by Alex Connor
He reached his room and turned to look at her. And then, without a word, he slammed the door in her face.
Having heard nothing further from Roma Jaffe, Ben was hoping that she wasn’t going to pursue the case. Not where he was concerned anyway – but there were still unanswered questions. Where was Goya’s skull? And what was the resolution of Leon’s theory? The real meaning of the Black Paintings? Ben had promised himself that he would finish his brother’s notes that night. But before he did that, he had something else to do, which was why he had returned to the Whitechapel Hospital.
Thoughtful, Ben recalled every conversation he had ever had with Francis Asturias about the skull. He remembered him describing the reconstruction, how he had hidden it in the box marked CAUTION – ANIMAL REMAINS. He recalled seeing the skull and examining it with Francis and could hear again, in all its blistering clarity, their last phone call.
I swapped skulls. I have the Goya.
I have the Goya … But where the hell did you put it, Francis? Ben wondered. Where the hell did you hide it? Not at home, not in your workshop, and not in the laboratory. He paused, concentrating. No, that would have been too obvious for a man like you. You would have thought up something clever but whimsical … Sighing, Ben thought of his old friend and then considered Elizabeth Asturias.
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 [email protected] 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.’
‘Which is?’
‘I didn’t trust my brother’s girlfriend. And I was right not to, because she stole Leon’s theory. She copied it.’
‘Jesus …’
‘But not before I’d already made my own copy.’
Bobbie Feldenchrist swallowed painfully. ‘What are you saying?’
‘Leon’s theory is with the Prado, Madrid, and has been for weeks. I lodged it with them the day after my brother died. If Bartolomé Ortega tries to claim that he’s the author, he’ll be outed for a liar and a fraud.’
There was silence down the line, Bobbie struggling to answer.
‘You’ve got a fake skull and a fake theory. You’ve got a great big pile of lies and you’re sitting on the top of them, holding on for dear life. I wouldn’t want to be you. I used to be angry with you for cheating my brother, but not now. I told you that one day you’d regret ever seeing that skull. I warned you.’ His voice hardened. ‘Bartolomé Ortega lied to you. He used you. But then again, I imagine you used him too. I don’t suppose he knows about the skull being a fake—’
She was reeling, but still fighting.
‘Do you have the real skull?’
‘I have nothing, Ms Feldenchrist,’ Ben said enigmatically. ‘Nothing but right on my side.’
Putting down the phone, Ben paused for a moment, thinking he heard a noise from upstairs and then remembering the nurse who was caring for Abigail. Walking into the hallway, he stood at the base of the stairs and looked up. But it wasn’t the nurse who stood there.
It was the very fragile – but resilient – figure of Abigail Harrop.
74
London
Later that night, while Abigail dozed on the sofa in the study, Ben sat down and looked at the skull, now sitting on his desk. Goya’s skull – for which three men had died and another had been tortured. Goya’s skull – which had been stolen from a corpse and temporarily housed on the shoulders of a great ape.
Thoughtful, Ben kept staring at it. From the day Leon had been given the skull to the poisoning of Emile Dwappa, everything had been permeated with a kind of sickness, a madness of greed. The madness of the art world, who sought to possess the skull at any lengths. The insanity of Leon, driven to the end by his own obsession. And the madness of the Black Paintings themselves. In awe, Ben touched the cool, dead bone of the skull and felt the holes under his fingers, and then he reached into the middle drawer of the desk and pulled out the battered envelope in which were Leon’s writings. All his jottings, his scribbled notes, his sketches, and his conclusion. The final and definitive meaning of the Black Paintings.
With the curtains drawn and the lamps turned on, Abi slept on while Ben hesitated, his right hand resting on the papers, preparing himself to read the last entries his brother had made. Now, finally, he was going to understand what had obsessed Leon for so long. The theory for which he had lived and died. The culmination of his brother’s life.
It was almost too much to bear. But he began to read.
… Coming to the painting later entitled The Reading. The meaning of this has been disputed for many years.
What are this disparate group of men reading? They represent communication. A testimony. Goya’s testimony. He is saying ‘Look on my works, read them as you would a book. Study what I have painted on these walls and find the message within.’ In the image there are three men fixed on reading a book, on the left is a skeleton, and behind them all is a man looking upwards to Heaven. ‘Read what I have written, not in ink but in paint,’ Goya is saying. ‘See death and look to Heaven – as I do – for deliverance.’ I believe he was also looking to Heaven to bear witness to what he was suffering, And, if possible, to intervene.
Read what I am telling you. See it.
And now is the time to consider The Cudgel Fight.
For how long have people studied this image without understanding it? But I humbly believe that it represents the most atavistic clash of wills – that of good and evil. A competition, each man fighting for the upper hand, both knee-deep in the mire. For Goya, it represented Spain and France. Light and dark. Life and death. Goya’s health against the onslaught of his illness. But most of all I believe that it represents the cause he believed in – the Liberals against the Spanish King. The very reason why Goya, ill and old, was so afraid, hiding within the suffocating walls of the Quinta del Sordo.
We then come to the penultimate image – The Fates. The Daughters of the Night.
These are the three women of allegory who depict the goddesses who determine the fate of man. One spins the thread of life, one determines its length and one severs it. With them is a bound man, whose fate they are determining. But do these creatures really represent the old fable of The Daughters of the Night? Perhaps, instead, Goya was updating his version and making it peculiar to him.
The three women I believe depict the three women of the greatest importance in Goya’s life: his wife Josefa, a gentle soul who spins the thread of life for him by giving him children and hope for a future; the Duchess of Alba, who Goya loved and who controlled him more than any other woman, determining his thread of his life – the thread that bound the painter to her; and lastly, Leocardia.
Ben leaned back in his seat, trying to assimilate what he had just read. Then, after a moment, he continued.
Goya wasn’t insane, but he was willing to be believed mad. Why? Because that was his protection. Hiding behind old age, infirmity and deafness – how much less of a threat would the great man seem? But madness wasn’t protection enough.
When I examined Goya’s skull I saw the small holes in the bone: three of them, of differing sizes. Then I spoke to several specialists who confirmed what I suspected. But I’m hurrying on too fast. I must go back … The last picture of the series, entitled The Witchy Brew, depicts an old woman eating, with a skull-headed figure next to her. This was the final painting Goya did in the Black Painting series. It is the conclusion – and it tells us what happened to him.
‘Christ!’ Ben said softly.
He had been poisoned for a long time, poisoned with lead, the doses of which were increased steadily.
Lead poisoning was common in painters when lead was in the pigments they used – like Flake White, which Goya must have ingested steadily over the years. But suddenly he appeared to have taken in large amounts. When I first obtained the skull I had many tests undertaken. The results were
inconclusive because of the age and condition of the skull, but it was agreed that the holes suggested the very real possibility of lead poisoning.
Look at the three holes – these are typical of a longterm ingestion of lead.
Look at the symptoms – sleep disorders, seizures, raised blood pressure, hallucinations, impotence and hearing problems.
Goya was deaf. Sleep disorders were a trouble to him. And hallucinations would explain much of his work. But the fact that the skull has holes in it points to a sudden and drastic intake of the toxin. Not the gradual assimilation which a painter of Goya’s time might ingest, but a comprehensive attempt at poisoning.
Of course lead has a half-life of only 20–30 years, so there is no scientific proof which remains in the bone of the skull for scientists to measure. And permission would have to be sought from the Spanish authorities for further tests to be carried out on Goya’s body. But the symptoms from which he suffered indicate that Goya had been slowly and summarily poisoned.
The greatest painter Spain had ever produced was being murdered. And he knew it.
‘Jesus!’ Ben whispered, glancing over at the sleeping Abi.
She was breathing evenly, her hands resting on the blanket which covered her.
Ben thought about what he had just read. Francisco Goya had been poisoned. Someone had set out to kill one of the most famous artists who had ever lived. He could imagine the furore Leon’s theory would cause when it was published, the consternation which would follow the final, diabolical solution of the Black Paintings.
Breathing in deeply, Ben turned back to his brother’s writings.
But then we have to ask, who poisoned Goya? And why?
Goya was a patriot who loved his country, but he was also reckless. I believe that this great artist exiled himself at the Quinta del Sordo when the degenerate Ferdinand VII return to the throne. The King who hated Liberals – of which Goya was one. The King who suspected that Goya had colluded with the French when Napoleon was in power. The King who had tortured and exiled Goya’s friends and peers. Ferdinand – who suspected Goya of funding the Liberals in their attempt to form an alternative Government. Ferdinand, the King who lost the throne, and then regained it. And with it, absolute and revengeful power.
