Memory of Bones by Alex Connor Read Free Book Online

will make my name.’
    ‘You’ve already made your name, Leon. You’re a respected historian.’
    ‘Respected, but not famous.’
    Ben wondered fleetingly how his brother would cope with notoriety. How press attention and any prying would affect him. All his life Leon had longed for attention – but on his terms. Attention which could be corralled, fenced in. But fame wasn’t like that. Renown flicked its victim like a bagatelle ball from one pitfall to another. It could test a strong man, a weak one it could destroy.
    ‘For your sake I
want
it to be Goya’s skull …’
    ‘It is,’ Leon insisted. ‘It is.
I can feel it.
’
    ‘… I want it to be genuine because you want it so much. Because you think it’ll bring so much. But if it isn’t—’
    ‘It will be,’ Leon insisted quietly. ‘It
has
to be.’

6
    London
    As it had done for centuries, the Whitechapel Hospital crouched disconsolately among the warren of East End streets. Slivers of alleyways dating back centuries snaked between the modern concrete smack of office blocks. Overhead, the bridge joined the separate wings of the hospital and straddled the road like a birthing stool. The oldest part of the building had been standing when Jack the Ripper was active, the Whitechapel streets housing some of the poorest of London. In among slums, the overcrowded hovels had paid court to prostitution, thievery and gambling.
    It was a part of London overhung with its own grim allure, where part-time enthusiasts held murder tours and overseas visitors thrilled to the knowledge that the skeleton of the Elephant Man was housed in the hospital across the road. Time and progress had smartened up some of the area, but a few hidden warrens and alleyways stilllurked. The names of the places where Jack the Ripper killed his victims had been changed too. There was no Miller Court, no Buck’s Row any more, but the stubborn, unremitting atmosphere of gloom remained. And over this thick knotting of streets and memory glowered the edifice of the Whitechapel Hospital.
    Pounding towards his consulting room in the oldest part of the building, Professor Francis Asturias paused at a door marked EXIT, then hurried on to the fire escape outside. Lighting a cigar, he drew in the smoke hungrily, pushing the half-empty packet back into his pocket. Smoking was forbidden in every area of the hospital, but Francis always managed to find somewhere to take his intermittent nicotine breaks. Well into his seventies, he cut an eccentric figure, straight, greying hair reaching his shoulders, his eyes slyly amused. Beneath his white coat he wore faded corduroy trousers and suede loafers, bending up at the toes with age.
    For ten years various Principals had tried to fire Francis Asturias, but he wasn’t going anywhere. His father had donated a large amount of money to the Whitechapel Hospital and Francis took care to remind everyone of the next legacy which would follow – after his own death. So they let him stay on, long after anyone else would have been retired, working in the Forensic Department on archaeological remains or reconstructions of the victims of murder cases.
    ‘You shouldn’t smoke,’ a voice said suddenly as the Fire Exit door opened and Ben walked out.
    Francis shrugged. ‘Fuck you. I thought you weren’t back until tomorrow.’
    ‘I came back early,’ Ben replied, helping himself to one of his colleague’s cigars and putting it into the top pocket of his white coat. ‘I’ve brought something for you.’
    ‘Not one of those straw donkeys with a sun hat?’
    ‘I thought it would go nicely with your plastic bull-fighter.’
    ‘You spoil me,’ Francis replied, amused. ‘So what it is?’
    ‘Something special. Well, it could be. I want you to reconstruct a face for me.’
    Stubbing out his cigar, Francis raised his eyebrows. ‘One of your patients?’
    ‘No. This is a very old skull – possibly of world importance.’
    ‘They burnt Hitler.’
    ‘They