Nothing happened. Not a single knock did I hear, far less three. I gave him a sixth minute, then a seventh . . . it’s a big house, after all . . . but still there was no action, no knocks, no movement from the handle being tried. After eight minutes, I reckoned it was time to follow Frank’s instruction. I got behind the wheel: the key was still in the ignition. I reached for the remote control . . . and then I said, ‘Oh, shit!’
I couldn’t leave the little bloke. I’ll never know why, for sure; maybe it was because we had a date for that night, but I just couldn’t.
My garage is big. When Tom’s older, it’ll hold his car as well, there will still be room for a third and for our bikes. Right now, I keep a lot of stuff down there. One night not long after we moved in, once Tom had gone to bed, I watched a Jodie Foster movie called Panic Room, the one where she and her kid are under siege in a secure room in their house. I’d decided that the garage would be ours. That’s why I had the bolts fitted. That’s why I have a small fridge down there, and a freezer and a microwave; all spares, I tell Tom, but the fridge and the freezer are always stocked and the microwave is tested regularly. I call them ‘garage barbies’ and he thinks it’s a joke. I also have a safe; it’s built into the wall, at my head height, it has a combination and it’s one of the very few things in the place that my son is not allowed to touch. In it, I keep my most valuable jewellery, some cash, our birth certificates, a certified copy of my will, in Spanish (my sister, who witnessed it in Scotland, has the other), and the deeds to the house. I got out of the car, went across to it and spun the dials until I heard the click and it opened. Oh, yes, and I keep something else in there.
Domestic firearms are pretty much illegal in Spain, and that’s fine, because I wouldn’t have one. However, I do own an air taser: I bought it over the Internet without any questions being asked. It weighs next to nothing, it works off eight AA batteries, and it looks like a conventional gun, but instead of firing bullets it shoots two little darts on wires over up to fifteen feet. They hit your attacker, then fifty thousand volts paralyse his central nervous system and he fall down. He isn’t dead, but for the short term he’s pretty well goosed.
I took it out, closed the safe again, spun the dials, and then I headed for the door. I slid the bolts as quietly as I could, and opened it. Happily its hinges are just about the only ones in the house that don’t ever squeak. I crept upstairs towards the light that came from the basement utility room at the top. Reaching it I peered into the space, ready for instant action, but there was nobody lying in wait for me, no recumbent Frank, nothing. I pressed on, checking the boiler room and the basement store, before steeling myself to climb the next flight of steps up to street level.
This time there was no door at the top: I would be exposed as soon as I set foot on the first rung. I stepped out, the taser trained on the space before me, knowing that there were more than fifteen feet between me and the top of the stairs. Again I saw nobody; I climbed quickly and silently, until I was in the entrance hall.
The front door was ajar. I gazed at it, then spun round, holding the gun on the living-room door. It was open; just inside on the floor, I saw the wrench, and the blood. There wasn’t a lot, but it was fresh and I realised that the spots led towards me. I followed the trail; it seemed to end just short of the door. I stepped into the living room, hoping against hope that I’d find brave little Frank recovering from a fight, stunned but victorious, having seen off his opponent.
But I didn’t. He was gone.
Twenty-eight
I almost ran out into the village brandishing the taser, but stopped myself just in time. Instead, I checked the rest of the house, thoroughly, in case I’d interrupted the intruder and he was holding Frank somewhere within.
It was clean. There was no sign of anyone, or that anyone had ever been there, apart from the blood. I did go out into the square then, just as the first of the holiday-makers were making their way up from the beach to grab open-air lunch tables at the cafés before they all filled up, as they do every day in the high season. It was busy already: I scanned the faces seated under the big waterproof umbrellas, deployed against the sun and against the odd shower, which can sometimes sneak down from the Pyrenees when no one is looking in that direction. Not that I expected to see Frank there, tucking into a beer with the Canadian: it was a reflex, that was all, born of the need to be doing something. I looked at Esculapi, Can Coll, Mesón del Conde, Can Roura, drawing waves at all of them from their friendly staff, but no chat, since everyone was busy.
I headed down the slope, out of Plaça Major, towards El Celler Petit, the local wine shop. Its owner, who was English before he settled in Catalunya and went native, was standing in the doorway, talking to a Belgian who lives nearby. They greeted me as I approached, turning serious as they saw from my face that something was wrong. ‘Has either of you seen two men?’ I asked them. ‘One about my height, slim dark hair, Asiatic, the other taller, blond maybe. They’d have been heading out of the village.’
The Belgian nodded. ‘I saw them,’ he said, ‘about fifteen minutes ago. They were moving quite fast, too fast for the heat of the day; that’s why I noticed them. The little guy, he was in front. He had a mark on his face. Why, Primavera? What’s up?’
‘They’ve been in my house,’ I told him. ‘They came to the door, asking for directions to L’Escala. I went inside for a second to get them one of the maps I keep in the kitchen. When I came back, they were gone, and so was the cash I keep in a drawer by the door.’
‘Bastards!’ He frowned. ‘I thought you’d have known by now, though.’
‘Don’t say any more. I’m usually very careful about opening the door to strangers, but Tom’s away just now, and . . . if he’d been there, I wouldn’t have.’
The ex-Englishman chuckled. ‘If he’d been there he’d have chased after them, him and Charlie.’
‘Where did they go?’ I asked his pal.
‘To the car park, I think. I’ll go and ask if they’re still there, but like I said, it’s been fifteen minutes.’
‘Yeah, they’ll be gone. I’ll have to put it down to experience, I reckon.’ To make myself seem otherwise normal, I ordered a case of cava, and another of Riogenc, my favourite rosado, then headed back to the house.
Inside, I went through to the kitchen, picking up the taser as I passed the hall table. Realising that my mouth was horribly parched, I took an isotonic drink from the fridge and drained it in one go. Then I sat down on a bench, and began to think.
Frank was gone. They had him. They had been waiting inside for us, all along. So why not take me as well? Because Sebastian, the Canadian, must have been on his own and couldn’t handle both of us. I gripped the butt of my weapon. I wish he’d tried, I thought. But he hadn’t. Would they come back for me? That was the question uppermost in my mind. My guess was that they wouldn’t. They had the guy they were really after, the other Interpol plant in the organisation. I was nothing to them, really, once they were free and clear.
But they had Adrienne too.
Their messages had been very specific about the danger of police involvement, but in the changed situation, what I had to ask myself was, which posed the greater threat to her? Telling the police all I knew, or keeping quiet and hoping that, now they had her son, they’d cut her loose?
I couldn’t decide. As I wrestled with the options, I went back down to the garage, to recover my bag, and the key from the Jeep. As I drew it from the ignition, I saw Frank’s rucksack, lying on the passenger seat where I’d chucked it as I prepared to escape. I slung it over my shoulder and carried it back up to the kitchen with the rest, noticing idly that it didn’t seem as heavy as it had in Sevilla.
Seated at the kitchen table, I opened it, the mystery luggage, and looked inside. It had two compartments. The larger, at the rear, was full of clothes; the used items were in a polythene bag, to keep them from the little fresh stuff he had left, a new black T-shirt, a pair of white socks and a pair of
pants. There was also a travel pack containing toothbrush, toothpaste, comb, razor, shaving foam and a small deodorant spray, the brand, guys, that’s supposed to make women rip your clothes off.
I opened the front compartment. All it held was his mobile phone (no signal), his passport, a UK driving licence (photographic version), a leather Gucci billfold with a couple of fifties inside and four bank cards in slots, and a roll of notes secured by an elastic band. I counted them (he was down to his last thirteen hundred euros), then took out the plastic and studied it. There were MBNA cards, Visa and MasterCard, in his name, a debit card from an Andalucían savings bank in the name Roy Urquhart, and an Amex gold card, bearing the holder name, Jason Lee. I tapped it with my index finger. ‘Frank’s hoard, I’ll bet,’ I whispered. I was in the process of putting everything back, when I found something I’d missed, in the rear pocket: the Swiss Army knife.
I took it out, opened the main blade and tested it, carefully, on my thumb. The point had been sharpened, and indeed he could have shaved with the cutting edge. But there, in my hand, it was of absolutely no use to him. The poor little sod really was on his own.
Twenty-nine
That was when I made my decision. My thinking came together, and I reckoned that even if the police found him, they have no record of subtlety and would certainly turn up noisily and mob handed, thereby getting Adrienne killed, and Frank, although I really did fear that the worst might have happened to him, even then.
So I decided against involving Alex. Instead, I secured the doors, put the alarm on night setting and went into the sleep zone, which includes our bedrooms, mine, Tom’s and the one Ade had been using, and my east-facing terrace. I took with me my bag, Frank’s stuff and a litre of fizzy water. In my room, my bed looked so inviting I almost got in, but instead I stripped off, sprayed myself with Piz Buin, and went outside to lie on my sun-bed. That may sound uncaring to you, given all that had just happened, but I do some of my best thinking out there.
The question that was troubling me as I closed my eyes was how Sebastian, the Canadian, had got into the house, and past the alarm. I could have called Tom to confirm that he had set it, but that would have upset him, for the certain answer would have been ‘Yes, Mum’, with unspoken resentment because apparently I didn’t trust him to do so.
My eyes had barely closed against the sun, when the simple answer came to me. I’d given Adrienne the third key when she had taken Tom to the ruins and got herself into dehydration trouble, and I’d told her what the alarm code was: I’d even done what I’d never done before, and written it down for her on a slip of paper from the phone pad. When she’d been abducted both must have been in her pocket. Sebastian and Willie’s lucky day: they’d found the key and they hadn’t even had to torture her to extract the number.
I propped myself upon my elbows, and was contemplating what a total arse I’d made of everything when a ring-tone broke the silence, a strange ring-tone, not one of mine. It came from Frank’s rucksack, which I’d tossed, with my stuff, into the shade offered by the terrace table. I leaned across and grabbed it, then fished out his phone, just as the sound stopped.
There’s an odd fact about St Martí. It has so many solid stone walls that mobile signals are practically non-existent within buildings and hard to pick up even on the square. But on my terrace, facing L’Escala and its forest of masts, there’s no problem. My missing cousin’s phone had come back on-line.
I peered at the screen, but the sun was too bright for me to make it out, so I jumped up and stepped just inside the door, not too far to kill reception, drawing the curtains behind me so that I couldn’t be seen from the top of the nearby slope.
It told me there was one message waiting, and an option below invited me to ‘read’; I accepted.
The message was another video of Adrienne, sent, according to the screen, around the time that Frank and I were leaving Shirley’s place. I hit the view button. This time, my aunt’s face was in close-up, giving no clue to where it had been shot. She spoke quickly, as if she knew that the time limit on these things was only around twenty seconds.
‘I’ve been moved,’ she began. ‘We’ve come to the crossroads of this affair. I’ve to tell you that time is drawing short and they will kill me tomorrow morning at eleven o’clock. You know what I want you to do, son. I’m praying you make the right choice.’ Her face froze on screen as the video clip ended.
I played it again, then a third time. There was something about her expression, something in her eyes, something imploring. The more I played it, the more I looked at her, the more I was convinced she was telling me something, giving me a message she’d intended for Frank.
But what the hell was it? When I was in my teens I won a pen from the Scotsman prize crossword, but I couldn’t begin to crack that clue. Nor had I any idea of how to go about solving it. Life and bloody death, Auntie Ade was trying to tell me something, and I didn’t get it. I stood there behind the curtains, my face screwed up in concentration, thinking, thinking, thinking, achieving nothing, nothing, nothing, until I felt tears of frustration run down my face.
And then the church bell rang. As I’ve told you, my son and I live next door to the medieval church; a few years back, the parishioners raised money for a new set of bells, and they’ve been active ever since, striking the quarters and the hours, then striking the hour again at two minutes past, in case you lost count the first time . . . a quaint but useful local custom. They are loud, yet Tom and I no longer notice them. Like farmyard smells, they have become our norm, and while others may feel their teeth jar with the sound, we sleep through them.
That one, though, it smashed its way right into my consciousness. It rang once signalling the hour, but then began to peal again, not just the big bell but all its brothers and sisters, calling the faithful to mass.
I’m not one of those faithful, but I know the parish priest. I threw an ankle-length day-dress over my head, and ran downstairs, holding the mobile. On the way out of the door, I grabbed a sun-hat, in case a bare-headed woman in church upset any traditionalists.
I felt myself beam when I saw he was there, in the doorway. Tall, black robed, handsome: it’s a bugger but the few men I do fancy in my village are either happily married or celibate. Still, he and I enjoy the odd drink together. I looked inside; there were so few worshippers that I reckoned he’d better ring the bells again. ‘Father Gerard,’ I said.
He smiled. ‘Come to seek absolution, my child?’ he asked.
‘First of all,’ I told him, ‘I’m older than you, so “my child” sounds a bit silly. Second, I doubt that you’d want to hear my sins.’
‘I never turn away a sinner, Prim.’
‘In that case, I want you to listen to something. When you’ve heard it, you might be alarmed, but I need to know what she’s trying to say. At the moment, it’s beyond me.’
‘I’ll try,’ he replied. ‘Come back here a little nearer the altar.’
I followed him; we stood to the side of the church, our backs to the tiny congregation, and I played him the video. I saw his face darken as he listened. I played it again. ‘Primavera,’ he hissed, ‘the police. Tell Alex Guinart.’
‘They’ve promised to kill her at the first sight of a police car or uniform. I’ve got no time left for specialists. Things have moved on since that was sent. They have my cousin too. Gerard, can you help? What does she mean?’
‘Yes, I think I know.’ I sighed with relief. He leaned closer to me. ‘Across Spain there are many old pilgrim trails. People still walk them today. In the old times, where these trails crossed, it was the custom to set up a shrine, for the travellers to pray and to make offerings. Many of them still exist. For example, there’s one near Camallera. You can see it from the road. There’s another near St Jordi des Vallès. But the nearest, it’s close to Bellcaire. You turn left at the crossroads, go along until you see a sign that says “Santa Caterina”. Follow that track and it will take you there. If she’s around here,
and I read her right, that’s the one you want.’
‘Why are you so sure she’s there, not near one of the others?’
‘Because there’s an old building up there. It used to be a retreat, used by nuns mostly, but it’s been deserted for many years.’
I kissed him on the cheek, in front of his small flock. ‘Thanks, Gerard.’
He held my arm as I made to leave. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘If you won’t call the police, wait until after the service and I’ll come with you.’
‘No time,’ I told him. ‘But you’re a love for offering. You could pray for me, though. Every little helps.’
He smiled. ‘That’s not a little. Often it’s everything you need.’
‘You’re a wise man, Father Gerard.’
‘Me? No, I’m only a priest. You’ll find wisdom, and courage too, where you least expect it.’
Thirty
I went back to the house, excited, then took some mental deep breaths at the thought of what I was about to do. I was right, I knew . . . at least I knew then. It was a matter of risk management. Significantly, to me, Gerard had accepted my view that a police assault would lead, probably, to Adrienne being killed. I was her best chance. (By that time, subconsciously, I had abandoned Frank to his fate.)
I picked up the phone without even thinking about it, and dialled the land-line number in Monaco. Audrey Kent picked up. She told me that Susie was working and had asked not to be disturbed, but that Ethel Reid, the nanny, was looking after the children.
Soon, Tom was on the line. ‘Hi, Mum,’ he said breezily. ‘Charlie and I are having a great time. I’ve been to the motor museum; they’ve got some new cars in.’
‘You mean new old cars?’
‘Oui.’ He chuckled. ‘I mean yes. You know what I mean, Mum.’
Inhuman Remains Page 18
