Deadly Business

by Quintin Jardine

  The rest of us weren’t so fussy. I unbuttoned my shorts, letting them fall to the ground, then spread my beach mat and sat on it, cross-legged, reaching for my sun lotion.

  Janet did the same, then popped her bikini top off, in an instant, as always, regardless of our new companion. She might have been stepping into womanhood, but her mind and attitudes hadn’t quite caught up with her body. Liam wasn’t a man, he was an adult, and she hadn’t been brought up to be prudishly modest.

  So what could I do but follow her example, as I would have done on any other day?

  I tossed my top into my beach bag and stretched out beside her, oiling myself from top to ankles. When I was done, I rolled over and looked around for the nearest man. Tom was busy rubbing his sister’s back with her high factor cream, so I tossed my bottle to Liam, who had spread his beach towel beside my mat.

  ‘You got the job, beach boy,’ I told him. ‘Do the rest, will you? Sorry if the informality bothers you,’ I murmured, ‘but that’s the way it is here.’

  He grinned. ‘If this was Toronto, you’d be in jail.’ He took the lotion from me and massaged it into my back, gently, with hands that were strong but surprisingly soft.

  ‘I’ll bet you’re glad it isn’t,’ I whispered, but there was nobody close by to hear me anyway. Tom and Janet were escorting a hesitant wee Jonathan towards the Mediterranean. His little bag was slung over his shoulder, as usual. I couldn’t imagine what he carried in it; his pet frog, for all I knew.

  ‘You could be right,’ he said. ‘Hand-holding’s still forbidden, I take it?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ I said firmly. ‘So’s this.’ I rolled on to my side, propped myself up on an elbow, took hold of his shirt, drawing him to me, and kissed him, properly, none of that on-thecheek stuff, but long and slow, feeling my nipples harden as my breasts pressed against him. ‘Sorry,’ I murmured as I came up for breath, ‘but I felt an overwhelming need to do that. Let’s just call it a reward for you being so Goddamned nice.’ I smiled at him. ‘But I warn you, if you suggest that you could be even nicer I’ll have to put my top back on.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he chuckled. ‘My nose is hurting already.’

  ‘I can cure that,’ I said. ‘I’m a nurse.’ I kissed him again, for longer than before, slipping my hand inside his shirt and running my palm over his chest, feeling his heart beat fast against it.

  ‘People will talk,’ he whispered, when he could.

  ‘People are talking already.’ I laughed. ‘After last night, I promise you, people are talking all over L’Escala. It’s the way this place is. Gossip moves faster here than a fire through pine needles. Fuck them all. It’s a while since they’ve had me to feed off. Let them choke on me.’

  He drew a deep breath. ‘Primavera, I’m having trouble working out when you’re serious and when you’re not.’

  I rolled on to my back, felt for my Maui Jim sunshades and slipped them on. ‘Right at this moment, Liam,’ I confessed, taking his hand in mine, ‘so am I. But I promise you this; I might be cautious but I’m not a tease. We’re both going to find out quite soon.’

  ‘Likely I’m as cautious as you are,’ he said. ‘I promise you something too. I really didn’t come here with anything like this in mind. But I’m not going to run away from it either. Whatever else happens between us, it’ll be at your pace. And suppose nothing else does, the last couple of days are the best I’ve had in years.’

  I squeezed his hand. ‘Apart from all the great things that come from being a mum,’ I replied, ‘the same’s true for me.’

  Liam slipped off his shirt, folded it neatly, and used it as a pillow. We lay side by side and looked at the cloudless sky for a while, counting the condensation trails of the aircraft passing five or six miles above us.

  ‘We’ll be on one of them tomorrow,’ I murmured. ‘Tom and me. I’d rather not be, but maybe it’s come at the right time.’

  ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right?’ he asked. ‘If my speculation last night is anywhere near the mark, will you be welcome?’

  ‘I hope so, but it won’t matter. I’ll be holding the reins, driving the bus, pick your own analogy. I have to go, Liam, regardless. If you don’t feel like waiting around here, I’ll understand.’

  He rolled on to his side and put his hand on my belly, between my navel and my breasts. ‘I’ll be here when you go, Primavera, and I’ll be here when you get back. My word on that as an Irishman,’ he chuckled, ‘and a kung fu master. I’m looking forward to working out with your lad, remember.’

  ‘I think he is too,’ I told him. ‘You know he’s been weighing you up, don’t you?’

  ‘Sure. I wouldn’t expect anything else of him. How am I doing?’

  ‘Okay. I’d say you’re passing his test, whatever that is.’

  ‘He doesn’t discuss?’

  ‘Not unless I ask him. He had a slight go at provoking me this morning, but he realised I wasn’t ready to talk, so he dropped it. It’s bound to happen, though, probably while we’re away.’

  ‘Then tell him that what I want more than anything else is to be his friend and yours.’

  I propped myself up on my elbows. ‘Tell him yourself,’ I suggested. ‘He’s coming.’

  He was, with Charlie on his lead, and he wasn’t smiling. My instant thought was that he’d seen me snogging Liam’s face off and was about to give us a rollicking for public indecency. If he had, it wasn’t at the top of his worry list.

  ‘Where’s wee Jonathan?’ he asked.

  A small cold spasm of concern grabbed at the pit of my stomach. ‘What do you mean?’ I spluttered. ‘He went off with you and Janet.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, ‘but he was being a miserable wee sod, so Janet told him to go back up to you. He did.’

  ‘If he did, then he was quiet about it. We haven’t seen him.’ Or we were otherwise occupied and missed him.

  ‘You must have seen him!’ Tom snapped. He hadn’t raised his voice to me since he was five and I’d said he couldn’t have a third Cadbury’s cream egg.

  I jumped to my feet. ‘Well, we didn’t, okay!’ I stepped across to the shelter and looked inside, hoping that he’d be lurking there, but he wasn’t.

  Janet had joined us. ‘Maybe he needed the toilet,’ she suggested, as anxious as the rest of us. There’s a chemical loo on the far side of the bridge, parked there for the summer like the others along the beachfront. We’d passed it and wee Jonathan had asked what it was for. He’d made a face when I told him.

  ‘Maybe,’ Liam agreed. ‘I’ll go and check.’

  ‘No,’ Tom said, grimly. ‘I will. If he’s there I’ll have a serious word with him. Janet, you look after Charlie.’

  I didn’t want that to happen. This was a new version of my son; I didn’t think for a second that he’d thump his brother, but in that mood he was likely to scare the living crap out of him. ‘We’ll both go,’ I declared. ‘Meanwhile, Liam and Janet, you two have a look around here for him. He may just have settled down to play somewhere.’ Janet gave me an Are you kidding? look but didn’t argue. I put my bikini top back on and headed after Tom.

  There was a queue of three outside the toilet cabin when we got there. A second later the door opened and a lady emerged, so large that she couldn’t have smuggled a Chihuahua in there with her. I asked her, in Spanish, whether a small boy had been in before her. She looked at me blankly. I tried French and we touched base. She shook her head. ‘No,’ she replied. ‘A very smelly German man.’

  As I was having that conversation, Tom headed to check out Vaive but neither Theresa nor Philippe had seen him since we’d all left. We asked their customers as well but nobody recalled seeing anyone who fitted our description, not even the windsurfers, and that was bad news, for they don’t miss much.

  We returned to the other two, hoping to see him there, retrieved and chastened. I was even prepared to see his sister’s palm print on his ear, indeed I’d probably have sanctioned it, but no palm print, no ear, n
o wee Jonathan.

  I was in a panic, and so was Janet. Even Liam seemed at a loss. Fortunately Tom had his wits about him and took charge. ‘Mum, one more place to try,’ he said. ‘Home. He may just have gone back to Conrad. He’s upset about his mum being away, and about that …’ he paused, then continued, leaving the epithet unsaid, ‘… Duncan, because he thinks he’s come back and he’s terrified of him.’

  I looked at Janet. ‘Does he know Susie’s ill?’ I asked.

  ‘No,’ she insisted. ‘Not from me, Auntie Primavera; I didn’t say a word to him. But I suppose … he’s such a sneaky little sod, and he’s good with computers, maybe he could have found out some other way.’

  ‘He’s not sneaky,’ Tom said, firmly. ‘He’s unhappy. He just wants to be back in Monaco and for everything to be okay but it isn’t. And if he’s right about Duncan, then it won’t be.’ He looked at Janet. ‘What about Susie Mum?’ he demanded. ‘Is she ill?’

  I didn’t want the poor kid being interrogated, so I answered for her. ‘Yes, she is, Tom. I had to tell Janet eventually, because I couldn’t keep the secret any longer. I should have told you at the same time.’

  He frowned at me. ‘I thought we didn’t have secrets, Mum,’ he said, the equivalent of a sharp jab to the solar plexus.

  I wanted to hug him and tell him that we didn’t, but if I’d tried that I knew damn well he’d just have shaken me off. So I did a girlie thing: I gave him the big doe eyes, bit my lip and murmured, ‘I’m sorry.’

  He shrugged. ‘You thought it was best.’ An acceptance of sorts. ‘Come on, Mum,’ he said, more gently, ‘let’s you and I go back home. We’ll probably find him hiding behind Conrad; that’s what he usually does when he’s in a mood. Janet, you should wait here with Liam, just in case he’s off sulking some place we haven’t checked and decides to come back eventually. If he does, don’t be angry with him; that won’t help.’

  Twelve years old and he was firing out orders like an adult; and none of us even thought of questioning them. Instead, I pulled my shorts on, picked up my shoes and set off after him as before. Charlie made his own choice and followed, his lead trailing behind him.

  We kept our eyes open as we crossed the beach and passed the dodgy toilet, but saw no lone child, not even any accompanied, that gave us a moment’s pause. Once we reached the path, Tom broke into a jog, with Charlie on a short lead, and I followed suit, keeping pace with him, my flip-flops still in my hand, for they would have been worse than useless. If he’d wanted, he and the dog could have run away from me, but he bore my years in mind, another sign that he was well in control of himself.

  I had to put my flip-flops on when we reached St Martí. It was only then I realised that I’d left my keys in my bag on the beach. If Conrad had gone out … and wee Jonathan had come home, we’d probably find him on the front step, or, him being him, holed up in Charlie’s kennel.

  But we didn’t. There was no dark-haired kid moping at the door, and the doghouse was unoccupied. Conrad hadn’t gone out either. We found him in the kitchen, seated at the table, working at his laptop. ‘Hi,’ he greeted us. ‘I’m emailing the housekeeper in Monaco, telling her to get the place ready for a full invasion tomorrow morning. Audrey asked me to phone her, but she’s out.’ Then he looked at us properly. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Has wee Jonathan come back here?’ I asked him.

  ‘No,’ he replied, his tone turning the negative into a question.

  ‘He’s vanished,’ I told him, then explained what had happened.

  ‘Jesus!’ Conrad exploded. ‘Primavera! He’s been snatched. Primavera, you know how careful we have to be. I only let you go without me because Matthews was with you. Matthews! Bloody showbiz wrestler! I will kill him.’ I believe that he meant it. I stared at him, not knowing what to say when …

  ‘No, Conrad!’

  The voice that came from behind me could only have belonged to one person, and yet it wasn’t him. It was deep, it was full, it was unmistakable and it was impossible. It was Oz’s voice. In the crisis, Tom had metamorphosed into his father, and if there was a single person in the world who could command the very formidable Conrad Kent, it was him.

  ‘It wasn’t Mum’s fault,’ he continued, in a tone that was more like his own, but not quite, with a serious edge to it. ‘It wasn’t Liam’s fault. It was mine. He told me he was going back to them and I didn’t take him, I let him go on his own, only he didn’t. So don’t be angry with Liam … and don’t ever shout at my mum again!’

  Wow! I couldn’t love him any more than I do, but that put the cherry on it. He’d just nailed Conrad’s balls to the wall, and calmed him down in the process. ‘I’m sorry, Primavera,’ he murmured. ‘Tom’s right; that was uncalled for.’

  ‘And it’s forgotten, but tell me, why did you think automatically that he’s been taken?’

  Conrad frowned and glanced at Tom, as if he was trying to give me a message.

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t think there’s anything you can say to me that I have to hide from my son, so shoot.’

  ‘There is,’ he countered, ‘but I’ll go this far. Two years ago I was warned that a group of English chancers were in Monaco, ostensibly on holiday, but in fact planning to snatch one of Oz and Susie’s kids and hold them for ransom. I was able to head it off.’

  ‘Well done the police,’ I said.

  ‘It had nothing to do with them. The tip came from a mafia kingpin; he approached me and told me about it. He said that the English team had approached a couple of his friends for help. It was a big mistake on their part. The mafia don’t approve of things like that, for two reasons: one, they have respect for children; and two, they wouldn’t do anything that would draw the kind of heat on them that a high-profile kidnap would bring. So they dealt with the problem.’

  I didn’t ask how; Conrad was right in that Tom didn’t need to hear what I knew would be the answer. Instead, I asked him, ‘Why did he tell you about it?’

  ‘It was probably his way of letting Susie know that she was in their debt, but I didn’t tell her about it. I don’t plan to either.’

  ‘So these could be the same people?’ Tom suggested. He hadn’t picked up on the fact that the mafia don’t let people do encores.

  ‘Or similar,’ Conrad replied.

  ‘In which case, I don’t have any links to the local underworld,’ I told him, ‘but I am well in with the cops.’

  I didn’t waste any time. I called Alex Guinart on his mobile, straight away. ‘Hey,’ he said as he answered, a smile in his voice, ‘sexy lady. How did your evening go, or shouldn’t I ask?’

  ‘No, you shouldn’t because this is serious.’

  ‘You want to make that complaint now? Couldn’t it—’

  ‘Bugger that! This is different.’ I told him what had happened and about Conrad’s suspicions.

  He was all business, straight away. ‘Kidnapping would be unusual in this part of Spain. In the south, and around the Mediterranean, much less so. The first thing to do is set up roadblocks, and search the immediate area. Do you have a recent photograph of the child?’

  ‘Yes, on my computer. Tom and his sister are in it, but it’s only a week old.’

  ‘Then email it to me, and I’ll circulate it right away. Where are you?’

  ‘I’m at home, with Tom and Conrad. Liam and Janet are still on the beach, in case he shows up.’

  ‘Liam?’

  ‘The man you saw me with last night. If he had turned up, he or Janet would have called me.’

  There followed a few seconds of silence. ‘This Liam, when did he arrive here?’

  ‘A couple of days ago.’

  ‘And now the child has disappeared. And you’ve left him on the beach with the other one?’

  The enormity of what he was suggesting made me gasp. I turned my back on Conrad so that he couldn’t see my face and pick anything up from it. We were speaking Catalan, and he’d get nothing from that. ‘Forget that,’ I hissed. ‘He w
as one of Oz’s best friends, and I’ve known him for years myself.’

  ‘But you haven’t seen him for years either?’

  ‘No, but what you’re suggesting—’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything,’ Alex said. ‘I’m only establishing facts. Send me that email, Primavera. There are two routes from where the boy was last seen; I’ll put blocks on those straight away and get his likeness to the people who are manning them. But we’ll need more than that; we have to search the surrounding area.’

  ‘In case he’s hiding there?’ I asked naively. ‘He wouldn’t do that.’

  I heard an intake of breath. ‘No, Primavera; not in case he’s hiding.’

  ‘Oh,’ I murmured.

  ‘I would like you and Tom to go back along there. Your man Conrad, the children’s guardian, have him remain at your house. Tell him he’s manning the phones or any other pretext. I know what he is, and I know what he’s capable of. If the boy has been taken and we find him with someone, I don’t want him around.’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘I suggest that you bring the child Janet back from the beach. She and Tom should stay with Mr Kent. If you can vouch for your boyfriend—’

  ‘He isn’t!’ I snapped.

  ‘You fooled me, if that’s so. He should stay where he is and you should join him there. We’ll need volunteers for the search.’

  That’s how it panned out. Tom wasn’t happy at first; he wanted to join the search, but when I insisted that he’d be of most use looking after Janet and keeping her as calm as he could, he accepted that.

  I took my jeep along to collect Janet, and all the stuff I’d left along there. I’d have been almost as quick on foot, but I was taking Conrad’s story seriously. I knew she’d be safe with Liam, and in the house, but with me, on an open pathway, maybe not.

  I left the car at home once I’d delivered her and ran back. By the time I got there, Alex had arrived; he was in uniform, and in charge. Liam was waiting for me where he’d said he would when I picked up Janet, at the foot of the iron bridge. He looked as distraught as I felt; I hoped that it registered with Alex and that he’d apologise later for ‘establishing the facts’.