Holding the paper to her lips momentarily Gina turned as she heard footsteps behind her. ‘Are you all right?’

Nodding, Ben moved over to the desk, avoiding her eyes. ‘They’ve finally agreed to do an autopsy on Leon.’

Her voice was dull. ‘Why did they change their minds?’

‘I insisted – called on some of my medical contacts.’

‘Why an autopsy?’

He paused, staring past her into the hall beyond. Childhood memories came swinging back – Leon running down from the hot summer playroom into the hallway and slipping on the floor which Detita kept as shiny as a plate of black glass. Leon as a child, struggling like a netted fish against the suffocation of his instability. Leon as a young man, passionate but muted with medication. Happy at times … Ben kept staring, almost seeing his brother coming from the back garden with a handful of soil.

We have to keep this, Ben.

What for?

If you keep the soil from the place you love most, you’ll never leave.

And now Leon as Ben had last heard him on the phone, panicked, his voice urgent. Running down the same stairs, skidding on the same black-ice floor, racing for safety. And not finding it.

‘Ben?’ Timidly Gina reached out her hand and brushed his. ‘Ben, I’m sorry …’

He looked down at her, his voice puzzled. ‘What for?’

‘For not being here. For leaving Leon,’ she answered, tears beginning hot and slow like the Manzanares river beyond. ‘I should have stayed that night.’

‘So why did you go, Gina?’

‘He was angry with me for disturbing him. He wanted to be left alone to work.’

‘But he’d stopped taking his medication. Why didn’t you make him take it?’

‘You couldn’t make Leon do anything he didn’t want to!’ she snapped back. ‘You know that as well as I do.’

Her hand reached for his again, but again he didn’t take it. He couldn’t offer comfort because he wanted to blame her, punish her, even though it wasn’t her fault. And he knew that. Had always known that one day Leon would go too far, drop too fast, before any of them – parent, brother, lover – could catch him. His decline had been inevitable, as much a part of him as his expressions and habits. The rapid reflexes, the way he put his feet up on his desk and clasped his hands behind his head. The way he gobbled up information and then passed it on, his hands working with the words as though – if either paused – the whole conversation would evaporate.

‘I loved him, you know.’

Ben nodded but didn’t reply immediately, and when he did, his tone was incisive.

‘You should never have put him in danger—’

‘I didn’t hurt him! How did I endanger him?’ she hurled back.

‘You encouraged him with his book about the Black Paintings. You let him get involved in the occult, when you knew it would be bad for anyone as fragile as my brother. You shouldn’t have introduced him to people like Frederick Lincoln. You knew how vulnerable he was. Didn’t you realise he might be in danger?’

‘From whom? Frederick is a friend. I told you, I’ve known him since I was a kid. His family lived in America for a while, near us. We used to play together, then they went back to Holland when Frederick was in his early teens.’ She took in a ragged breath. ‘I would trust him with my life—’

‘You certainly trusted him with Leon’s.’

Stunned, she leaned forward in her seat, her eyes hostile. ‘I would never have done anything to hurt your brother! If you were so worried about Leon, why didn’t you come over to Spain more often? I was always there for him—’

‘Except when you walked out.’

‘We had a fight! Couples do. We were no different.’ She was openly hostile. ‘You were certainly relieved when we got back together. It took some of the pressure off you, didn’t it, Ben?’ She kicked out at the chair in front of her. ‘Don’t try to attack me to cover up your own feelings of guilt!’

Shaken, Ben struggled to breathe, Gina’s words resonating in his head, their accuracy damning. It was true, he had been glad that Gina was back in his brother’s life. He had wanted a breathing space, time to work on his own relationship with Abigail. Time to catch up on his own life.

‘I’m sorry for what I just said,’ Gina murmured, shamefaced. ‘I shouldn’t have been so hard on you.’

‘Maybe we should both have looked after him better.’

She took a breath, choosing her next words carefully. ‘I have to know something … Will you tell me the truth?’

‘If I can.’

‘Why was Leon in danger?’

‘There was someone in the house. Leon heard them. He thought he was going to be killed.’

Incredulous, she shook her head. ‘Killed? Why?’

‘You know why.’

‘No, I don’t!’

‘Didn’t Leon tell you what had been happening lately?’

‘Like what?’

He couldn’t tell if she was lying and continued warily. ‘D’you know someone called Diego Martinez?’

She shook her head.

‘Gabino Ortega?’

‘I’ve read about the Ortega family.’ She paused, staring at Ben. ‘What have they got to do with any of this?’

‘Leon didn’t kill himself. There was more to it than that.’

She shook her head impatiently. ‘You can’t make a conspiracy out of this, Ben. You have to admit the truth. Your brother was only ever a danger to himself. We both know he’d been suicidal before—’

‘Leon didn’t kill himself.’

She stiffened in her seat, her eyes suspicious. ‘How can you be so sure?’

‘Because my brother was on to something. He had the one thing he’d been searching for all his life. A way to make the big time. He would never have killed himself.’

‘He was hyper, manic,’ she blundered on. ‘I kept telling him to go back on his medication. I begged him, but he refused. And then he told me was taking it again. I didn’t believe him, but I didn’t want to argue with him in case he did something stupid.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like go away. Cut me out entirely.’

‘Leon would never have gone away,’ Ben replied dismissively. ‘He was committed to what he was working on. He was excited about it—’

‘He was sick!’

‘He was winning,’ Ben insisted. ‘You knew him, Gina, but I knew him better. When he attempted suicide before, it was because he was lost, drifting. But when he got that skull, Leon knew he was on the edge of a triumph. That’s why I know he didn’t kill himself.‘

‘But if he didn’t commit suicide, that means someone killed him.’ She shuddered. ‘Who?’

‘I don’t know.’

Unnerved, she struggled with the idea. ‘But why would anyone kill Leon?’

‘I don’t know that either.’

He wasn’t sure of anything any more – whether Gina was in some way culpable, or whether she was also in danger. He couldn’t read her.

‘Leon told me that he was talking to people on the phone and over the internet.’

‘He was,’ she agreed. ‘And a man came to talk to him last week … What’s all this about? The skull?’ She turned to Ben, her face as white as a dying moon. ‘Does someone want that skull?’

‘Gina—’

‘But he didn’t have it!’ she shouted, suddenly panicking. ‘He was having it authenticated in Madrid. You know that. He didn’t have it.’

‘Gina, try and calm down—’

But she was scared, getting to her feet and moving around restlessly. ‘I don’t know where it is now. God, what if someone thinks it’s here? They could come here … Could they hurt me?’

‘No one’s going to harm you—’

‘How d’you know that?’ she countered. ‘You’re talking about Leon being murdered, and going on about that bloody skull. Well, I was involved. Jesus, I was involved.’

Levelly, he held her gaze.

‘It might be safer if you left here. Go home to the USA, Gina. Let me sort this out.’

‘I can’t go away! I can’t just up and leave. This was my home too. Leon was my partner – how can you expect me to walk away?’