Memory of Bones (41 page)

‘I still wouldn’t tell you. And then you’d be left with another body on your hands. And no skull.’

‘I could kill your woman.’

Ben tensed, but kept his nerve, bluffing. ‘There are always other women. There’s only one skull.’

‘I didn’t realise
you
wanted it,’ Dwappa replied, amused.

Turning away, he continued his ascent, Ben taking in a slow, relieved breath as he followed him. At the top of the stairs an old woman sat outside a locked door. She made no eye contact with Dwappa, just moved aside to let him enter.

Abigail was lying on a mattress on the floor, the bandage around her head bloodstained, her eyes closed. Moving over, Ben touched her face, then checked for a pulse.

Dwappa stood watching both of them. ‘She’s alive.’

‘Barely,’ Ben replied, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. He had to stay calm, or they were finished. ‘Is she drugged?’

‘What d’you think?’

‘How long before she comes round?’

Dwappa checked his watch. ‘About an hour. No longer. But that’s only if we can do business. Otherwise her next dose might be her last.’

Every threat he uttered was in a soft, almost feminine voice, the meaning of the words taking a moment to register.

‘What happened to her?’ he asked, gesturing to the bandages. ‘Why was she in hospital anyway?’

‘She had surgery on her face,’ Ben replied, staring at the unconscious Abigail and longing to touch her, to clean her up, wipe the blood off her face. To see her move and speak again. But she lay motionless, her breath hardly discernible, her lips cracked. And beside her the floor scuttled with bugs, a water pitcher left empty by a boarded-up window.

‘Well, now you’ve seen her, let’s talk business,’ Dwappa said shortly, hustling Ben downstairs and back into the office behind the shop.

Despair welled up in Ben. The moment had come. Now Dwappa would finally discover that he had nothing to bargain with. That he was playing with no court cards, no aces, no hand at all.

‘So,’ the African whispered, ‘where’s the fucking skull?’

The moment stretched out into infinity. Ben was suddenly back in Madrid in the country house. He could hear Leon calling from the study and see the shadow of Detita cross the black tiled floor. Hot days, longer than weeks, came back to him, smelling of lemon and hibiscus, accompanying the river, the moon yellow as a church candle – and the solemn rusty crooning of the weathervane. He could smell the summer dust, hear the dripping water from an outside tap as it hit the dry earth, a bunch of spent flowers closing down their last day.

He was a boy again – before Leon, before Francis, before Abigail, before loss and confusion. He was young and the birds flew wide over his head, minnows making their shifty path down the river. It was the time before all the church bells rang out for funerals and wakes; before the dead were closer than the living; before night outlasted day and before men with blood on their hands talked in whispers like angels.

‘You had it.’

Dwappa blinked slowly. The shop behind him was dimly
lit, the only strong light coming from the street lamp outside the window.

‘What?’

‘You had it. There was only ever one skull. There was only the skull you gave to Bobbie Feldenchrist. There
is
no real skull.’ His mouth was drying, words clinging like reeds to his tongue. ‘It was all a fake.’

‘
What are you talking about?
’ Dwappa gasped as Ben continued.

He was talking from another place. From safety, from the voice of something prompting him, telling him what to say.

‘I lied from the start. No one found the skull of Goya. I planted the story for my brother, for Leon. He was very disturbed, very unhappy, desperate to find a meaning to his life …’

The birds were winging higher and higher, over the stables, over the first great gobbling of an early moon.

‘I wanted to give my brother what he wanted, so I did. I organised the whole thing. Got Diego Martinez to “find” the skull and pass it over to Leon. I got Francis Asturias to say that it was genuine, to write authentication papers for it …’

And now here he comes, Goya whistling under his breath, notes that he can’t hear. And swinging a block of drawings under his arm. Detita is talking about the old man, and the black horses that come over the bridge at night.

‘
There never was a skull of Goya
. Leon never had it. No one
ever had it. You were running after an illusion. You all were – you, Bobbie Feldenchrist, the Ortegas. The skull you got is worthless. An old skull that could have belonged to a pauper. I lied to make my brother happy.’ He paused. ‘I never realised what would happen until it was too late.’

‘
You made it all up?
’

Ben nodded, calm, because it was all so very calming in the end. Because he could believe what he was saying, and felt a drowsy removal from a sane world. The lie swung him up higher than a falcon. But soon the air would no longer be able to hold him and he knew he would have to make that long swoop, down into grass, and claws, and prey – and he held his breath.

‘There was
no
Goya skull?’ Dwappa said hoarsely, standing up.

Ben could feel the draught from the door increase. This time he knew someone was coming up behind him, a shadow shifting across the table from a lighted passage beyond.

‘You fucking idiot,’ someone said, voice coarse and reproachful.

Slowly, Ben turned his head as a huge woman came into view. Her bulk was commanding, her head swathed in a greasy turban, big hands holding a tray with glasses on it.

‘My son! My useless son! Promising to get me out of here. Promising to make money, lots of money.’ She slammed down the tray and the glasses tinkled. ‘You fucked up.
Again.
’

Pulling up a chair, she sat down, the seat creaking under her weight, her yellowed eyes turning to Ben. Her face was devoid of expression, her tongue flicking out to moisten her lips as she studied him. From the back door came the night air, fluting against the table top as she poured herself a drink and then swallowed it in one.

Filling the three glasses, she pushed one towards Ben.

‘No.’

Her eyes were dead, blank, without feeling.

‘Drink it.’

‘No.’

Shrugging, she pushed a glass over to her son, and then refilled her own, her disgust thick in the air. Dwappa watched his mother drain her glass again. Dry-mouthed, he sipped at his own and then wiped his lips with the back of his hand. His eyes flicked over to her and then looked away, as though he was afraid he might catch her glance. Together they drank, Mama Gala staring at Ben and then turning back to her son.

He shrank. Not physically, but emotionally. Buckled under a lifetime of abuse.

‘Fucking moron,’ she said, leaning back. The chair creaked as she folded her gigantic arms across the wide girth of her stomach. She smelt sour, unwashed. ‘ “There was no skull, after all,”’ she mimicked, then leaned towards Ben. ‘This skull – was it supposed to be valuable?’

He nodded, watching the two of them, his back to the door.

‘Yes.’

‘But it’s worthless?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you’ve nothing to give us in exchange for the woman?’

The words struck out at Ben. ‘I didn’t abduct her. Your son did that. He wanted to use her to bargain with me—’

‘For something you don’t have?’

Ben nodded, Mama Gala laughing like a lunatic. As quickly as she had started, she stopped, turning to her son. Her gaze moved over him slowly, her contempt corrosive.

‘You failed.’

‘I—’

‘
You failed
,’ she said again, then emptied her glass, refilling Dwappa’s. ‘What are we going to do now?’ she asked, taking another greedy drink, her eyes watching him over the rim of the glass. ‘I’ve been waiting for you to come good for years,’ she went on, putting down her glass and picking at the corner of her left eye. ‘Waiting on all your promises. Waiting for the good times. The big time. So many plans and promises you made me. And nothing came of any of them. Such big dreams for such a little runt.’

‘I can—’

‘No,’ she said coldly, ‘that’s the point, you
can’t
. You never could. You aren’t able. You sick fuck. You queer …’

Watching them, Ben waited. They had believed his story, but what were they going to do next? With him? With Abigail? How likely was it that they would let them go
after what had happened? But then again, what would be the point of killing two more people for
nothing?

In the dim light he watched the couple facing him across the table. A grotesque mother and her murderous son.

‘I’ll go back to see the woman in New York, blackmail her—’

‘Hah! You’ve been outsmarted, like always. Whatever you try won’t come good. People are too clever for you.’ She swigged back another drink, the flesh slack under her chin. ‘You’re no use to me, Emile. No use to me. You disappointed me. I gave you so many chances, but you never came good.’ To Ben’s surprise, her voice was changing, taking on an odd crooning tone. ‘But what does it matter now? It’s over. All over.’

A long malicious moment hung between them, Dwappa watching his mother then suddenly beginning to choke, his hands going to his throat, clutching for air.

Slowly Mama Gala leaned towards her son, stroking his face. ‘No, just relax. Just be calm, be calm,’ she told him, Dwappa’s eyes wide, then suddenly drooping. From one moment of bulging terror they had changed into a flat incredulity, his face slackening as he slumped in his seat.

Stunned, Ben watched her. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

She turned her great head, the thick neck wrinkling. ‘What I should have done a long time ago.’

‘You can’t kill your own son.’

‘I’m not going to,’ she replied, loosening Dwappa’s collar and placing his slack hands on his thighs.

‘Is he poisoned?’

She shrugged, as though the matter was of no interest.

‘
Have you poisoned him?
’

‘Get out!’ she said simply. ‘Go on, get out!’

Shaken, Ben rose to his feet. He could see Dwappa’s eyes following him, imploring him, as he backed away.

‘But he’s your son—’

‘He killed your brother!’ she snapped. ‘You want him to get away with that? Where are your fucking balls? Why don’t you want him dead? I bred him and I can do what I want with him. He’ll just be one more animal to keep. Mute, helpless, needing me.’ She smiled like a devil, making a kissing sound with her lips as she looked at her son. ‘I can keep him with me forever now. You think I don’t know what he really wanted? To leave me. To make money and get away from me. Now he’ll never leave me.’

She rolled her massive head, loosening her neck muscles as Dwappa stared at her, knowing she had won. Knowing he was locked in, at her mercy, facing interminable imprisonment. Trapped in a useless body, when every day would hold fresh torture. He would beg for death, would long for the end. And Mama Gala would make sure it didn’t come quickly.

It was a fitting punishment.

Rising to his feet, Ben moved to the door quickly. He was waiting to be stopped, for Mama Gala to get out of her chair and come after him, for someone – anyone – to prevent him from leaving that terrible room.

‘Wait!’

He stopped, turning back to her.

‘Remember what I tell you,’ she said, her expression lethal. ‘Breathe a word of this and you’ll regret it. I know you. I know her. I can – I
will
– find you anywhere.’ She jerked her head upstairs, to where Abigail was being held. ‘I know how to make people suffer. I know deeper and darker then you can imagine. I know tricks to make men mad.’ She was talking without emotion, a blank mask of hatred. ‘I know a hell within hells. I’ve been there, and I’ll take you with me if you speak a word about this.’

In silent agreement, Ben nodded. Then, taking one last look at his brother’s killer, he ran upstairs.

Still unconscious and scarcely breathing, Abigail didn’t move as Ben drove her back to his house. Although he knew he was taking a chance, he decided that it was too risky to return her to the Whitechapel Hospital. After settling her into bed, he then made a few hurried phone calls and a nurse arrived soon after with the dressings and medication he had requested.

Gently he removed the soiled bandage from around Abigail’s head. Wincing as he saw the onset of infection, he bathed the operation site and gave her an antibiotic injection. Abigail never stirred, never woke. He checked her pulse, noting that it was really sluggish, and sat down beside the bed.

Five minutes later he checked her pulse again, but there was no change. He leaned towards her, stroking her face, talking to her.

‘Darling, wake up. It’s me, Ben. Wake up, sweetheart.’

She shifted in her sleep, sweating, breathing rapidly. Her eyes were puffy from water retention, her hair damp with sweat. Tenderly, he combed it away from her face,
sticky tendrils smearing the pillow. Her beauty, marred and scarred, was an ache in his heart.

‘Abi, you’re safe now.’

Still she didn’t wake.

‘You’re home. With me. You’re safe, baby.’

Taking off his shoes, Ben lay down on the bed beside her, holding her to him, her head against his chest. Every breath she took echoed inside his own chest, every flutter of her pulse mirrored his own. He held her and watched the ceiling above them. He watched the darkness deepen, then lift with the first slow-building nudge of dawn, morning coming sleepy on the new day. Once or twice in the early hours he heard an alarm go off, but nothing woke her. Exhausted, he thought he might sleep but remained wakeful, listening, hoping for the first signs that she was going to come round.

He didn’t know what toxic substance she had been given, just as he knew the hospital wouldn’t be able to help her any more than he could. All he could do was to wait for her. Talk to her, comfort her. Make her hear him.

And come back.

Watching from outside Ben’s house, Duncan rang the police station. Roma came on to the line immediately.

‘Have you found him?’