‘No, she wasn’t.’

‘You just said—’

‘I know what I said – Gina told me that she had lost Leon’s baby. Well, she might have been pregnant, but not with his child. Leon had mumps when he was eighteen. My brother was sterile …’

Abigail took in a breath.

‘The baby wasn’t his. Of course she could have made the whole story up just to get sympathy, get me on her side. She’s very manipulative and she had a big influence on Leon, always so keen on him writing that book about the Black Paintings. Even when I didn’t want him to do it, even when I warned him off, she kept pushing the idea.’ He thought of her behaviour the last time he saw her. ‘I don’t know if Gina was doing it deliberately, but I think she was screwing my brother’s head up. Leon wouldn’t have stood a chance with a woman like that.’

A moment passed before Abigail spoke again. ‘You don’t think she had anything to do with his death, do you?’

‘I don’t know,’ Ben said honestly. ‘But I wonder what it would have been like living with her, in that house. What Leon’s last weeks and days were like … The whole atmosphere was eerie there. Not just because Leon was dead – there was more to it than that.’

‘You’re tired, darling. Get some rest.’

‘I will, and I’ll see you tomorrow,’ he said, hurrying on. ‘But don’t come round to the house—’

‘I won’t, I promise. But you’re scaring me, Ben. If you’re in trouble, call the police.’

‘No, not yet,’ he replied. ‘I will if I have to. But not yet.’

He was lying to her and his conscience needled him. But what was the alternative? To tell her he had the skull at his home? The skull which had already cost two lives? And how could he risk telling her about Diego Martinez, the builder whose find had set the whole series of events into motion. Had he been killed because of the skull? And if so, why had he been murdered in London, not Madrid? Did the same person who had killed Martinez also kill Leon? Abigail was right about one thing, Ben thought. He would go to the police when he had proof, but not before. It was his brother who had been murdered and it was up to him to prove it.

Reaching for his coat, Ben walked out, locking the door of his consulting room behind him. Skirting the decorators’ ladders, he hurried towards the loggia, the glass windows and ceiling full of London greyness. In the distance he could hear a phone ringing, and as he approached the back entrance he saw an ambulance pull up, its light flashing.

Preoccupied, Ben walked to his car and got in, turning on the wipers to clear the rain off the windows. In the rear-view mirror he watched a stretcher being taken out of the ambulance and hurried into the A & E department, the ambulance men returning a moment later with the stretcher empty and folded. Sighing, Ben started the car and pulled out on to the Whitechapel Road, waiting at the first set of traffic lights and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. Still weary, he rubbed his eyes and then moved on when the lights changed, making for home.

It was nearly half an hour later that Ben finally arrived back, finding a parking space opposite his house. Hurrying up the front steps, he fumbled with the lock, pushing open the door and walking in. The place seemed unwelcoming as he put down his overnight bag and flicked on the hall light. Picking up his post from the floor, he moved into his study, spotting a fax and scanning it.

FOR THE ATTENTION OF DR BEN GOLDING

He read on, skipping the formalities:

The autopsy findings on Mr Leon Golding are as follows …

Automatically Ben held his breath.

Conclusion: suicide.

Conclusion: suicide … Ben read the two words again, the image of his brother’s body flickering behind his eyes. Leon hanged. Leon dead. Leon killing himself … Exhaling, he put down the fax, not bothering to read any more of the report. He already knew that the Spanish coroner would have backed up his findings with the bald facts – that Leon Golding had tried to commit suicide twice before. That he had been unstable. That his life had always been only an inch away from death.

Pouring a drink, Ben sat down with his legs stretched out in front of him, promising himself that he would get drunk. And then, remembering that he was operating later, he put down the glass. Idly, he riffled through his post, and found to his surprise that his hands were shaking and he was fighting tears. Embarrassed, he walked into the kitchen and began to make himself something to eat. His actions were automatic, unconsidered: the cutting of the bread, the buttering, the slicing of the tomato and some cheese. He made the sandwich because he needed to eat, not because he cared what it would taste like, filling the kettle and setting it to boil.

His mind kept replaying images, like scenes viewed through a train window, passing fast and unfocused. Leon, Gina, Abigail, Francis, the hospital … His eyes aching from exhaustion, he began to eat. Slowly he chewed the food, making little saliva, forcing himself because he hadn’t eaten for hours. When he had finished the sandwich, he would sleep. But it was unappetising and Ben could only eat a little. Turning, he was about to put the plate on the draining board and paused.

Something was different, he could sense it. Slowly, he looked around the kitchen – and then realised that the door of the washing machine was ajar. Bending down, he felt around inside the machine frantically, then dragged out his clothes, his hands rummaging, panicked, around the back of the empty steel drum.

The skull was gone.

BOOK THREE

… I should like to know if you are elegant, distinguished or dishevelled, if you have grown a beard, if you have all your own teeth, if your nose has grown, if you wear glasses, walk with a stoop, if you have gone grey anywhere and if time has gone by for you as quickly as it has for me …

LETTER FROM GOYA TO MARTIN ZAPATER

Spain, 1821

Shuffling across the dry stretch of grass outside the Quinta del Sordo, the old man paused beside the fountain, plunging his face under the fall of water. The coolness shimmered against his skin, pumping the aged blood into the pores, making his pulse thump to the liquid sensation of cold. His mind wandered from the hot day back to the court, to the past. When he had dabbled with colour and women, mocking the majas while he slept with them. Taking a salary from the king while the ruler slept and hunted his days away, and his Minister in Chief, Godoy, ruled over Spain and the bed of the Queen Maria Luisa. Godoy, a suspected murderer. The man rumoured to have had the Duchess of Alba killed.

Goya lifted his head out of the water, letting the heat dry the flutter of hair. Not bald, even past eighty, but deaf as a stone tomb. Inside his head the dull humming of blood beat in rhythm to the vibration of his footsteps as he made his way into the largest room of the house, on the left of the ground floor. Insects, plump with feeding, made trapeze movements over his head, alizard basking on the window ledge outside. Once, many years before, he had lain on a bed with the Duchess of Alba, both of them watching a lime green lizard making its showy way across the bedroom floor …

She had been poisoned, taken from him, the motive unclear. Jealousy, greed, her fortune up for the taking after her death. Or maybe she had been killed because she was, in truth, most frightening. Too wild, too reckless, her reputation tainted by rumours of her dabbling in the occult.

Soon it would be dark … Sighing, Goya picked up a paintbrush. The handle was worn, smeared with grease and an echo of old paint. No one was paying him for his work. There was no sponsor, no collector, to please. The house and the walls were his, to do with as he chose.