‘Usual practice.’

‘He could have cried off.’

She glanced at him, puzzled. ‘Why?’

‘His brother’s just died.’

‘What?’ she exclaimed. ‘What happened?’

‘He committed suicide, in Spain.’

‘Why would he do that?’

‘Oddly enough, Ben Golding’s insisting that his brother didn’t kill himself. He says he’s been murdered.’

Surprised, she took a breath. ‘What makes him think that?’

‘Didn’t say, but he was emphatic about it. Mind you, he was in shock, I could tell that. He was talking too much over the phone. Not like himself at all. You know, talking like he couldn’t stop. He said that everyone was putting his brother’s death down to a suicide, but he had found the body and he reckoned he’d been killed. Then he just shut up, like he’d said too much.’

Roma frowned. ‘Imagine finding your own brother dead … What else did he say?’

‘He said he was still in Madrid—’

‘Madrid?’

‘That’s where his brother lived.’

‘What else?’

‘Nothing else. Not about his brother anyway. Started talking about the Little Venice case instead.’

Her eyebrows rose. ‘That’s odd.’

‘Why? You asked Golding for a professional opinion. He was working on the case.’

‘Did he mention anything about us finding his card on the body?’

‘No.’

‘Obviously he’s seen the reconstruction?’

‘Yeah.’

‘But he didn’t recognise the victim?’

‘Said not.’

Frowning, Roma pushed a stack of papers to one side of her desk and leaned forward. The chair creaked morosely as Duncan took a seat opposite his boss. Placing her hands over the Little Venice file, she stared at him. ‘Have we any leads on this?’

‘No,’ he said, trying to read her thoughts. ‘What is it?’

‘Huh?’

‘You look thoughtful. What about?’

She shrugged.

‘It just seems odd, that’s all. That business of Ben Golding’s card on the murder victim. And now his brother’s been killed.’

‘You think the cases are related?’

‘I don’t know. But it’s a hell of coincidence, isn’t it?’ She doodled on the pad in front of her, making looping spirals on the page. ‘Did Golding say why he thought his brother had been killed?’ She looked up. ‘No? Then we need to ask him.’

31

Madrid

In the glossy centre of Madrid, a solitary man was seated at a table, a half-empty coffee cup in front of him. Overhead the slow curl of a fan chugged into the afternoon warmth, the arched windows opening out on to a wrought iron terrace, rusted in places. Only minutes earlier a woman had come in and watered the plants outside, taking care not to splash the leaves or the flowers. A careless drop of water, magnified by Spanish sun, could work like a lens, scorching the fragile, pulpy greenness underneath.

From the open window came the sound of the city: car horns, shouts, the occasional punctuation of laughter. But inside the room was quiet, interrupted only by the noise of the lift shuddering to an impatient halt on the landing outside. Sighing, the man looked upwards into an inverted, painted well. Figures from pastoral mythology cavorted in fleshy groups, a painted sky the colour of a Russian sapphire. A froth of clouds drew the eye downwards to the tops of carved pelmets and gilded pictures frames, standing cheek by jowl with ceremonial documents and antique weaponry.

The palatial office of Gabino Ortega told everyone immediately how wealthy he was. The fact that he did very little work in it did not matter. It was a front for him – a stage set for an actor playing a tycoon. But now Gabino was finding himself at a loss, his mobile still in his hand, his mind seething. Leon Golding was dead.

So where was the fucking skull?

His irritation accelerated into anger as he pushed back his chair and stood up. He had been too slow. He should have got the skull off Leon Golding as soon as he had heard that it was in his possession – either bought it or stolen it, but got hold of it nonetheless. The lame lie about the skull being a fake and buried in a churchyard had been almost laughable. Surely Golding had realised that he hadn’t believed him – that he had, instead, had him watched?

Thank God he hadn’t told Bartolomé about it, Gabino thought suddenly. He would have looked like a fool. Glancing up, he watched the man who had just entered the room, a scrawny picture restorer in his seventies, who nodded as he took the seat offered to him.

‘So, where is it?’

‘The chambermaid said she never saw any skull,’ Lopez replied. ‘She said she would have remembered something like that.’

‘Did she go through Leon Golding’s things?’

Lopez nodded, shifting in his seat. ‘You can’t let anyone know about this—’

‘About what? That you’ve got people working in the hotel, ready to thieve anything important they come across?’ Gabino pulled a face. ‘I’m not interested in what you do in your own time, only what you do for me. And now I want to know about Golding. Did the maid go through his things?’

‘She didn’t have time. The hotel room was never empty. Leon Golding checked in and stayed in. After he’d topped himself, his brother arrived and found the body—’

‘His brother found him?’

‘Yeah. And when the maid finally had the chance to get into the room, all Leon Golding’s stuff had gone.’

‘Ben Golding took it?’

‘Yeah.’ Lopez sucked at a hole in one of his back teeth. ‘But I know where he went – to the family house. His brother lived there with his girlfriend. She’s still there.’

‘And Golding’s there too?’

‘Yeah.’

Gabino paused, trying to think, trying to cover his annoyance at the fact that something which should have been so simple had turned out to be so complicated. Only an hour earlier he had received confirmation of his court hearing – the date set in a couple of weeks’ time. Even the Ortega money and lawyers had failed to get the assault charge dropped. There was a rumour that Gabino would be made an example of, his violence curtailed by a long overdue jail sentence.

He realised that in Switzerland his brother would have heard the news by now. He also knew that, having endured many years of Gabino’s excessive behaviour, this might well turn out to be the act which finally broke Bartolomé patience and terminated the gravy train. And now Gabino had lost sight of the one thing which could have placated his brother: the skull of Goya.

‘There’s one other thing …’ the old man said carefully. ‘Leon Golding’s brother is challenging the fact that it was suicide.’

‘Of course he killed himself!’ Gabino said impatiently. ‘Leon Golding was unstable. Everyone knew that.’

‘Did you know he was having tests done on the skull when he was killed?’

Gabino’s head jerked up. ‘Who was doing them?’

‘Dunno. But they were done in London.’

‘London?’ Gabino took in an irritable breath. ‘How d’you know?’

‘I have my methods,’ Lopez replied enigmatically. ‘The skull is Goya’s. Proven.’

‘I knew it! He knew that bastard was lying when he said it was a fake … D’you know who found it and gave it to Leon Golding?’

‘Diego Martinez. A builder. Who’s since gone missing.’

‘Missing …’ Gabino replied thoughtfully, pulling at his shirt cuffs, the crescent-moon cufflinks catching the hot Madrid light.

‘I spoke to someone at the Prado,’ Lopez went on. ‘Since my restoring days I’ve had contacts—’

‘Get on with it!’

‘Apparently the Museum felt comfortable that Leon Golding should have carte blanche. He was one of their staff, after all. But he could have tricked the Prado. Gone somewhere else with the skull.’

Gabino could sense that the old man was working up to something. ‘Did he?’

‘I don’t know,’ Lopez replied. ‘But I saw him talking to an Englishman called Jimmy Shaw a few days ago. I also saw the same Jimmy Shaw outside the Hotel Melise on the night Leon Golding committed suicide. Or did he? If his brother’s right, maybe Leon was killed. By Jimmy Shaw.’