Her gaze travelled across the wall, finally coming to rest on a small, dark-toned painting. Idly, Bobbie flicked on the overhead picture light to study the most controversial work in her late father’s collection: a painting by Goya of two old men reading. There had been an argument over the piece for years, some experts denying it was by Goya, others pointing out that it was a perfect – if much smaller – facsimile of the Old Men Reading which had been at the Quinta del Sordo. No one could prove it was genuine, but then again, no one could prove it was a fake.

Bobbie studied the work thoughtfully. People might think she was a spoilt woman in her thirties with two failed marriages behind her and nothing between her ears, but they were wrong. Bobbie Feldenchrist had longed to settled down, have a family, and continue to build the collection in her spare time. She dreamed of a Ralph Lauren life – all fawn sofas and honey-haired children, all polished New York winters and summers in the Hamptons. She would be one of the old school Swans, the American ideal of the rich life … Dully, she shook her head and turned away, walking back to the window to look at the familiar view and smiling bitterly to herself.

Half an hour earlier she had been told that the adoption had fallen through. Apparently the mother of the child Bobbie was about to adopt had changed her mind and no amount of money could change it back … Bobbie stared ahead blindly, remembering another shock. In the very same room, two years previously, she had been told that she was sterile. Her breast cancer had been cured, the specialist reassured her, but the chemotherapy had made her barren. Bobbie had gone to the ladies’ room and stared at her reflection in the mirror: a tall, slender, elegant woman dressed immaculately, her face made up skilfully. But inside the pristine form of honed skin and tailored muscle, the body had been corrupted by disease. Inside the perfection sickness had eaten into Bobbie Feldenchrist and the therapy had burned away the cancer. She might look perfect, but her womb wasn’t going to carry a child and her breasts were never going to fill with milk. Bobbie had the Feldenchrist power and money, but she was the last of the Feldenchrists.

For a long time she had stood staring at her reflection, fighting a desire to smash the glass, to scream with frustration. But the Feldenchrists never behaved that way. It wasn’t classy to be vulgar. If you could control your feelings, you could control your life … Bobbie had smiled with bitterness. Her father had been wrong about that. Some things no one could control, not even a Feldenchrist. Not even with Feldenchrist money.

Taking in a slow, measured breath, Bobbie’s thoughts came back to the present. The baby wasn’t coming. She wasn’t going to be a mother after all, even an adoptive one. As for the party, the celebration party she had planned for the weekend, she would have to cancel it. It was to have been her triumph – the moment when she introduced her one-month-old adopted son to the world. But now there was no baby. No triumph.

She could imagine how everyone would talk. How they would commiserate with her to her face but mock her behind her back. God, she couldn’t even buy a baby – what kind of failure did that make her? Chilled, Bobbie moved around the apartment. She had been beaten by a slum girl – some Puerto Rican tart had cheated her. Tears stung her eyes, but she drove them back. She would put a brave face on it, would tell her friends that there had been a legal difficulty in the adoption. Better still, she would imply that the child had been ill in some way, perhaps mentally retarded … Anything other than admit that the Feldenchrist finances had been of no to use to her at all. For a woman who had always taken money for granted, it came as a chilling realisation that its power was not absolute.

Her face expressionless, Bobbie controlled her anger and regained her poise. She would have to find something else to think about – to keep her occupied. Something to take her mind off her loss for a while. Turning, she moved back into the drawing room and began to flick through the Sotheby’s catalogue. She would think about the Feldenchrist Collection for a while. Paintings wouldn’t change, grow old, divorce her or die. They would endure, as would the Feldenchrist name. Not as a family, but as a collection.

It was something to hold on to, Bobbie told herself, then paused. Who was she kidding? Paintings were important, but they weren’t going to fill the longing to be a mother. Her thoughts crystallised as she drew in another breath. Perhaps – if she found a child quickly – she wouldn’t have to cancel the party and lose face. She could just postpone it.

She wanted a child. And, by God, she was going to get one.

19

‘Leon, is that you?’ Ben asked, startled by his brother’s tone when he picked up the phone on his landline. ‘Why haven’t you returned my calls? Are you all right?’

‘Fine.’

‘You don’t sound fine.’

‘I’m busy.’

‘Why didn’t you call me back? I left messages all day.’

‘I told you, I’m busy!’ Leon snapped, his tone petulant. ‘What’s the fuss about?’

‘Something odd’s happened.’

‘Same here,’ Leon added wryly, thinking of how close he had come to collapse, and the run-in at the Prado with Jimmy Shaw. But he wasn’t about to confide in Ben, to give his brother the satisfaction of being right.

‘Why? What happened to you?’

‘Nothing,’ Leon said hurriedly. ‘Go on with what you were saying.’

‘The police came to see me today. They found a murder victim in London – a man with your mobile number in his pocket.’

‘Who was it?’

‘That’s the point – they don’t know yet. It just seems strange, that’s all. I mean, that’s your personal mobile number – you hardly ever give it out.’ He paused, then carried on. ‘Don’t use that mobile again. Toss it. Get yourself another one.’

‘Was my number written on a piece of paper?’

‘No, it was on the back of one of my cards.’

‘Oh … So, did you write the number on it?’

‘No, it was written in your handwriting, Leon. I recognised it – the funny way you write the number four.’

There was a pause on the line before Leon spoke again. ‘Who was the murdered man?’

‘His face was virtually destroyed. I couldn’t recognise him. But we’re doing a reconstruction here—’

Stung into action, Leon was quick to react. ‘What about Goya’s skull? I hope that’s being worked on first—’

‘Francis has already done it,’ Ben said patiently. ‘That’s one of the reasons I was ringing you. The reconstruction looks good. I’ve seen it—’

‘And?’

‘It’s Goya. What d’you want me to do with it?’ He waited, expecting an answer. ‘Leon, are you there?’

‘It really is Goya’s skull …’ He was whispering, hardly audible. Unnerved, spooked.

‘Are you OK?’

‘I dreamt it would be Goya’s and it really is …’ Leon’s exhilaration fluttered, then faltered as he remembered Jimmy Shaw. The enormity of the situation overweighed his excitement and he found himself – as always – turning to Ben for reassurance.

‘Gabino Ortega was asking me about the skull—’

‘How did he know about it?’

Leon stood up and closed the window. Even though it was hot and the room would be suffocating within minutes, he didn’t want to risk being overheard.

‘I don’t know how he heard. No one was supposed to know apart from me, the Prado, and obviously the builder who found it.’

‘D’you think he talked? Regretted giving the skull to you when he could have sold it to someone like Ortega?’

‘No! Diego Martinez is a simple man, a good man. His father owed our parents a favour and it was his way of repaying them. By giving me the skull …’ Leon trailed off, clinging to the phone. ‘I told Gabino Ortega it was a fake, that I’d got rid of it. I said I’d given it to the church for burial.’