Goddess of Death (14 page)

McMurtaghy’s chair scraped loudly as he got to his feet. For a big man, he moved smoothly, lightly. ‘So, that’s settled then. You’ll forgive me, Carmela, but now we are in agreement I need to make immediate contact with some old friends who are still in the game.’ He turned to leave, then swung back. ‘Just one thing, Landon: I think you’re going to have a problem.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘You’re going to track down Tony Zamora.’

‘What about him?’

‘He won’t be available for interview. It seems he was pronounced dead at midday yesterday. The story is, it was a hit and run accident.’

There was a short silence as everyone stared at McMurtaghy. ‘Do you know any more than that?’ Arnold asked incredulously.

‘No real details.’ McMurtaghy paused. ‘The Spanish police have been involved. But the body will be buried at a cemetery outside Valencia. Tomorrow. You could make it for the ceremony, if you fly out tonight.’

Arnold was momentarily at a loss for words. He continued to remain silent as McMurtaghy added, ‘The interesting thing is that George Cooper, at the Greenlawns Rest Home, he seemed to know about the accident when I was with him.’ His smile was little more than a grimace. ‘In other words, before the actual event took place.’

On the flight to Valencia Arnold was still churning over the thought in his mind. Georj Kopas had fled from his father’s killers and made a new life for himself in the States. He had become a member of criminal gangs, had carved out a career for himself and left his old life behind, becoming George Cooper, mobster. But he had continued to nurse a hatred for the man who had betrayed his family; that hate had smoked like a long fuse in his mind as over the decades he had sought
information
, dug out the man’s history, until he had finally learned the identity of the man who had killed his family, and almost killed him.

Then his desire for revenge had been blocked … by his
incarceration
for crimes he himself had committed in the States, and the advancing years, and death of the man he hated. But George Cooper had never been of the cast of mind that agreed the sins of the fathers should not be visited upon their children. His father, mother and brother had been murdered by a man called Stoneleigh. If that man had died, the hatred, the thirst for revenge in George Cooper’s heart had not evaporated. It had continued to fester, and the revenge would be visited upon Stoneleigh’s family: his son, Antonio Zamora.

Dying slowly of cancer, but out of prison, it seemed Cooper had finally been able to bring about that revenge. He had the criminal contacts; he had the money; he had the desire. The closing of a chapter, before his own life came to an end.

A hit and run accident in Spain.

In view of Zamora’s death there seemed little point in Arnold flying to Valencia. But he had made the decision to take the trip. It was always best to tie up loose ends….

The man who met Arnold in the hotel lobby late the next morning was tall, thin and carefully dressed in a dark suit and white shirt. He was in his thirties, Arnold guessed: his skin was olive-coloured, his hair black and carefully parted, he affected a small, pencil-thin moustache which suggested he was somewhat over-careful about his appearance, but his eyes were bright and intelligent. ‘Mr Landon?’ He extended his hand. ‘I am Diego Morales. I am a police inspector, assigned to this case.’

There was a trace of pride in his tone. Arnold shook hands: the man’s grip was firm. ‘I’m grateful for any assistance you can give me.’

Morales lifted one shoulder in a deprecating shrug. ‘I have worked with Miss Cacciatore in the past. She is … a lot of woman, isn’t that right?’

Arnold smiled. ‘She is.’

‘
Absolutamente
!’ Morales turned, leading Arnold towards the main doors to the street. ‘She is a
real
woman, if you know what I mean. It was a pleasure working with her in Italy. So when she telephoned, asking if I could offer you assistance, I was only too pleased to comply.’

‘Your English is excellent,’ Arnold observed, as Morales waved him into the passenger seat of the black Mercedes parked immediately outside the hotel.

‘I hold a degree in Economics from Manchester University. And I worked two years in a restaurant in Newcastle upon Tyne.
The local accent there did not improve my English phrasing, I fear.’

Arnold laughed. ‘I know what you mean.’

Morales checked the driving mirror, and swung out into a break in the traffic. ‘So you are interested in this man Zamora.’

‘It’s part of an investigation into the sale of looted antiques,’ Arnold replied carefully.

‘Ha! Then your trip to Valencia will probably be rewarding.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Señior Zamora was known to us. He has been fined several times for minor offences … he was rather a wild young man, and has remained so; more recently he has been under surveillance for illegal trading and money-laundering activities. Unfortunately, although we had strong suspicions, we were to date unable to build up sufficient evidence to make an arrest. And then, a few days ago, there was this … accident.’ Morales glanced in the driving mirror, then smiled thinly. ‘At least it removed a villain from our streets.’

‘And do you think it was really an accident?’

Morales shrugged, his hands loosely gripping the steering wheel. ‘Carmela mentioned on the telephone that there is a suspicion that the death of Zamora may perhaps have been an act of revenge of some kind. But I fear we have little to go on. The death occurred late at night. We do not know what Zamora was doing out in the darkened street … no doubt it was
something
nefarious. Perhaps he had gone out to meet the man who struck him down. But that is not my province. I am taking you to a certain address that might be of interest to you. It would seem Señor Zamora used the house in question as a kind of storehouse. As you will see …’

The street was narrow, shaded, and the houses were three and four storeys high. Victorian constructions thrown up hastily, Arnold guessed, and now no doubt scheduled for demolition in the near future to make way for the development of the
ubiquitous
apartment blocks that seemed to be springing up everywhere in Valencia. There were two police cars parked outside the house, and a black van on the opposite side of the street was being loaded up with black plastic bags. ‘We have already started removing some of the smaller objects,’ Morales remarked.

They left the Mercedes a little way down the street. A middle-aged woman was half hanging out of an open window, regarding the scene with interest. Morales grinned at her, and waved a hand. She scowled and withdrew her head. Morales led the way into the house that had belonged to Tony Zamora.

There were two uniformed policemen sifting through a pile of objects in the downstairs sitting-room. They seemed bored and indifferent, and nodded briefly to Morales as he led the way to the staircase. ‘Most of the larger stuff was held upstairs,’ he murmured over his shoulder.

When they entered the large bedroom at the top of the stairs Arnold discovered there were three shirt-sleeved men there, middle-aged, inspecting various artefacts. One, large, bald, heavy-paunched, turned his head and greeted Morales with a grunt. He spoke in rapid Spanish to the policeman.

‘These gentlemen are art experts we have drafted in,’ Morales explained. ‘We thought it was possible there might be quite a number of pieces that may be valuable. But they don’t think so. They have doubts about much of the stuff.’ Arnold nodded as he observed the careless manner in which the experts cast aside some of the pieces: bronzes, stone heads, a damaged bust, an armless statute of Eros. They were working more quickly than he would have deemed wise, but they probably knew what they were doing. And they clearly had a view about the dead owner of the hoard.

‘They think he was strictly a small-time crook,’ Morales confirmed a few minutes later. ‘Much of the items here are worthless. Fodder for fools in the market place.’

Morales stood there watching them, arms folded. Arnold moved away after a little while. The art experts paid him no attention as they continued to sift through the jumble of
materials
piled in the room. Arnold picked up several items and inspected them, but none of them gave him the anticipated tingling at the back of his neck, the feeling he sometimes
experienced
when he laid hands on an item that had probably lain undetected in the earth for perhaps a thousand years. Most of Zamora’s possessions would seem to be fakes, tourist rubbish, items of little value.

Morales was glancing at his watch. ‘I think it is time we were leaving. I brought you here merely to see what kind of business Zamora was in. Little value, mainly, but lucrative in the right market. But now we must leave. Just to make sure that the ashes of Antonio Zamora are truly put to rest, you agree?’

But Arnold had stopped, riveted by the sight that had caught his eye. It was on a table, shadowed, in the corner of the room.

‘Mr Landon?’

Arnold held up a hand without turning his head. He moved slowly forward until he was standing beside the table. Then he reached out and picked up the artefact that was placed on the dusty surface in front of him. He stared at it, weighed it in his hand and then turned, stared at Morales.

The photograph Steiner had provided Carmela had been slightly blurred.

‘What is it you have found?’ Morales asked.

‘A statuette in bronze,’ Arnold replied thickly. ‘The statuette of Artemis, goddess of the hunt.’ He grimaced, turning the
statuette
over in his hands. ‘And of death.’

A
RNOLD
WAS
SOMEWHAT
surprised that the body of Antonio Zamora was to be buried in such an isolated location. The small village lay some twenty kilometres outside the city of Valencia, in the foothills of the mountain range. The approach road wound its dusty way through orange groves and cherry orchards: the village itself was a meagre cluster of crumbling houses huddling around a church square dominated by a Romanesque building with pitted walls.

‘There was some fighting here during the civil war,’ Morales explained. ‘Since then, nothing has happened in this town. Not even the English and Germans came here in the 1980s, to buy land and build villas and swimming pools. Now, it is too late. The Spanish construction industry has collapsed. This village has missed its opportunity: now it will just lie here under the sun, slowly dying.’

‘So why is Zamora being buried here?’

Morales shrugged as he swung into the deserted square, parked near the side door to the church. ‘As far as we know, it’s because his mother was born here and interred in the local
cemetery
fifty years later. She was Spanish, raised in this village until she sought work, left the village for Valencia. It was there she married Zamora’s father.’

‘Whom we now know to have been English, living under an adopted identity. I wonder how much she ever knew about his previous life.’

Morales shrugged. ‘Who knows? We won’t find out now. Possibly not a great deal. He was older than she was. And came from a more privileged background. She would not have asked too many questions. She came back here to die. Her son is following her.’

There were several cars parked behind the church, in a small area overlooking the cemetery. A group of people in dark clothing were standing in front of the square-built mausoleum. The wall of the structure enclosed a series of what appeared to be small doors. Some of the doors were adorned with framed photographs that had faded in the sun. Diego Morales parked the car at a little distance, took out a pack of cigarettes, and when Arnold refused one, lit the cigarette he placed between his lips, eyes squinting in the curling smoke. ‘You can rent a space for the coffin, for a few years maybe, but if you do not continue to pay, then it will be rehired for some other family. The previous body is disposed of. Or the family can buy the coffin space. That way, the body will be undisturbed. But it’s expensive.’

‘Is Zamora’s mother still here?’

Morales bared his teeth in a grimace. ‘It would seem so. That’s why the family will have arranged for Zamora to be placed here.’

‘Family?’ Arnold asked, glancing at his companion.

Morales nodded. ‘Antonio Zamora is survived by a sister.’ He raised his head, gesturing with his chin. ‘She is there. In that group. The tall woman with blonde hair….’

Maria Dolores Gonzales would be approaching her fifties, Arnold guessed, but she carried herself well. There were few traces of lines in her tanned features: he suspected a judicious use of Botox around the eyes which were dark, intelligent and cautious. She was dressed in a dark grey business suit and white blouse buttoned to the throat. He observed her as she stood beside the long window that overlooked the bull ring in
Valencia. The office she used as a senior partner in the law firm was cool, elegantly furnished, the walls lined with legal volumes. As Arnold entered she turned, looked him up and down with a deliberate arrogance and then gestured towards the leather chair that had been placed in front of her desk. She nodded thanks, and dismissal, to the young clerk who had ushered Arnold into the room. She remained standing as Arnold, after a brief hesitation, sat down. She stared at him reflectively for several seconds, as though weighing him up. Then she leaned back against the window frame and crossed her arms over her breasts. She raised her chin.

‘So you wanted to talk to me.’ Her voice was low and
modulated
.

‘It’s good of you to grant me an interview. In the
circumstances
.’

Her thin smile lacked humour. ‘I confess to being surprised when you approached me at the cemetery. But only momentarily. I should have guessed that after Antonio’s death a number of vultures would circle. So what did he owe you? What are you hoping to collect?’

Arnold shook his head. ‘Collect? Only some information.’

‘Information can be expensive.’

‘Like lawyers,’ Arnold replied coolly, glancing around the room.

The smile faded. ‘And there is the matter of confidentiality.’

‘Your brother was also one of your clients?’

She shook her head in contempt. ‘He never asked me to
represent
him in any capacity, and I wouldn’t have taken him on if he
had
asked. But he was family. That has to count for something. A little discretion, at least.’ She unfolded her arms, walked forward and gripped the edge of her desk, leaning forward slightly. ‘You don’t look like the smooth bastards he usually had dealings with. So what’s your line, Mr Landon?’

Her English was impeccable, only slightly accented: the
product of a good education. And perhaps the influence of a father who was English. Arnold held her gaze: its direct
challenge
reminded him of Karen Stannard. ‘I’m a member of a committee seeking to recover stolen artefacts, paintings, antiques, stuff looted by the Nazis and the Russians during the Second World War.’

‘How interesting.’ Her tone of voice suggested quite the
opposite
. ‘So is that why you came to Antonio’s funeral? To check if he was stashing something away in his coffin?’

Arnold ignored the sneer. ‘I believe he was in that kind of business.’

‘Looted antiques?’ She arched an eyebrow, seemed to relax somewhat as though she had now concluded Arnold offered no threat to her, and pulled the high-backed chair, turned it slightly so that she too could sit down. She clearly felt no need to retain the dominant position, looking down on him. ‘From what I know of my brother, I hardly think so. I’ve only rarely been in touch with Antonio during the last two decades, not since shortly after my husband died. Antonio came to the funeral. He paid his respects, but otherwise we barely spoke. But, from what I’ve gathered over the years, he was hardly in the kind of
business
you describe. He was, to put it simply, a small-time crook. A loser, if you know what I mean.’

‘I think you might be underestimating him,’ Arnold demurred. ‘We have information to the effect he was dealing with at least one museum in Italy, running a scam to provide provenance to artefacts that were being put on the market. Artefacts that probably had been acquired illegally, of course.’

‘I can hardly imagine that. Not on his own initiative. Of course it’s possible he was acting as a front for others. But I don’t think he would ever have had the intelligence, or application, to develop such activities on his own account.’ Marie Dolores Gonzales stared at Arnold for a little while, cocked her head on one side, like an inquisitive bird. ‘But if you say so, and have
taken the trouble to see me, perhaps … Well, well, maybe I have underestimated his talents. But I say again: I hardly think it would have been his idea. He would have been working for someone else. Someone with more intelligence and aptitude.’

‘Do you have any idea who that might be?’ Arnold asked.

She leaned back, relaxing, put her head against the chair back, and affected a bored air. ‘None at all. It’s hardly in my line of work. My corporate clients may collect antiques as an investment, but they never consult me on such matters: they come to me for advice on mergers, takeovers, and seek information on ways of avoiding tax. As I said, I’ve seen little of Antonio in twenty years. We lived in different worlds, after I married. Though I was aware, of course, that he scraped a living at the edge of legality.’

‘Awkward for you, as a respected lawyer.’

She shook her head. ‘I use my married name, professionally. Few in the legal world would have connected me to my errant brother. We moved in very different social and professional circles.’

‘I can believe that. You, a highly paid lawyer, and your brother … So you would say that your brother lacked the organizational skills and criminal tendencies shown by your father.’

There was a short silence. Arnold knew he had struck a nerve. Maria Dolores Gonzales had stiffened slightly in her chair, her eyes had narrowed and she was staring at Arnold with
sharpened
suspicion. ‘Now what would you mean by that comment, Mr Landon? I thought you were here to talk about my recently deceased brother.’

‘I was simply wondering what genes had been passed by the father to his children.’

The lawyer grimaced, shook her head slowly. ‘My father has been dead for some years, I would imagine. He was lost to us long before that. And I cannot imagine what your interest in him might be.’

‘How well did you know your father?’

She stared at him expressionlessly. ‘This is not a conversation I wish to pursue.’

‘Your father was English, wasn’t he?’

‘He was a Spanish businessman—’

‘No, don’t try to fool me, Señora Gonzales. I can hardly believe you did not know his identity was an assumed one, a name he had taken when he entered Spain under Franco’s wing. And you must have known the kind of business he was in.’

‘He was a textile manufacturer,’ she said harshly.

‘With a history.’

Her eyes were suddenly evasive. One hand stole up to tease a blonde curl on her forehead. ‘I was young. My father never discussed his past with me.’

‘Nor did your mother?’

‘My mother knew nothing nor cared about his past. She was a beautiful, simple woman from a hill village who fell in love with a charismatic Spanish businessman, and bore him two children before he left.’

‘Left? You mean he abandoned his family?’

‘You mean you did not know that?’ A bitter mockery entered her tone. ‘I will do you a trade, Mr Landon. You tell me things about my father that perhaps I did not know, but should, and I will tell you what happened to his marriage, to my mother, me, and Antonio.’ She paused, a gleam of sudden understanding appearing in her eyes. ‘So this is not really about my brother, is it?’

‘We are interested in what he’s been up to. But we’re also interested in your father … How much do you really know about his background?’

‘Tell me.’ She was giving nothing away. A typical lawyer. But Arnold had nothing to lose.

‘Your father came to Spain from Moscow where he held a diplomatic appointment. He was English; his name at that stage
was Stoneleigh. He arrived in Madrid between 1946 and 1950, it seems, after fleeing the consequences of his actions in Russia.’

She straightened a little in her chair. ‘Actions?’

Arnold hesitated. ‘The best guess we can make is that under cover of his diplomatic post in Moscow he was in reality working in intelligence.’

Her mouth twisted. ‘A spy.’

He noted the contempt in her tone. ‘Probably.’

‘For whom? The British?’

Arnold shrugged. ‘We can presume so. But things might have been more complicated than that: my own suspicion is that he might have been working for whoever paid him the best rate. Certainly, whatever his diplomatic status, or behind-the-scenes activity, it’s likely that when things became too hot for him, he got out of Moscow. And he took a new identity to hide his trail, disappear from view.’

‘It was a skill he seems to have retained,’ Marie Dolores Gonzales replied bitterly. ‘Go on, Mr Landon. You still haven’t explained to me what bearing my father’s activities during the war might have on whatever crooked business my brother was in, and why you and your committee are interested in him.’

Arnold paused. ‘You say your father was successful in business, in the textile industry. Where do you think he got the money to establish himself here in the first place?’

She frowned. ‘I was too young to enquire.’

‘The fact is we have information to the effect he didn’t leave Moscow empty-handed. It would seem when he made his exit he took the precaution of loading himself down with a number of priceless artefacts, items looted by the Russian Trophy Brigades from Berlin in 1945, where the Nazis had stored them.’

Her eyes widened in surprise. She nodded slowly. ‘So that accounts for your interest.’

‘It’s a little more complicated than that, but yes. We are seeking the return of some of those items. When your brother’s
name came up in an investigation we are undertaking, and the name tallied with other information we had received concerning your father—’

‘And his escape from Moscow.’

‘That’s right. We needed to follow the trail. So any
information
you can give us concerning the businessman Pedro Zamora, and the manner in which his … activities might have given your brother his ideas, will be welcome.’

Slowly, she shook her head. She seemed almost sorry for what she was about to say. ‘So my father scrambled out of Moscow with looted antiques. And maybe you’re right, it could well be that he sold some items to establish himself in a new business, and get a new identity. Pay off Franco’s hirelings, the men who could smooth his passage. Yes, it has the ring of credibility about it. But no whisper of such matters ever reached me. So I’m unable to offer you any confirmatory evidence, I fear, Mr Landon. You see, I never really got to know my father.’

Surprised, Arnold said, ‘Never knew him? What do you mean?’

She caressed her lower lip with an inquisitive finger. ‘No, that is too direct a statement, I suppose. I
knew
him, of course. But I never had opportunity to get close to him. Not in any adult way. When I was a child he was a busy man, spent a lot of time away from home. My mother adored him. When he came home we had our nannies to look after us: my mother wanted him all to herself. Poor woman … she was besotted with him. Even after two children, she could hardly bear to be away from him. When he was available, of course.’ She smiled bitterly. ‘As for his own commitment, my guess would be that he gave her children only to keep her busy, while he went his own way.’