‘And your aunt?’
‘Innocent victim. Caught in the crossfire. Collateral damage. Choose your favourite cliché.’ I took her gate opener from my bag and handed it to her. ‘I owe you an apology, Shirl. It was wrong of me to impose on you without telling you the whole story. I could have put you in danger as well.’
She gave me back the device. ‘Keep it,’ she said. ‘For the next time you’re in bother. You’re my pal, remember.’ She paused as the waiter brought my coffee. ‘You’ll miss him, won’t you? Just when you and he were getting close.’
‘That was just something that happened on the road.’
‘No, it wasn’t. For all I might kid you about it, I know you don’t do casual sex.’
‘Well, from now on,’ I told her, ‘that’s going to be the only kind for me. Seems that if I get too close to a bloke, he dies.’
‘In that case, I’ll bet Father Gerard’s relieved he’s a priest.’
I blinked. ‘Whatever do you mean?’
‘You know bloody well what I mean, but let’s leave it at that. Is there any chance that they’ll be found safe?’
‘You never can tell, but I don’t see it. There was blood; a lot of it.’
‘Oh dear.’ Shirley’s eyes misted over. She had liked Frank too. ‘What are you going to do now?’
‘Go and get Tom,’ I replied. ‘I sent him to Monaco for safety when all this started to happen. After that, I’m not sure. At some point I’ll need to tell my dad what’s happened, and my sister; we’re all the family Adrienne and Frank had. But I’m not up to that yet.’
‘When are you off?’
‘Now. I’ll call you when I get back.’ I slid a five-euro note for the waiter under my empty cup, stood up and headed back towards the car park.
Thirty-four
I had packed a small case before I left, with clothes for a couple of days, and slipped my passport into my bag, with my cash and my cards. With no need to go back home, I headed straight for the autopista, and France.
As I passed Camallera, noticing the shrine by the roadside that Gerard had mentioned, I switched on the CD player. Del Amitri filled the Jeep with sound. I selected another disc, pronto, knowing that I’d never hear that band again without thinking of Frank. Texas took over, but the Scottish connection was too close, and Faith Hill was too maudlin. In the end I settled for a French pop radio station that I knew would be in range as far as Montpellier.
By the time I’d crossed the border, the music was in the background and I was thinking again, about Sebastian and Willie mostly, hoping I’d given Gomez and Garcia enough information to track them down, but without, I found, too much optimism. Those guys had been pros; it was improbable that they were still in Spain.
Yes, they were pros all right. They’d never made a wrong move from the time they’d sat at my table in Sevilla. They’d been on the look-out for me. But how had they known I was coming? Adrienne’s first phone call, in search of Frank, had probably been enough to sound the alarm. My Scots accent when I’d set up my date with Lidia probably hadn’t been too clever either. But when I’d gone marching up to the door of number forty-seven, then quizzed that wee twerp of a shopkeeper, well, that had more or less hung out a sign. ‘Trouble in town, she’s blonde and she’s a Jockess.’ How much more stupid could I have been? I’d got in trouble, Frank had had to leave his safe-house to rescue me and, in the process, got himself and his mother killed. Unless . . .
I searched for straws to grasp. Maybe he’d put up a fight and they’d had to subdue him. Maybe all that blood was his. I thought back to Africa and remembered that once or twice I had seen wounds that bled as much but turned out to be more or less superficial. Maybe . . . I persuaded myself there was a little hope.
I clung to it as I drove east, through the morning, past Narbonne, Montpellier and to Nîmes. I stopped near Marseille for petrol and water. Before getting back on the road, I called Susie to let her know that I was on the way and should be with them in less than two hours. She sounded a little underwhelmed, but I put that down to her being busy, and to the unnecessarily short notice I was giving her.
When I got there, just after two thirty, to the secure villa on the hilltop overlooking the harbour of Monte Carlo, I decided I had been kidding myself about that. She was her usual effusive self, when she and Charlie greeted me, welcoming me in, then taking me through to the playroom where the kids were amusing themselves, out of the heat of the day. ‘Mum!’ Tom called out, jumped up and ran towards me, into my arms. He’s not usually so demonstrative; I guessed he must have been far more worried than he was letting on.
Of course the first thing he asked me was ‘Did you collect Auntie Adrienne?’
‘Yes, love,’ I told him. ‘She and Frank have moved on now.’
‘That’s a shame. I liked her.’
‘Perhaps you’ll see her again some time.’
‘And meet Frank?’
‘Perhaps.’
I stayed with him for a while, making a fuss of wee Jonathan, and of Janet, as far as that growing young woman would let me (I know she’s only eight, but try telling her that). Then, when it was swim time, Susie and I joined the three of them in the pool. (Charlie was barred from the terrace, I discovered, after an earlier incident in which he had tried to life-save wee Jonathan, who’s probably a better swimmer than the bloody dog is.)
It wasn’t until Ethel came in to call time up . . . she’s in charge of the children’s activities; that’s her absolute rule . . . that us two mums had the chance of some time alone. ‘Well?’ Susie demanded, as soon as wee Jonathan, always the laggard, was out of earshot, and we were settled on two couches, under an awning.
‘It’s not good,’ I said. ‘Frank’s associates caught up with him. He and Adrienne are missing, believed dead.’ I didn’t see the need to tell her any more than that.
‘Believed? What are their chances?’
I looked at her, and shrugged.
‘God, Prim, I’m so sorry.’ She glanced at the ground between us. ‘I have to confess that when you called me on Tuesday the words “drama” and “queen” came to mind, given that you’ve got a track record in that area. I was expecting your aunt to be found wrestling with a trolley in the local supermarket. But this; it’s shocking. How did your cousin get mixed up with these people?’
‘He was working undercover for Interpol, to break a major international fraud, but he was betrayed by someone on the inside. He might have got away in one piece, until I went crashing in there after him, like a cow in a bloody china factory.’
‘That’s why they took your aunt? To get to him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Oh dear.’ She looked at me. ‘I see now why you wanted Tom out of it. How about you? Are you okay?’
‘Apart from being knackered, I’m fine.’
‘Would you like to stay here for a while?’
‘A couple of days, if that’s all right with you, and then my boy and I will get back down the road.’
Susie frowned, her red hair glinting in the sun. ‘Actually,’ she ventured, ‘I was going to talk to you about that. We’d agreed that Tom would come here for a couple of weeks in August, yes?’
I nodded.
‘Well . . .’ she hesitated before continuing ‘. . . I’ve pretty much decided to sell the Loch Lomond estate. It would suit my book to go back there in August, to get the process under way. There would be no point in now. You know what Glasgow’s like: you can barely sell chips in July. So, seeing as Tom’s here now, can we bring his stay forward to . . . well, to now?’
I thought about it. Tom and I had no firm plans for the rest of the month. That said, I always missed him while he was gone, and after the past few days, did I need to be brooding on my own? On the other hand . . .
‘Sure,’ I said. ‘The rest of this week and next.’
‘Thanks. You can stay too, if you like.’
‘That’s good of you, but it’s best if I don’t. Let’s stick to
our normal practice.’ It’s not just two women in one kitchen, as I’d told Adrienne. While Susie and I do get on fine now, we both know that if we were together for a couple of weeks we’d wind up either going out on the batter every night, or arguing over the past or, probably, both.
‘Why are you selling Loch Lomond?’ I asked her. ‘It’s a palace.’
She glanced at me, then looked away again. ‘Janet thinks it’s haunted.’ She tried to chuckle, but failed.
‘It’s a big old house,’ I pointed out. ‘It’s not unnatural for a kid to imagine things, especially one with the enquiring mind she’s got.’
‘It’s not just the house, Prim, it’s the whole damn place. There are some woods that she just won’t go in. To tell you the truth, I find it really spooky myself now. No, it’s going, and that’s an end of it. I’ll buy a smaller house, with an ordinary garden, not something the size of a bloody farm.’
‘Do you ever feel haunted here?’ I asked.
‘No.’ This time she did manage to laugh. ‘Did you think the bugger was stalking me from beyond the grave?’
‘I wouldn’t put it past him.’
‘Are you still afraid of him,’ she asked bluntly, ‘even though he’s dead? For he is, believe me. I saw the body.’
‘No, but I never really was. When I disappeared after the crash, I was confused, but I reckoned that was what he’d want me to do.’
Her brow furrowed as she realised what I’d said. ‘Wait a minute. Are you implying that you thought he wanted you dead? That he arranged that plane crash?’
‘I’m not implying it; I’ve never told anyone straight out, but that’s what I believe. We knew him better than anyone else, Susie. Can you put your hand on your heart and deny that he was capable of it?’
She had to think about that for a while. ‘No,’ she confessed. ‘I can’t. But I don’t believe he’d have harmed you. He loved you, Prim, for all you spent half your time at each other’s throats. My secret fear, even after Jonathan was born, was that one day he’d leave me and go back to you. If one of us fixed that aircraft it would more likely have been me.’
‘Now that I can’t accept,’ I protested. ‘You are definitely not capable of such a thing. Honest, I wish I didn’t believe what I do, but that’s the way the evidence points.’
‘Fuck the evidence. Take my word for it: Oz didn’t do it.’
One day, I may be able to accept that. There, on her terrace, I told her I’d try, but I’m still a way short of succeeding.
Thirty-five
I stayed with Susie and the family for two days, until Sunday. Both mornings, I went on-line and checked for developments in the search, but there were none reported. I studied the London media too. The story hadn’t gone unnoticed: I found it on the BBC website, and in the Telegraph and the Guardian, but without names to go on it wasn’t front-page news.
Tom was fine about the idea of extending his visit, especially when I promised to take him to America in August, to see his aunt Dawn and his cousins, Bruce and Eilidh. He hadn’t asked me any more questions about Adrienne or Frank; I was pleased about that.
I headed off after breakfast, but I didn’t drive home. Instead, I went to Nice Airport, where I parked the Jeep and caught a flight that I’d booked the day before, to Edinburgh, via London. My dad was waiting for me at Arrivals, as arranged. I could have hired a car, but as usual he wouldn’t hear of it. Since Mum went, he’s seized every excuse to get out of the great big house in which he still lives, having refused to sell it, despite suggestions, entreaties and downright bullying from my sister and me.
I spent a lovely, peaceful evening with him, and later, in my old bed, managed a night’s sleep that was, as far as I can recall, free of dreams of any sort. I didn’t raise the subject of Adrienne’s visit, but he did, over breakfast. ‘I had your aunt on the phone,’ he said casually. ‘Has she been in touch?’
‘Yes,’ I told him. ‘She invited herself, stayed for a couple of days, then buggered off without as much as a thank-you.’
His eyebrows rose; that’s about as dramatic as he gets. ‘That’s fairly typical of her, I’m afraid. Adrienne always was a law unto herself. She has the odd beliefs that flamboyance entitles you to be rude, and that unacceptable behaviour can be explained as eccentricity. The arrival of her son was a classic example of that.’
‘She isn’t all bad.’
‘Nobody is, my dear. She was a damned good agent for your mother when she started to write her children’s stories.’ He smiled. ‘The trouble is, the woman still sends me a copy of every book published by every one of her clients. They’re filling up my damn shelves. Take some of them when you leave, please, Primavera, for Tom, and yourself.’
I promised that I would. We finished breakfast, and I did the dishes, while he went off to work. He’s a craftsman carpenter, designing, carving and painting chess sets, and other pieces, like the cuckoo clock he gave to Tom and me.
When I was done . . . Dad doesn’t have a dish-washer because it never occurred to Mum and him to buy one . . . I called Fanette, in Adrienne’s office. She became a bit standoffish when she realised it was me, not having forgiven me for ripping strips off her in our previous discussion, but eventually she told me that, no, she hadn’t heard from Adrienne and, yes, she had been expecting her back in the office that morning. Of course, without her, she was terribly busy, so if I’d excuse her . . . I did, with a private vow that I would sort her out when I had time.
I’d brought my aunt’s mobile with me from Spain, as a temporary replacement for my own. I used it to send texts to my number and to Frank’s, a pointless gesture, as I neither expected nor received replies, but one that I felt I had to make.
Dad doesn’t have a computer either, but he does have the Courier, the Herald and the Scotsman delivered every morning. I read through their news pages, but none of them was keeping tabs on the story of two missing English tourists. (If they had been from Dundee, Glasgow, or Edinburgh, that would have been another matter.)
I felt helpless after that, frustrated that there was nothing more I could do. I kept it from Dad, though, as I devoted myself to looking after him, not that he needs much. My mother was a formidable cook, and after her death, I’d had recurring visions of poor old widowed David living on a diet of Tesco ready-meals and Wall’s ice-cream. Those notions were banished in the spell when Tom and I lived with him, before moving to Spain. I discovered that he had taken over Mum’s mantle: the vegetable garden and the fruit bushes were as well tended and productive as ever, and in fact he was cooking so damn much that every so often he’d have to deplete the stock in the freezer by catering for a church evening function.
The main way in which I cared for him was simply by listening to him as we sat together over meals, or in the garden, providing a ready ear, and an alternative viewpoint when I disagreed with him. That was how he and Mum had lived out their lives, and that was what he missed most of all. As we talked, I discovered he was not as solitary a figure as I had thought. He and Mac Blackstone, Oz’s retired dentist father and Tom’s other granddad, kept in touch, and visited each other frequently. It didn’t surprise me when he told me, for Mac’s a good man, but I was delighted to hear it.
It wasn’t until the third day of my visit that I thought about Mark Kravitz, and realised I owed him a call. I rang his land-line. As always he was brisk and business-like when he answered.
‘Mark, it’s Primavera. I’m in Scotland, at my dad’s.’
‘You’re safe?’ he exclaimed. ‘Thank Christ for that.’
‘Didn’t Susie tell you I was?’
‘Yes, but it didn’t stop me worrying, especially when I saw a report in the Telegraph on Saturday morning about a missing English couple. Them?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it as bad as it read?’
‘Yes. They haven’t found any bodies yet, but I’m having trouble looking on the bright side.’ I paused. ‘Mark, are you still up for checking a couple of things
for me?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then would you please look into a French mining company called Energi, and find out what you can about its ultimate ownership, and its finances, especially about a twenty-million-euro investment in Hotel Casino d’Amuseo. Also, find out, if you can, whether there is any money still held in the company bank account in Luxembourg.’
‘Will do.’
‘Thanks. Hey,’ I added, ‘remember Lidia Bromberg?’
‘Yes. You didn’t go to meet her, did you?’
‘I didn’t have to. The bitch tried to kidnap me in Sevilla, her and Councillor Caballero.’
‘I’m not going to say I told you so,’ he murmured, after a few seconds’ silence. ‘Oh, hell, I am. How did you get away?’
‘Frank rescued me.’
‘Frank?’
‘Yes. He and Hermann Gresch were planted in the operation by Interpol. He was recruited in prison by MI5.’
‘You what?’ he gasped.
‘Does that surprise you?’
‘Prim, nothing about those people surprises me. Mind you . . .’
‘In that case here’s another for you: someone on the inside sold them out. Frank reported back to his controller and he was betrayed.’
‘With seventy-seven million euros in the pot that doesn’t stun me either. Leave all that with me, Prim. I’ll make those checks.’ He paused. ‘But tell me: what are you going to do with this information when you get it?’
‘I don’t know for sure, but one way or another it’s going to help me get even with whoever did this to my aunt and my cousin.’
Thirty-six
Mark called me back next morning, just as Dad and I were about to head off on a shopping expedition to Perth. I still have a few items of clothing at his place, but I’d exhausted the summer stock.
‘I’ve done your digging,’ he began. ‘First and foremost, the money’s been moved out of Luxembourg. Pintore and Company, the lawyers, weren’t for telling me anything, so I had my London solicitor call them and imply that they were representing an investor in the project who was getting worried about his cash. They admitted that the funds had been transferred to a new account, in the Cayman Islands, outside their control. It was done legally and above board, on the basis of a written instruction signed by the chairman, Alastair Rowland, over the company seal. It was delivered to their offices by courier last Thursday, and the money was transferred the same day.’
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