‘You did all as you were told?’
‘Yes, like a good little agent I went back into character, did the deal in Brussels, and took the mug’s cheque back to Seville, to number forty-seven. I’d been supposed to visit my mum before I went back, but my boss said, “No, no time for that.” When I got there, the first thing I saw was Gresch, tied to a chair and clearly on another planet. The second was the Canadian. Then another guy came out of the kitchen, someone I’d never seen before. They weren’t pleased with me: I could tell by the size of the knives they were holding.’
‘What did you do?’
‘Something else I’d been trained to do. I hit them with a mace spray I carry all the time. It’s tricked up to look like an inhaler. Then I legged it.’
‘And all this happened six weeks ago?’
‘Yes.’
‘So where have you been since then?’
‘Keeping as quiet as I could. I have a safe-house; I set it up as soon as I began to suspect that Gresch was bent, and that the whole operation might be compromised. It’s on nobody’s budget but my own, a rented flat to the north of the city.’
‘Couldn’t you have got in touch with anyone? Your controller, for example. Or even, dare I say it, your mother?’
He stared at me. ‘And there was me thinking you were bright,’ he said. ‘I was shopped, Prim, by my own team, sold out from within Interpol. I’d suspected Gresch, but he was innocent. You can tell that now, can’t you, because he’s fucking dead. My guess is that they kept him doped up, then when you started to snoop around, and it all got hairy, they killed him.’
‘You mean Caballero did. I saw him go into the house.’
‘So did I. I was watching you, remember.’
‘So why didn’t you show yourself yesterday?’
‘Because I’d probably have got us both killed. They let you stay out there as bait for me. But I didn’t bite until I had no choice.’
‘So how will it play out in Sevilla?’
Frank shrugged. ‘Good question, but this is how I see it. George Macela is dead, exposed as the con-man Hermann Gresch. Lidia Bromberg will limp off and get her arse stitched, telling the hospital she fell and cut it, then she’ll vanish. The money has gone, be sure of that; the investors have been done and Energi will post a tax loss. Emil Caballero will scream his outrage at being conned, and may even claim to have invested cash as well as land in the project. The Guardia Civil will launch an investigation that will go precisely nowhere.’
‘And you?’
‘I’m royally fucked, cuz. I’m totally deniable, and I’ve been set up by my own team.’
‘But why?’
‘There has to be a mole, an insider on the payroll of the people behind all this. Maybe it’s my controller, maybe somebody above her, but someone’s spilled the beans to . . .’
‘Alastair Rowland?’
‘Why not? Let’s call him that. It’s as good a name as any other. In any event, he’s got my number and my name; now he wants me. And because you’re with me, he’ll want you too.’
‘But how will he find us? You’ve done, if I may say so, a brilliant job of covering our tracks.’
‘He doesn’t have to find us.’
‘What do you mean?’
He took out his mobile, and held it up. ‘I never answer this thing, but it does receive texts. That’s why I didn’t get rid of it. I haven’t checked it today.’ As I watched, he hit a couple of buttons, then sighed. ‘Ah, shit, the bastard thinks like I do. Take a look.’ He handed it across to me.
A text message showed on the tiny screen; it was in proper English, not in shorthand, and it read, ‘Either you have three days to live, or your mother has. Involve the police and she’ll have no time at all.’
Twenty-one
Somehow that text made me feel like a prisoner again, and I wasn’t having that. My mobile had been charging in my room while we were talking. I went in, unplugged it and switched it on.
‘You can’t use that,’ Frank exclaimed. ‘They could track us through it, believe me.’
I wasn’t sure that I did, but I humoured him. ‘It’s all right, I’m only going to check my text messages.’
There were three, all from Mark Kravitz, all asking me to get in touch to confirm that I was okay. I picked up the hotel phone to call him, but my cousin vetoed that too. ‘You’re the paranoid one now,’ I told him.
‘No, I’m not. If they’ve been monitoring your phone, they could be tapping the number you’re going to dial now, if you’ve used that to call it before.’
‘The man I’m going to call would know if his phone was being tapped.’
‘Wouldn’t make any difference, if they trace the incoming call back to here. As for me being paranoid, that’s no bad thing in a situation like this. Christ, it’s almost a requirement.’
‘I’ll call Susie, in that case, to let her know I’ll be out of touch for a while.’
‘Did you call her earlier?’
‘Yes, to make arrangements for Tom.’
‘Then they could be tapping her phone too. These people have someone inside Interpol, Prim. There’s nothing they can’t do. Do you want to put your son in danger?’
‘My son is with Conrad Kent by now; I can’t think of anywhere safer.’
‘Then be content with that, and let things be.’
There was a line of logic in what he was saying. I put the phone back in its cradle. ‘Come on,’ I told him. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here. Let’s lose ourselves among the tourists; let’s visit the Mezquita.’
Frank frowned. ‘I don’t know about that.’
Suddenly I was steaming mad. I had volunteered to find the little sod for his mother’s sake, and for her sake alone, and here I was, caught up in a mess of his making, my life in constant danger, my aunt God knew where, and my son on the way to a secure location. I snapped. ‘Well, I bloody do!’ I shouted at him. ‘I’m going out, and if the thought of stopping me even crosses your mind, be warned that your Swiss Army knife doesn’t have a special tool for retrieving it from up your fundament!’
With a sigh and a shrug, he gave in. ‘Okay, if you insist. I’ll come with you, though.’ He sounded as if he was doing me a favour. I let him carry on believing that.
We left the Hotel Conquistador and crossed the road, passing though an arched gate that led into a rectangular courtyard that was one big orange grove. There was no fruit on the trees, yet it had a distinctive citrus smell. Frank must have caught the twitch of my nose. ‘You should see it, here and in Seville, when they’re ready to harvest,’ he said. ‘The trees are thick with fruit; a lot of it falls off before they can pick it, and gets squashed on the ground. The smell is fantastic. They’re not very good to eat, though: most get used for marmalade.’ I’d known that, but I let him lecture me. He seemed to enjoy it.
We bought tickets at the admissions booth, but declined the audio tour guides, as the attendant wanted us to leave our passports with her as security for the machinery. The Mezquita is vast. I don’t know how many football pitches you could fit inside, but I’d guess at more than a couple. It’s one of the strangest buildings I’ve ever been in, having been a grand mosque during the Moorish occupation of Andalusia, until they were driven out and it was reconsecrated by their conquerors as a Christian church. Much of the area was open, encircling a great chapel. We had a look in there: it was full of Japanese tourists and we mingled with their group, until Frank’s paranoia kicked in again and he got nervous in case my western face ... he was okay . . . stood out in the crowd.
We moved across, into a museum section filled with artefacts of the Christian period. We stood for a while, awestruck . . . at least I know I was . . . by a thirteenth-century processional cross fashioned from silver and rock crystal. ‘What are we going to do?’ I asked quietly.
‘I don’t know,’ my cousin replied.
That gave me no comfort. ‘And here was me thinking you had the situation in hand.’
‘We’ve got three days; they’ve given us that long to turn ourselves in. My guess is that we may need that long to get to wherever they’re holding Mum, but we can only find that out if I reply to that message. If I do that they could pinpoint our present location and close in on us.’
‘And Adrienne?’
‘I don’t want to think about that. They want us out of the way because we know the story. She doesn’t, but if they’ve let her see their faces, if she can identify them . . .’
‘Are you working up to saying she’s a goner anyway, so what’s the point of giving ourselves up?’
‘Hell, no! I’m going to get her out of this, wherever she is. I just need time to think about how.’ His back straightened, and he stood a little taller, as if he had just reached a decision. ‘First thing tomorrow,’ he declared, ‘we take the train to Barcelona, and we recover your car. Wherever they’re holding Mum, it won’t be far from your place. I don’t think they’d risk transporting her any great distance. We’ll have the whole of the next day to find her. If we haven’t . . . I’ll hand myself over, and you do what you were planning, drive to Monaco and get under the protection of this Conrad guy. Once you’re there, do what you can, even if it’s only recovering our bodies.’
I shivered when he said that. In that ancient church, he’d drawn me back into the reality of the situation, and no mistake. I wanted to stay there, put down roots, cling to the old rugged cross we had been admiring, and hope against hope that everything would be all right after all. Only I couldn’t: they’d be closing the place within the next half-hour.
We moved out of the museum area and back into the concourse of the church. As we walked I was looking for the exit sign. I spotted it, in the far right corner of the great building. And, close to it, I spotted something else, or rather someone.
‘I know that guy over there,’ I said to Frank. ‘He sat down at the next table to me in a bar last night, with his gay partner. We had a drink together. His name is Sebastian Loman, his buddy’s called Willie Venable, and they’re from Kansas.’
He followed the direction of my nod, and stiffened. ‘Wherever else they’re from,’ he whispered, ‘it isn’t fucking Kansas. That’s the Canadian, the guy who interviewed me for this bloody thing, the guy who was waiting for me that day in number forty-seven. You can bet that the other one was good old Willie.’
He pulled me back into the museum. ‘How did he get here?’ I demanded, as if he should have known more than I did.
‘He must have been staking out the station after all. My guess would be that he saw us get on the train and boarded it after us. Then he saw us get off, followed us, watched us and grabbed another taxi.’
‘But how would he know to come here?’
‘It’s the best guess in town . . . no, the only guess. I’m sorry, Prim, I screwed up, bringing us to this place.’
‘So what do we do now?’
‘Same as we were going to do tomorrow. Come on.’
We backtracked, making sure that we kept ourselves out of sight of the point where Sebastian had been standing. However, that didn’t solve the ultimate problem: he was so close to the exit that there was no way we could get past him without being seen.
We were stuck . . . until unexpected help arrived, from the east. The Japanese party, at least fifty in number, poured out of the chapel and headed en masse for the exit. ‘This way,’ I said, grabbing Frank by the arm and pulling him towards the entrance, thanking our lucky stars that he was only a little bugger, as the tourists shielded us from the Canadian. Of course, I was wondering all the time where his boyfriend was. (I was pretty sure they hadn’t been faking that.)
The jobsworth on the door tried to stop us, but together we brushed him aside, without difficulty. I could feel him glaring after us as we ran (in my case, hellish painfully) the short distance to the arched gateway, and through it. I made for the hotel, but Frank tugged at my elbow. ‘No, we don’t have time.’
‘But . . .’
‘What have you left behind in there?’
‘My case, the clothes I changed out of, and the other new stuff.’
‘Then leave it: there’s every chance the other guy’s waiting for us inside. You’ve got everything you need, and I’ve got my rucksack.’ As he spoke, a taxi drew up, and dropped off an American couple. Frank exchanged thumbs-up signs with the driver and jumped in; I had no choice but to follow him. ‘Station, please,’ he said.
‘Where are we headed?’
‘I told you, ultimately Barcelona, but first we’re going to the last place they’ll look for us, back to Seville.’ I looked at him sceptically. ‘Trust me.’ He grinned. ‘Listen, Prim, this is a good move. The Canadian doesn’t know we clocked him. If he hasn’t done so by now, he and his pal . . . he’s here too, I imagine . . . will trawl the hotels around here once they give up on the Mezquita. When they do, they’ll find that we’re registered at the Conquistador and they’ll stake it out. It’ll take them a few hours to figure out that we’re not coming back. We’re gone, it’s okay.’
At Córdoba Station, while Frank went to buy tickets, I headed straight for the shops where I bought another top and three more pairs of knickers, since at the time I wasn’t wearing any and, no longer having a bloody clue how life was going to turn out, I decided that I didn’t really want to die in that state.
We had half an hour to wait for the next AVE, which was due at quarter to eight. We spent it in the club lounge, drinking coffee to keep us sharp, snacking on biscuits and watching the door, never taking our eyes off it. Frank pretended to be reading a newspaper, but he wouldn’t have fooled anyone.
He took it with us when we left, and actually did read it on the comfortable, high-speed journey back to Sevilla. At one point I saw his eyebrows rise, and a smile come to his lips, but I was too tired to think of asking him what the hell he found funny in our circumstances.
‘Right, Spook,’ I challenged him, as the train drew into Santa Justa station. ‘Next?’
‘How many times do I have to tell you? Barcelona.’
I gave up; I walked away from him and flashed my ticket at the executive-lounge attendant, expecting him to follow me. But he didn’t, not right away. As I came out of the ladies’ after a thorough freshen-up and after donning a piece of my new underwear, I saw him at the desk, in conversation. He beckoned me, with a degree of urgency. ‘Come on,’ he called out. ‘We only have a few minutes.’
‘For what?’ I snapped, as I approached.
‘To catch the sleeper. I’ve got us two berths and it’s on the platform already.’
I was too gob-smacked, and plain bushed, to argue. Once again I followed in his wake. The berths he had secured were first class; just as well for him. They were also in a double cabin. ‘Frank,’ I began ominously, as the steward ushered us in.
‘It’s all I could get,’ he protested, as the train pulled out of the station. ‘I’ll take the top bunk.’
‘No, I will,’ I told him. ‘And I’ll pull up the damn ladder after me.’
He winked at me. ‘Dunno what you’re being so prissy about. I’ve seen it all before. You went to the toilet yourself when you took me.’
I stared at him. ‘You remember that?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘You little creep. But let me tell you something. There’s much more of me, these days, so you haven’t seen it all . . . and you ain’t going to.’
He laughed. ‘I’ll just have to live on memories, then.’
‘Hold on to that word, “live”,’ I cautioned him.
‘True,’ he conceded.
‘Can we eat now?’
‘Not until the train’s past Córdoba, and we can be sure that these bastards don’t get on there.’
‘You mean we’re heading back there?’
‘That’s the route.’
‘And if they do get on?’
He frowned. ‘Then I’ll just have to kill them,’ he replied, in a quiet tone that I found myself
believing, utterly.
Twenty-two
Happily, they didn’t get on, so Frank’s dangerous little knife stayed in his pocket. We went to the restaurant, for a late dinner, but not before he had gone through every one of the train’s carriages, looking, just in case.
As we ate, I asked him about his life in Switzerland. ‘If you hadn’t got involved with this Interpol thing, do you think it’s something you might have done anyway?’
‘Maybe. I know I loved it while I was there. It was a really terrific job, and I was more than a little cheesed when I had to chuck it and move on.’
‘And Susannah Gilpin: were you cheesed when you had to chuck her?’
‘You’d better believe it.’
‘What would you have done if she’d agreed to leave her husband? You could hardly drag the poor woman into this life.’
‘I’d have walked away from all of it for her. I still would, if she changed her mind.’
‘Er, Frank,’ I ventured, ‘that may be a little academic, given what’s happened. The life seems to have walked away from you.’
He smiled wistfully. ‘You have a point there. Maybe I’ll still have a chance with her, once I get out of this mess. You spoke to her. What do you think?’
‘She sounded to me like the sensible type, very sensible. Ask yourself, honestly. Would a sensible girl take a chance on the likes of you?’
The smile turned into a grimace. ‘You never know.’ He looked me in the eye, across the table. ‘Your late ex-husband was a very sensible type, from what I read of him. He took a chance on you . . . more than once, from what Mum told me.’
God, that one had come from out of the blue. ‘As it happens,’ I replied icily, ‘the chance-taking was mutual. But he dumped me, didn’t he, not once but twice?’
‘And you’ve never forgiven him?’
‘No, I never have, but not for dumping me. I understood why he did it, both times.’
‘So what was his big crime, his unforgivable sin?’
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