice de la Valle had already forgotten any doubts Bobbie might have had, his memory wiped clean by his ambition.
So it came as quite a shock for Bobbie to receive a call from London. From Ben Golding, no less.
‘What d’you want?’ she asked, triumphantly rude.
‘Are you going to admit the skull’s a fake?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous! If you pursue this, I’ll sue you,’ Bobbie replied, ‘I have the power—’
‘And influential friends,’ Ben cut in. ‘Like Bartolomé Ortega. I believe you two are close again. People gossip so much, don’t they?’ He paused, but when she didn’t answer he continued. ‘I know Bartolomé. Only a little, but Leon knew the Ortegas in Madrid. Bartolomé was as obsessed by Goya as my brother was. But he wasn’t as clever as Leon—’
‘Just get to the point, will you?’
‘I heard that Bartolomé has solved the riddle of the Black Paintings.’
The thrill of victory shot through her.
‘Yes, he has. And we’re going to include it in the exhibition. Bartolomé’s writing a book about it too. It’s been the work of lifetime.’
‘Whose lifetime?’
She flinched. ‘What?’
‘Leon solved the riddle, not Bartolomé.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake! You want to claim the skull for your brother and now the theory too – are you out of your fucking mind? Maybe you are. Maybe Leon wasn’t the only Golding brother who was mad.’ Her triumph made her cruel. ‘Bartolomé’s solved the Black Paintings. He has a theory—’
‘No, he doesn’t.’
‘What are you talking about?’
Ben smiled down the phone, smiled across the Atlantic – across the sea and the wrecks of ships and aeroplanes, and the bodies of dead mariners. Smiled for all the folly of the world and the greed at the heart of it.
‘When Leon died I took all his papers and his computer. And then I found his theory, the solution to the Black Paintings. I deposited a copy with my bank and gave the original to the Prado. They were impressed. So impressed that Leon Golding’s theory of Goya’s Black Paintings will be published next year to a fanfare of publicity. At last my brother will have what he deserved – his triumph. Albeit posthumously.’ Ben paused, his tone contemptuous. ‘You should ask your lover how he came by his theory. How Bartolomé Ortega got his hands on it.’ He relished the injury he was about to inflict. ‘You don’t know, do you? Of course, he wouldn’t tell you the truth.’