Inhuman Remains

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘Oz called me when he was released. He asked me to make sure that he wasn’t going to be a problem for you or Tom.’

  Even in the heat of the afternoon, I felt a shiver run through me. ‘Did he give you any specific instructions?’ I asked.

  ‘He asked me to talk to him, that’s all, to make it clear he was very protective of your interests.’

  ‘You mean Tom’s?’

  ‘No, both of you; he was quite specific. He was really broken up when you disappeared, Prim. He never really accepted that you were dead. He spent a lot of money having me try to find you,’ yes, and I could guess why, ‘but I couldn’t.’ He paused. ‘As a matter of professional interest,’ he went on, ‘where did you go?’

  ‘Las Vegas, via Vancouver.’

  He whistled. ‘Then you can really trust your Canadian lawyer. I went to see him and he flat out denied any knowledge of you. I asked him what would happen to your investments. He told me that was between him and your son, and Oz, as his legal guardian.’

  ‘And what did Frank say to you when you went to see him?’

  ‘He promised me that he had no intention of going anywhere near you.’

  ‘And if he hadn’t?’

  ‘I’d have had to go back to Oz for further instructions.’

  ‘Which you’d have carried out regardless?’

  ‘Absolutely. I loved that guy, Prim; there was something about him. But I don’t have to tell you that.’

  You surely don’t, I thought.

  ‘These people Frank’s mixed up with,’ he said. ‘If they’re bent, as you think they are, and he’s missing, you’d be as well to stay clear of them.’

  ‘I’m meeting Bromberg tomorrow afternoon, as a potential investor, using the same alias I had in Vegas, Janet More.’

  ‘In that case, I’ll check out those names right now and get back to you.’

  ‘Let me give you my number.’

  ‘That’s okay: my phone’s picked it up. Just make sure yours is charged up. Something else: I’ll run another check for you, just in case.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Unidentified male stiffs in Spain. Juan Does, you might call them. Frank would be mid-thirties, yes?’

  ‘Yes, five feet seven, with an Asian look to him.’

  ‘I’ve met him, remember.’

  ‘Of course. I have a photo; I can probably get it to you through my hotel fax.’

  ‘Leave it for now, until I need it to identify him.’

  ‘I’m sure you won’t.’ As I spoke, I realised that I wasn’t nearly as confident as I sounded.

  Twelve

  It didn’t take Mark long; less than an hour in fact. I had only just returned to the hotel when he called me.

  ‘I’ll give you the good news first,’ he began. ‘There is no one answering your cousin’s description currently lying in a morgue anywhere on the Iberian peninsula.’

  ‘That’s a relief,’ I said. If there had been, I wouldn’t have fancied telling Auntie Ade.

  ‘But that’s all it means. Sorry to be blunt, but if Frank’s upset someone badly enough to have been taken out, they may have done a proper job and cleaned up afterwards.’

  ‘And that’s the bad news?’

  ‘No, or not all of it. None of the names you gave me is kosher. Yes, there are people who answer to Rowland, Macela and Bromberg, but none of them could possibly be linked to this casino project.’

  My original doubts returned. ‘Are you telling me that the thing’s a phoney?’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘The company behind it is real enough, and that brings me to something significant. It’s registered in Luxembourg and the directors of record are your three friends. However, Lidia Bromberg only joined the board two months ago, following the resignation of Mr Roy Urquhart.’

  ‘Where did you find this?’

  ‘Certain records are public in Luxembourg, up to a point. The office of record of Hotel Casino d’Amuseo SA is hosted by a local corporate law firm called Pintore and Company. They were obliged to give me the information I asked for.’

  ‘Did they say why Frank resigned?’

  ‘That wasn’t minuted, but I did find out some other stuff. The authorised share capital of the company is one hundred million euros, one euro per share, and more than three quarters of it is issued, seventy-seven million, two hundred thousand shares to be exact. The directors’ personal shareholdings are . . .’ He paused, for effect, I guessed. ‘. . . one hundred shares each.’

  ‘So whose is the seventy-seven mil?’

  ‘The shareholder register will tell us that. Luxembourg law requires that it be kept at the company’s offices, but I’d have to turn up there in person to inspect it. One thing looks certain, though: your cousin was very good at his job, until he quit.’

  ‘What do you think’s happening, Mark?’ I asked.

  ‘The investors may well be about to make a shedload of money.

  On the other hand, the lack of information on its principals gives cause for concern. If the company is operating under a false prospectus, then the shareholders’ funds are going to vanish, and probably pretty soon. They’re approaching the date by which they must have an AGM, the end of August. If the plan is to cut and run, they’ll do it before then. However, your meeting with Bromberg shows that they’re still fund-raising. It’s probably legit, but possibly bent. Can’t say for certain.’

  ‘If it is crooked, can the money be moved that easily?’

  ‘On the chairman’s authority, that’s all it takes. His signature, stamped by the company seal. That’s what the guy at Pintore told me.’

  ‘We can’t let that happen,’ I said. ‘We should dig a bit deeper.’

  ‘We? Prim, you should back off this. You’re only there to look for your cousin.’

  ‘Maybe I should, but it’s just become even more personal. It’s one thing that my cousin’s vanished without trace, but now I find that I have a meeting tomorrow with someone who might be out to steal my money.’

  ‘I can’t talk you out of going?’

  ‘No chance.’

  ‘Then make it as useful as you can. See if you can get me a photograph of Bromberg, even if you have to take it with your mobile.’

  ‘Will do. I can give you one of Macela right now, if you like.’

  ‘Do I ever like? How will you do it?’

  ‘I have an image of him on my computer back home. Give me your email address, and I’ll call my son and have him send it to you. He’s only seven, but he’s as computer literate as I am, probably more so.’ As he spelled the address out, I patched it into my PDA. ‘This is getting beyond a simple favour,’ I told him.

  ‘You’ve got me curious. Plus . . .’ he hesitated ‘. . . maybe Oz had a premonition. I don’t know, but when he asked me to find you, he said something else: that if anything happened to him, and you turned up afterwards, I should take care of you.’

  I didn’t have an answer for that. I was too busy thanking my lucky stars that he had misunderstood the instruction totally.

  ‘Now,’ he continued abruptly, ‘is that everything?’

  ‘Well, not quite.’ I told him about the mysterious address near my hotel and about the city planner’s furtive visit.

  ‘Now that doesn’t sound too kosher,’ he declared. ‘It would be good to get inside. There might be an outside chance that Frank’s holed up in there . . . or being held.’

  ‘Yes, but how? I can’t go back there. The lecher in the shop would spot me for sure.’

  ‘I appreciate that, but maybe I can arrange for someone to kick the door down.’

  I was still wondering what he’d meant as I called Tom to ask him to send the image.

  It was Adrienne who answered, not him. It took me a while to convince her I wasn’t covering up any bad news about her only-born. What I told her was essentially the truth, that he seemed to have resigned from the company at around the time she’d been expecting his visit, and that I was trying to find someone
who could tell me where he’d gone. The someone might be the bloke whose photograph I wanted Tom to pass on, or it might be Lidia Bromberg.

  She put my boy on the line; he was chuffed when I told him there was something important I wanted him to do for me. He still sounded brave and cheerful, but hidden in there I detected a hint that he might just be missing me. Just as well, for I sure was missing him.

  Thirteen

  The evening seemed to pass so slowly it made me think back to my time in the nick, when every day dragged. My hotel didn’t offer an evening meal, or I’d have settled for room service in front of the telly. The receptionist did recommend a few nearby restaurants, but I didn’t fancy sitting at a table for one in a formal setting.

  In the end I decided to go back to the Gallego, and my new-found buddy Carlos, the only Barca supporter in town, since the evening was hot and humid, and I didn’t want to walk far. When he saw me coming, and caught my nod, he chased away four back-packers, who had been making a beeline for the only available pavement table, and ushered me straight to it. I asked him to use his imagination and bring me a selection of tapas. He did just that, coming back with a tiered arrangement that looked like an old-fashioned cake stand, with a nice bottle of albariño to wash the lot down. I had packed an English-language novel for my trip. It was called Death’s Door, and as I ate I pretended to read it, as a barrier against intrusions as much as anything else.

  That said, I’d probably have been pissed off if nobody had tried to talk to me all night, so when two American guys took over the next table and said, ‘Hello,’ I didn’t blow them out. Their names were Sebastian Loman and Willie Venable, they were around thirty, about the age I was when I stopped being normal, and it didn’t take me long to realise that they were travelling as a couple and I was as safe as houses with them. They told me they were from Topeka, Kansas, and preferred to holiday in Europe than in their staunchly Republican home state.

  We spent a pleasant evening together; they helped me finish the albariño and I helped them through a jug of beer. They told me their life stories: they were former teachers who had become computer programmers after they found themselves unemployable in modern America because of their sexuality. I gave them a heavily edited version of mine: I said that I was a divorcée with a young son, taking a break for a few days, thanks to my aunt, who was minding child and dog at home. When I revealed where that was, they announced that they were heading north to a resort (they didn’t say ‘gay’ but I was sure that’s what they meant) they knew in Catalunya, so I gave them my mobile number and my address, just in case their onward travels took them anywhere near St Martí.

  The encounter drew to a natural end around nine thirty. The guys went on their way, towards Plaza Nueva, and I went on mine, back towards the hotel, stopping off at another pavement café for the last coffee of the gently cooling day.

  I’ve always been good at going to sleep: insomnia and I are strangers. But that night I was afraid we would become acquainted, given the facts that I was away from familiar surroundings for the first time in a few years, and that I had a significant meeting next day, one for which I had no concrete agenda.

  Over that final latte I had given some thought to what I might say to Bromberg, how I might handle her, armed as I was with Mark’s very useful information about the status and possible purpose of the company she was trying to sell me. There were two ways of playing it, as I saw it. One, I could carry on with my Jan More act, let her hit me with her sales pitch, and ask a few gentle questions, leading up to one about Roy Urquhart, whose ‘name was mentioned when I first started looking into this investment opportunity’. Two, I could abandon any subtlety, and tell her exactly who I was and why I was in town, threatening to make a hell of a loud noise unless she told me damn quick what had happened to Frank and where I could find him.

  Inevitably, I asked myself, What would Oz have done? It didn’t take me long to come up with the answer. He’d have kept well out of it. He’d either have commissioned Mark, or he’d have sent Conrad Kent, his aide-cum-bodyguard, to resolve the situation. I was pretty sure that if I asked Mark to do the same for me, he’d take the job on. But I was on the ground, I had my meeting with Bromberg in my diary, and I saw no harm in going through with it, especially as it was to be in such a public place.

  Still, as I slipped under a single sheet that was all the bedcover I needed, I hadn’t decided whether I was going to be Ms Gauche, or Ms Blunt. The final choice could probably wait until I saw the woman and could size her up.

  I was still wide awake as I returned to Death’s Door, but I hadn’t read two short chapters before my eyes grew heavy and I found myself reading the same paragraph twice. I laid the novel on the bedside table, switched off the light and let myself sink.

  Although I find it easy to nod off, that doesn’t mean I’d sleep through an earthquake or, in this case, a rush of feet so loud that, in the seconds after I awoke, I thought it was happening right there in my room. I sat upright, eyes wide open, disoriented until I remembered where I was. Heavy boots were slamming on the walkway outside my window, or rather outside the french windows that opened on to a minuscule patio, and which I had left slightly ajar for extra ventilation. As I listened it dawned on me that the noisemakers were heading along Calle Alvarez Quintero in the direction of . . .

  It was then that I made a big mistake. As I jumped out of bed, in the dark, heading for the curtained window, I forgot all about the special design feature that was part of my room, the painted metal pole running from floor to ceiling. (Why it was there, I still have no clue.) I remembered its existence as soon as my right big toe slammed into it, followed almost instantaneously by my shoulder.

  When Tom’s around I try not to swear, but even if he’d been in the room’s other bed, I reckon I’d have let go with the same mouthful I did then. I bounced off the wall, then hirpled across to the window. As I did so, I heard a loud, splintering bang from outside. I parted the drapes, opened the twin doors, and was about to lean forward into the street, when I remembered I was buck naked.

  By the time I had found the courtesy bathrobe and put it on, the post-midnight runners had gone (I checked my watch; it was just after three a. m.), but I could still hear noise. There was just enough light in the narrow street for me to guess that some of it might be coming from the newly opened door of number forty-seven. ‘Bloody hell,’ I murmured, ‘what did Mark say about getting someone to kick it in?’

  I stood there watching for at least ten minutes. For a while I wasn’t the only onlooker: there was a guy in an apartment opposite my room, leaning out of a window. He asked me if I knew what had happened, but I didn’t want to be involved in a conversation, so I lied and told him in English I didn’t understand him.

  A couple of minutes after he had drawn himself back in and closed up for the rest of the night, three uniformed cops emerged from the house. Two of them stood at the door, as if on guard, while the other walked back towards me, heading for the entrance to Calle Alvarez Quintero.

  ‘What’s the noise about?’ I asked him as he passed beneath me. He couldn’t have seen me for he almost jumped out of his steel-capped boots, before recovering himself and donning the superior expression that some young police officers adopt before the world teaches them that life isn’t Hollywood or vice versa.

  ‘Police business,’ he said.

  ‘Son,’ I told him, feeling a momentary chill as I used the word and realised that I was indeed old enough to be his madre, ‘when you waken me up in the middle of the night, it becomes my business.’

  He looked at me and decided to take me seriously. ‘There’s a dead man in there,’ he said. ‘In that building along there.’

  ‘Was he dead when you smashed the door down, or did that happen afterwards?’

  He didn’t get the irony. ‘No, he was dead already,’ he replied, straight faced.

  ‘So what made you go there?’

  He shrugged. ‘All they tell me is we had a call
that there was a deal going on there, and that we should get in. But it’s a con.’

  ‘What do you mean, a deal?’

  ‘Drugs. That’s what my team does.’

  ‘You’re telling me that my hotel is next to a drug den?’

  ‘No; that’s why I say it’s a con. There’s no drugs there that we can see, only whisky bottles and maybe some pills . . . and the dead guy.’

  ‘So why’s he dead? Was he old? Heart-attack?’ I was doing my best to sound casual.

  ‘Heart-attack maybe, but he’s not that old. Maybe my father’s age.’ He smiled up at me, without any idea of the relief I felt. I realised that the bathrobe had loosened, and jerked it tight. ‘You should go back to bed, lady,’ he advised. ‘I have to go, to show the medics where to find us.’

  I watched him as he walked away. As he took up position at the junction, fifty yards away, I glanced back towards the raided house. The two guards were still at the door; both were smoking, and I could hear the faint sound of their conversation, but not its detail. They did not give the impression of men on high alert.

  I stepped back inside my room but left the wood-framed doors ajar. As I did so I realised that my right big toe was hurting like hell from its vicious assault on the base of the defenceless pillar. I went into the bathroom, filled the bidet with cold water and bathed my foot for a while, then limped back through and lay on my bed, waiting for the pain to subside. It didn’t. It occurred to me that I might have broken the damn digit. If that was the case there was nothing to be done, other than taping it to my second toe as a splint and taking painkillers as necessary. My nursing training has led me always to travel with a basic first-aid kit, so I patched myself up there and then.

  I had just finished when I heard two vehicles pull up outside, one after the other. I rolled off the bed, limped carefully past the pole, and peered down into the street. Below, I saw a woman in plain clothes with a great frizzy ponytail that looked in the streetlight as if it might have been red, and two paramedics, one male, one female, pushing a trolley, with an empty stretcher on top. Ponytail carried a bag; it made me think, Medic. The young cop was ambling along behind them. He glanced up at my window, but didn’t appear to see me.