Inhuman Remains

by Quintin Jardine

  ‘More or less as I thought. What about Energi?’

  ‘As you said, they stand to lose twenty million euros if the project collapses. But don’t read too much into the transfer: there may have been a legitimate reason for it. The test is what happens to the money next.’

  ‘Come on, it’s a scam. Frank told me as much.’

  ‘Maybe, but I haven’t found any proof of that, not yet at any rate.’

  ‘Why did Energi make the investment in the first place?’

  ‘On the instructions of the nominal owners of the company, the Banovsky Corporation.’

  ‘That fits with what Frank told me he found when he broke into Emil Caballero’s house.’

  ‘He broke in? Your cousin was full of surprises, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Much good were they to him. What have you found out about Banovsky?’

  ‘At the moment, not a hell of a lot. It’s based in Bratislava, but as a corporate entity it doesn’t really exist any more. It’s an old family business going back several generations. That’s all I know for now, but I’m going to do some more research to build up the complete picture.’

  ‘Who runs Energi?’

  ‘Hired hands. There’s a CEO, a director of mining operations, and an accountant, none of them shareholders. I’ve spoken to a French mining-sector specialist. He told me that Energi is highly geared; currently it has over seventy-five million in bank debt, and that’s just about its turnover. That borrowing is supported by the book value of its assets, but the cost of servicing it has pushed it into the red for the last few years. The time-bomb, though, is that its mines are approaching exhaustion, and they don’t have any reserves to tap, so those assets are actually significantly overvalued. Its future is tied to the success of Hotel Casino d’Amuseo.’

  ‘Won’t they be able to write off the twenty million against tax? Wouldn’t that help?’

  ‘No. If the owners of the company, the Banovsky Corporation, could come up with seventy-five million euros to eliminate bank debt, that would help. Otherwise the plug will be pulled.’

  I frowned. ‘Seventy-five million,’ I repeated. ‘More or less the sum that’s just been moved out of the Hotel Casino d’Amuseo account.’

  ‘Yes, but again, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’

  ‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Whoever owns Energi, whoever owns the Banovsky Corporation, they could have set up the scam themselves, to keep the business afloat. Couldn’t they?’

  ‘They could,’ Mark conceded, ‘if it is a scam. If it’s not, it’s a corporate gambler’s last throw. Even if it is bent, it can be presented that way.’

  ‘So,’ I asked, the seventy-five-million-euro question, ‘who does own the damn thing?’

  ‘Not “who”, Primavera, “what”. This much I do know: the owner of Banovsky is a private numbered trust established through a Swiss bank, and it would take an order from a judge to reveal who the beneficiary is. To make that order the judge would have to see strong evidence of likely criminal involvement.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘How often do I have to say this? There is no such evidence. Energi will say that it made the investment in d’Amuseo as a step towards securing its future by diversifying into other sectors.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Because my contact has already asked the CEO, and that was his reply. Energi is just another investor. If this does turn out to be a fraud, and the owner of Energi is behind it, we have a perfect circle, pretty much a perfect crime.’

  I sighed. ‘So that’s it?’

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘How about Lidia Bromberg? Does she have a past?’

  ‘Not one that I can uncover.’

  ‘And Sebastian and Willie, where do they fit in?’

  ‘Who the hell are they?’

  I’d forgotten he didn’t know; I explained.

  ‘Hired heavies,’ he declared, at once. ‘Hit-men, bought and paid for. You’ll never find them either. Nor,’ he continued, ‘will you ever find a trace of Frank and his mother, if they’ve been as efficient with that end of the operation as they seem to have been with the rest.’ He must have heard my reaction. ‘Sorry, Prim. They’re your family. I shouldn’t have been so blunt, but it’s the truth, I’m afraid.’

  ‘It’s a truth I’ve been trying not to face,’ I admitted. ‘But I can’t avoid it any longer. They’re gone, and the door’s closed on the affair. I suppose all I can do now is thank my lucky stars that they didn’t kill me too when they had the chance.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Mark asked sharply. I filled him in on the only relevant piece of the story that he didn’t know (I’ll never give him all the detail; not the personal stuff), and added Alex’s view of the reason I’d been spared.

  ‘You are undoubtedly crazy,’ he told me, when I’d finished. ‘You are also very lucky, for I don’t buy your pal’s theory. Suppose you had disappeared along with the others? Yes, it would have made news, but given your history, when no bodies turned up, it would have been written up as Primavera buggering off again. A lot of money was spent searching for you once before, remember. I don’t believe that would have happened twice.’ I could almost hear him shake his head. ‘A taser,’ he murmured. ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Hey,’ I retorted. ‘I was shot with the fucking thing. Now I know for myself how effective they are, I’ll be getting another one.’

  ‘Not in Britain, please. They’re illegal.’

  ‘Why should the bad people have all the advantages?’ I protested.

  ‘Because that’s the way real life is,’ Mark replied seriously. ‘Look at the thing we’ve just been investigating. We think it’s a crime, but it isn’t, not yet at any rate. We’re no further forward.’

  As I thought about that, I realised he was wrong. ‘We are,’ I countered. ‘We might not know who Alastair Rowland is, but we’ve got a sample of his handwriting, in that law office in Luxembourg.’

  ‘You know,’ he said, ‘sometimes you can be smarter than you usually act. Leave that one with me. I’ll call you if I make progress.’

  ‘Okay. If it’s more than a couple of days, you’d better use my temporary mobile. I’m heading home on Thursday.’ I gave him Adrienne’s number.

  ‘Thanks, but . . . there’s something else. When you go back, could you do it via London?’

  ‘That’s what I am doing. I could rearrange my flights, I suppose, and stop over.’

  ‘Do that. Come to my place, but let me know when you’ll be arriving.’ He gave me an address, and said it was near Paddington.

  ‘I’ll do it,’ I promised, ‘but what’s this about?’

  ‘Someone wants to meet you, that’s all.’ If I hadn’t known him as well as I did, I might have thought he was being evasive.

  Thirty-seven

  Although I couldn’t help wondering what my mystery meeting in London was about, I put it to the back of my mind during the rest of my stay with Dad, trying to concentrate on him and on him alone. The night before I left, my sister rang from California, as she does at least twice a week. She was surprised to find me there, but pleased too. She’s never said so, but I suspect that she’d hoped I’d raise my son in Auchterarder, and look after our father at the same time.

  We had a chat and she agreed that Tom and I should visit her the following month. I said nothing about the situation, deciding to leave that until I saw her. Dawn’s excitable: she deals with things better when she hears them face to face.

  When Thursday came around, I found myself regretting that I was leaving so soon. Being back in Scotland had done me good, and I had no valid reason for rushing back to Spain, but my arrangements were made and by that time I couldn’t cancel them. Dad and I were up at six and on the road half an hour later so that I could catch an early flight to London. Before we left, I humoured my father by taking some of his unwanted gifts from Adrienne: half a dozen children’s books for Tom and a small adult selection for myself.

  I’d told Mark to
expect me at eleven, but the Heathrow Express ran more frequently than I’d thought and I found myself with time to kill at Paddington, before I could pick up a taxi at the rank and head for the address he had given me. It turned out to be a block of art-deco apartments, not unlike the place where Poirot lives in the television series. I was impressed: having been a Londoner myself, when Tom was very young, I know how much such a place, in such a location, is likely to cost. There was a concierge on duty. I told him who I was visiting and he directed me to the lift. ‘Ninth floor,’ he said. ‘I’ll call Mr Kravitz. He asked me to let him know when you arrived.’

  If I wasn’t surprised by the style in which Mark lives, I was when he opened the door. In truth, I was shocked. He was in a wheelchair, his hair was mostly grey, and he seemed to have lost about twenty pounds in weight. The last time I’d seen him, he’d been a strong, athletic, dark-haired guy. My thoughts must have been written on my face, for as he reached up to shake my hand, he murmured, ‘Tell you later. Come on through. And be serious, please.’

  I wondered about his remark as I followed him into a big reception room. There was no carpeting anywhere that I could see, not even a rug. The floors were polished wood, streaked in places by the rubber wheels of the chair. The space was brightly lit, by two windows, and by the french doors they framed. They were open, and a light, cooling breeze fluttered the curtains. There was a massive plasma screen on the wall to my left, above a desk, its surface lower than normal, upon which sat a computer and every electronic toy imaginable. Heaven for Tom, I thought.

  There was a third person present; a woman, blonde (not real; I am, and I can tell the dye jobs), power dressed, maybe ten years younger than me. She wasn’t pretty, she had rat-like features that made me think of a plague carrier: I didn’t take to her. She sat on a black-leather sofa, stiffly upright; I read her posture as a sign that this was not an informal gathering. Mark wheeled himself over to a table, poured me coffee from a cafetière, added a little milk and brought it to me. ‘This is Moira,’ he said, as I took it from him, ‘the person who wants to talk to you.’

  ‘Fine,’ I replied. ‘Nice to meet you, Moira, but it had better be interesting, given the cost of changing my plans.’

  ‘Frankly,’ she drawled coolly, in a crusty accent that made me remember how much I dislike Trinny and what’s-her-name, ‘I don’t care whether what I have to say interests you or not, as long as you get the message and act appropriately thereafter.’

  All of a sudden those two fashion gurus weren’t so bad after all. ‘Better try me,’ I told her. ‘But first, maybe you’ll begin by telling me who the hell you are.’

  ‘That’s not important. What you need to know is that I have the authority to be here. Word has reached the ears of my service that you have been telling a story about us.’ As she spoke, I had a flashback, to Frank, in the Conquistador. I thought of him telling me of his recruitment to MI5 by an unnamed woman. Moira fitted his description pretty well.

  ‘And how has it reached your shell-likes?’ I murmured.

  ‘Through one of Mark’s friends, who’s a junior colleague of mine.’

  ‘And the story was?’

  ‘That convicted felons are being recruited and trained to infiltrate organised crime.’

  ‘Are you saying that’s not true?’

  ‘I’m not authorised to discuss the methods of my service, or give you any operational information. All I’m here to do is to tell you to stop; no, to order you.’

  I almost pitched my coffee at her, but it would have made a mess of Mark’s pricey sofa. ‘Hold on a minute, sister,’ I snapped. ‘You will give me no damn orders.’

  ‘I just did. You will not repeat the story you told Mr Kravitz, or there will be consequences.’

  ‘Such as? Will I be found in the Thames?’

  ‘Nothing so extreme; that won’t be necessary. Instead, you’ll be treated as a security risk. Let me assure you the consequences of that might make you want to jump into the Thames. I’ll give you a small example. You have a criminal conviction, Mrs Blackstone. At the moment, you are able to enter the United States unhindered only because your well-connected brother-in-law, Miles Grayson, vouched for you and obtained you an entry visa. That can and will be cancelled at once, and your visit to California next month, with your son, will be off.’

  For the first time, apprehension overcame my anger. ‘How did you know about that?’ I asked.

  ‘We tapped your father’s telephone,’ she said bluntly. ‘Call it a small demonstration of our power. When you go back to Spain, we can arrange for yours to be tapped also. We can monitor your mobile communications and your email. We can arrange for your residency in Spain to be brought into question. We can even arrange for your custody of your son to be reviewed.’

  ‘Enough,’ Mark shouted, taking both of us by surprise. ‘You’ve made your point, and I’ll make sure that Primavera takes it. Now get the fuck out of here!’

  She smiled. ‘Mark, calm down. You know that we have enough on you to close down your business, and even to put you away, if we choose, so cut the histrionics.’ She turned back to me. ‘Do you get the point, Mrs Blackstone?’

  I wanted to punch her lights out, but I suspected that her martial-arts skills were better than mine. Also, her last threat had really scared me. ‘Yes,’ I admitted quietly. ‘For what it’s worth, the story’s lost its relevance as far as I’m concerned, but you probably know that too.’

  ‘As it happens, I don’t. But we understand each other, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ I repeated, like a good girl.

  Moira, although I doubt that was her name (my world had become filled with aliases), stood to leave. ‘Once thing I can tell you,’ she said. ‘I’ve never heard of Frank McGowan. Not that anything should be read into that, of course. I’ll let myself out, Mr Kravitz.’

  We watched her leave. When she was gone, Mark spun his chair round to face me. ‘Primavera, I’m sorry. I couldn’t warn you in advance. She wasn’t kidding when she said that about me. I do need their goodwill or I’m out of business.’

  ‘Who was she? Interpol? Frank said his controller was a woman.’

  ‘No. She’s MI5, but they do overlap and my guess is that when I tried to check your story about Frank it touched a very raw nerve somewhere.’

  ‘Because he was set up? Because they have a mole?’

  ‘Quite possibly. Whatever, do what they say. Don’t cross them.’

  ‘I won’t. I may be crazy, but not that much.’ I paused. ‘Mark, the chair?’

  ‘Multiple sclerosis. I’ve had it for a year and a half, and it’s been pretty aggressive. I can still get around on sticks, just about, but this way is easier.’ I felt hugely sorry for him, and told him so, but he brushed it off. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘I’m lucky to be alive, given the life I’ve had, in the army and afterwards, and the things I’ve done. They say it may well stabilise, and that I could have years with this much mobility. I can handle that.’

  ‘That’s some consolation.’

  ‘That’s good, because this won’t be. Two nights ago, there was a breakin at the offices of Pintore, in Luxembourg, where the d’Amuseo company was registered. All of its records were stolen, every single piece of paper, including all of Alastair Rowland’s signatures.’

  ‘Shit.’

  ‘That’s what the investors will be saying. Yesterday there was a formal complaint to the Luxembourg police, and guess who made it? Emil Caballero. He’s asked for a full investigation of the company. Looks like it’s crunch time.’

  ‘What? That man held me up with a gun. Mark, I’m feeling crazy again. I’m going to face him up. Will that get your friend Moira excited?’

  ‘No, their interest is very specific.’ He sighed. ‘But, Primavera, please . . .’

  Thirty-eight

  I had to do something, or at least make myself believe I was doing something. That was the thought in my mind all through my return journey, including the five-hour drive back
from Nice Airport to St Martí, which got me home just after one a.m. next day. I could have spent the night at Susie’s, I know, but I didn’t want to disrupt Tom’s routine by popping in and out of his life.

  I slept late after the trip, until eight thirty; that’s mid-morning for me. It was too late for me to run, so I contented myself with a swim from the beach below St Martí, made myself breakfast with the little that I had at my disposal . . . scrambled eggs, toast and orange juice . . . and took it upstairs to eat on the front terrace, overlooking the square, watching the cafés get ready to open for the day.

  I enjoyed being back in my own house, even if it was silent, even if it did feel empty. It made me think again about what Susie had told me, that Janet was no longer comfortable in the Loch Lomond place because she felt a presence there. It didn’t surprise me too much. Oz once confessed to me that he had had similar experiences, involving Jan; if such gifts exist I suppose that it’s natural for them to be inherited. It made me wonder how she’d get on in my place on her next visit. It’s so old that it’s bound to have a few spirits hanging about, if you have the right antennae to pick up their signals.

  I was on my first coffee of the day when I saw a Mossos d’Esquadra car cruise in front of my house. I watched as it parked and as Alex Guinart got out. I waved at him from the terrace, then trotted downstairs to let him in.

  ‘You okay?’ he asked. ‘I thought you’d have been back with Tom before now.’ He didn’t say as much, but I could tell from his tone that he was a little miffed.

  ‘Mea culpa,’ I confessed. ‘Tom’s staying with Susie until the end of next week, and I’ve been in Scotland. I should have let you know what I was up to. Apologies, Alex.’