With a sickening crunch it came away from the body, the grave robber losing his balance and falling back against the corpse’s legs.

Slowly the horned moon sidled up the night sky, making chalk patches on the indigo earth. Moving furtively down a quiet road, the men kept to the shadow of the trees, then entered the Rue d’Arles, the younger man walking round the back of a large house and rapping on the door. Instantly a tall man appeared, putting his forefinger to his lips and ushering them into a shuttered basement room. That he had money was obvious from his clothes, his voice Parisian, at odds with the rural French spoken by the resurrection men.

‘You have it?’

‘In here,’ the younger man replied, holding up the sack.

Gesturing for him to put it in a nearby sink, the man handed him a wedge of money. ‘You must tell no one—’

‘We never did before. Why would we now?’

Nodding, the Parisian showed them to the door, glancing out and then beckoning to the men. ‘Say nothing to no one. Betray me and you’ll hang.’

‘And you?’ the grave robber replied. ‘They’ll do worse if they find out what you’ve done.’

2

London, the present day

The sweating, grotesquely fat man checked the address twice, looked round, then moved into the building. From the street it had looked like every other shop, the words MAMA GALA’S painted in large red letters at the top of the window, a selection of herbs, breads, nuts and pulses set out in an alluring display. Inside, a heavy African woman was serving a customer, laughing as she wrapped some arrowroot, wind chimes tingling eerily by the open door.

Nervous, the fat man walked over to her: ‘I came to see Emile Dwappa.’

Her smile faded. ‘No one called that here.’

‘I was told to come here.’ The man leaned towards the woman, who took a step back. ‘Mr Dwappa sent for me himself.’

Suddenly she relaxed, one fleshy black hand pointing to a door. ‘Go through there, right to the back. Then turn left and go up the stairs.’ She looked him up and down, laughing. ‘You’re one fat white man. One sweaty, fat white man.’

Embarrassed, he moved on, opening the door and walking into the large back room beyond. Immediately an unfamiliar smell hit him, and he flinched as he saw carcass after carcass of dried meat hanging on butchers’ hooks along one side of the wall. Flanks of dark red flesh, ribboned with yellow fat, swung in a breeze from the open back door; other smaller packages piled up on high shelves. As the man stared up at the butchery, a piercing screech sounded behind him.

Spinning round, he almost lost his footing as he stumbled against a large cage, a macaw flapping its wings at him, its yellow eyes fixed, hostile.

‘Christ!’

Hurriedly he moved on, passing more cages. Some held snakes, others small, feral monkeys looking out disconsolately, one peeing between the bars. The urine hit the floor by the man’s feet, its stench mixing queasily with the smell of dead meat and the ammonia of bird droppings.

Stumbling up the steep, narrow flight of steps, the obese man clambered into the darkness above. Grunting with the effort, he waited at the top of the stairs for his eyes to adjust to the dim light, wiping the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand. Every window was covered by blinds, daylight almost obliterated, and against a far wall was a sofa with two figures sitting on it, barely discernible in the dimness.

As the man walked in further, he could see a table on the left, the overwhelming scent of oleander and musk making him retch. Sitting at the table, a wizened black woman was cutting some herbs, a pestle and mortar beside her. At her feet sat a small, silent child, its arms curled around its knees. From below, the man could hear the sound of jazz music, punctuated by the screech of the caged birds and a monkey banging its feeding bowl against the bars.

The atmosphere was rancid, his curiosity forcing him on towards the sofa and the seated figures. Palms wet with sweat, he peered into the gloom. Then suddenly a match was struck, an African face coming into full view as Emile Dwappa leaned forward to light the candles in front of him. He was no more than thirty-five, his narrow head unexpectedly boyish, his eyes light against the black skin. Beside him lounged a woman, naked from the waist upwards, her left hand resting on one uncovered breast.

Dwappa smiled. ‘Mr Shaw …?’

The fat man nodded.

‘Take a seat.’

Jimmy Shaw eased himself on to an uncomfortable chair opposite the couple. Uneasy, he wiped his forehead and his palms, laughing nervously.

‘It’s hot in here.’

‘Central heating,’ Dwappa replied. ‘I like it hot.’

Listlessly the woman moved, her skirt falling open and revealing the inside of her right thigh. Running his tongue over his dry lips, the fat man stared, transfixed, his heavy suit damp under the armpits, his shirt collar rubbing his neck raw.

‘You wanted to see me?’

Facing Dwappa, Jimmy Shaw tried to remember what he had been told. Emile Dwappa was a businessman, with a reputation so sinister even the hard cases in Brixton were afraid of him. Rumours abounded and followed him like a gaggle of black geese. In the three years he had been in London, Dwappa had built up a terrifying reputation. You didn’t cross him – you didn’t even go anywhere near him – unless you wanted something very specific. Or worse, he wanted something very specific from you.

‘So where is it?’

The fat man wriggled in his seat. ‘Spain.’

‘I want it. Here,’ Dwappa said. ‘I have a buyer for the skull. How soon can you get it?’

Shaw shook his head, trying to think up a lie and wondering at the same time how Dwappa had heard about the Goya skull so quickly. The same skull which someone had already approached him about. In the criminal undercurrent of the art world, news always travelled quickly, but this speed had been even more remarkable than usual. In the last twenty-four hours two dealers, an Iranian collector and a museum curator had contacted Shaw. And one was offering a king’s ransom for Francisco Goya’s skull.

For over two hundred years the skull had been missing. All that was known for certain was that it had been taken around the time of Goya’s death in Bordeaux. No other facts were confirmed and the famous skull – emblematic of artistic genius – had vanished. Until now.

A failed art dealer, Shaw knew that there was a thriving trade in art relics. In the past, various and suspect parts of the saints had changed hands for money. Sometimes the Church paid up, wanting to retain a relic or to purchase one for a cathedral in an area which had need of a spiritual revival. But as religion lost its grip, secular art dealing became big business. In the decades which followed, sales and auction prices exploded in an orgasm of greed, and third-rate dealers like Jimmy Shaw found themselves edged out onto the shady periphery of the art world. Forced away from the high-octane embrace of London and New York, for men with more greed than morals a greasy slide into crime was inevitable.

And so Jimmy Shaw had become a handler. At first he had fenced stolen paintings, but gradually his slyness – and his contacts – promoted him into the select rank of men who stole to order. Collectors as far apart as Paris and Bahrain called on him to either find or thieve works of art. Naturally Shaw did none of the actual physical work; he had minions to do that for him. Men who needed money or a favour. Or, more likely, men who had something to hide. Something Shaw had winkled out of one of his other contacts. With impressive connections to old lags, runners, and gallery assistants looking to supplement their poor wages, Shaw had built up a network around London, expanding into Europe and even the USA. Physically repulsive, his sole companion was money and the whores it could buy. As his criminality had extended he had become bloated in body and amorality, normal life forever curtailed by his reputation and appearance.