‘Almost,’ Sheila replied. ‘Alongside the board we have an internal audit department, run by Susannah Gardner, a Scots lady Xavi pinched from the Saltire’s accountants in Edinburgh. They scrutinise the finances of every component company within the group, right down to reporters’ expense accounts . . .’ she chuckled, ‘and the managing director’s when he’s away on business.’
I looked at her husband. ‘Since Hector disappeared, have you instructed a full audit of his department?’
He stared back at me. ‘No, of course not. Why should I?’
‘Probably because it’s your duty as chief executive. You’ve just bounced this situation off me, as a cop. The man has gone, and there are no signs of violence or of any form of duress. I don’t know him, so I am automatically objective, and I’m telling you, professionally, that in a case like this the first thing you do is look at the money.’
‘Hector’s not a thief!’ Sheila protested.
‘In which case there’ll be no trouble demonstrating it. All I’m saying is that you have to check the company books. From what you’re telling me the man spends his life online, doing stuff that’s beyond your ken, and Xavi’s. He lives in a different world from you. He could be the world’s worst Internet poker player, and you would not have a clue about it.’
‘Bob’s right, love,’ Xavi said, sadly. ‘It has to be done.’
‘What has to be done?’
The young voice that came from the far end of the room had a pronounced Catalan accent and yet still it took me back almost twenty years, to my Alex as an almost teenager. I caught the look in Xavi’s eyes, and guessed it had been in mine too, around that time. Maybe it still is.
‘Hello, Paloma,’ he called out as the girl approached. ‘Come and meet our guest. This is Mr Skinner, from Edinburgh.’
His daughter, as you’d expect, was tall for her age; her dark hair was long and tied in a ponytail. I glanced up at the central portrait of her namesake and saw a resemblance that should not have existed, since they were unrelated in blood.
‘Encantada, señor,’ she said. ‘Pleased to meet you. I’ve been back to Edinburgh since we left, with Mama, but never with my dad. He says he doesn’t like it any more. But he says’, she added, ‘that I can go to university there.’
‘Let’s get you through school first,’ her father laughed.
A man had come into the room with Paloma. He was around the thirty mark, with a mop of dark hair and a black full beard; her stepbrother, I assumed, and this was confirmed when he spoke to Sheila.
‘Mum, can I borrow the Toyota again?’ he asked. ‘There’s a film being shown in English tonight in Girona and I fancy catching it.’ He stopped then turned to me, hand outstretched. ‘I’m sorry, no manners, I’m Ben McNeish.’ He smiled, and I read a hint of shyness in him. ‘You are the Mr Skinner, aren’t you?’ His tone underlined the definite article.
‘I’m probably the one you’re thinking about, yes,’ I replied.
‘It’s an honour, sir.’
‘My pleasure too, Ben. I hear you’ve had some bad luck on the job front . . . in which case, I know how you feel.’
‘Mine was inevitable, the way things have gone in the book trade.’
‘Mine too,’ I countered, ‘given the clowns that run our country just now.’
‘The police could do it better, then, Bob?’ Xavi challenged. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’
‘We’d run it more efficiently, that’s for sure. However, I’m for wider police accountability, not for none at all.’
‘Dad, can I have some Playstation time?’ Paloma asked, uninterested in Scottish politics. ‘I’ve no homework.’
‘In that case, my love, please do. We’re in mid-discussion here. Ben,’ he turned to his stepson, ‘since you’ve got a woman to impress, why don’t you take your mum’s Range Rover . . . or mine, for that matter.’
‘Thanks, Xavi,’ he replied, ‘but the Rav Four’s fine. I’d be nervous in yours. How did you know I’ve—’
‘Once a journo, always a journo; I have a nose for these things. Plus I noticed how long you spent on the fashion desk when I took you into the newspaper office yesterday.’
His stepson laughed softly. ‘I’m that transparent, am I?’
The new arrivals went their separate ways and we returned to serious business.
‘That’s agreed,’ Xavi said. ‘I’ll ask Susannah to take a close look at the digital department accounts first thing tomorrow. She’ll find nothing, though.’
‘I’m sure she won’t, but it needs doing. You don’t have to let his mother know.’
‘Why not? It might do her good to see that something’s being done.’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘Do I need to spell that out too?’
Sheila had tuned in to the message. ‘He means in case Hector has been at it and she’s involved.’
‘Jesus, Bob,’ her husband gasped, ‘do you suspect everyone?’
‘The law says innocent until proven guilty. We cops don’t go quite that far.’
‘If that’s so, you’d better investigate me too, in case I’ve done him in and buried him at the foot of the garden.’
‘No, you’re definitely innocent,’ I said. ‘If you’d done that, I’d be the last person you’d have called.’
‘Thanks for that small vote of confidence,’ he grunted. ‘So, on the assumption that Susannah finds everything in order, what can we do to find Hector?’
‘How about the blindingly obvious? You can call in the police.’
He shook his head. ‘That I do not want to do, for now. As you’ve just pointed out, there’s no evidence of violence, so they might laugh in my face if I ask them to investigate. But if they don’t, if they take it on, then for sure it will leak. All our rivals . . . and that’s the rest of the Spanish media . . . will run the story and they will use it to put the boot in.’
‘And that’s your fear, is it? That somehow, Hector’s been taken by a business enemy to destabilise InterMedia?’
‘Yes, it is; either that or for ransom. But if that was the case, surely we’d have been contacted by now?’
‘Not necessarily,’ I countered. ‘A kidnapper might wait for a few days, to see how you react to Hector’s disappearance. But in my experience . . . and it’s limited, abduction not being a major industry in Scotland . . . you’d have heard something within forty-eight hours.’
I hesitated before I went on. ‘When you suggest that a business rival might have taken him, do you have anyone in mind?’
Xavi considered his answer for even longer than I’d taken to put the question. Finally he responded.
‘Over the last two years we have had three approaches from interested parties. The first was a German media group, who made contact through its lawyer. He asked if we’d be interested in selling, and I said there was no basis for negotiation. He accepted that and asked to be notified if the situation changed. I gave him that guarantee.
‘The second was from an American investor, who said that he wanted to establish a European media portfolio and thought that InterMedia would be a good place to start. I told him to start somewhere else. A few months later he bought an ailing newspaper chain in France.’
‘And the third?’ I asked.
‘That was from an Italian conglomerate, an expanding business called BeBe, whose driving force is a youngish woman named Bernicia Battaglia. Have you heard of her?’
‘Yes, don’t they call her the “Warrior” because her surname means “battle”?’
‘The one and only. She turned up unannounced in the office in Girona just over two months ago. I saw her alone, in my room. She told me that she was going to buy the InterMedia group for one hundred million euros in BeBe shares.
‘I’m afraid I laughed in her face. I told her that I’m half Catalan, half Scots and because of that I only deal in stuff that I can take to the bank. She said, “Okay, sixty million cash.”
‘I said that if I was interested in a
sale it would take a hell of a lot more than that, but that I wasn’t going to play games with her, because the business was my life and I wasn’t about to part with it.
‘She looked back at me, across my desk, this tall jewel of a woman, dressed in her finest Versace, drop-dead gorgeous even though she wore hardly any make-up, and she told me, “In that case I will take your life, Señor Aislado.” Then she got up and walked out.’
‘Have you heard from her since then?’
‘No, not a cheep. But if you’re asking me who I’ve met in business that I reckon would be capable of attacking me in this way, it would be her. She’s a very smart woman, and she will know that one person is crucial to the stability and success of InterMedia, and that it isn’t me, it’s Hector Sureda.’
‘But she’s only a businesswoman, not a warlord, for all her name.’
‘Don’t be so sure of that. Ten years ago, BeBe was the third-largest media company in Italy. The head of the second largest was an old bloke named Durante who was keeping it in shape for his son to run after he got over what Dad saw as a fleeting obsession with politics.
‘One day Durante junior was walking home from the Chamber of Deputies when someone put a bullet through his head. The assassin was never traced and within three months, the Warrior had bought the old guy out.’
I confess that until that moment, all I had really been able to see was Hector as an unstable man, perhaps on the rebound from a broken romance, deciding on a total life change and buggering off to get on with it. The Durante story got my attention, not least because I remembered it.
By chance, I’d been in Rome, on holiday with Sarah, when it had happened. I’d understood none of the press coverage, but I’d mentioned it to the hotel barman, and he’d said the cops were denying that it was a Mafia job.
I didn’t really want Sheila to hear what I had to say next, but I had no choice.
‘If you’re connecting that to Signora Battaglia,’ I murmured, ‘doesn’t it follow also that you may be looking for a dead man?’
Xavi winced. ‘The thought has occurred to me,’ he admitted. ‘But my hope is that she’ll realise that Hector is so important to InterMedia that his death would diminish it to the point that it was no longer worth having. As I said, the man is a genius.’
‘So your scenario is?’
‘That he’s been snatched and that he’ll be held until I agree to sell our family shareholding in the group, with his contract in place.’
‘But that would tie her to the abduction,’ I pointed out.
‘Not necessarily. She could wait me out. Hector’s absence will be felt very quickly.’
‘Okay,’ I agreed, not entirely convinced that one man could be so important, ‘but I still think it’s a job for the police. If you suspect organised crime involvement it would be handled discreetly.’
‘Nothing is leak-proof, Bob. My profession gets everywhere.’
‘You could always sell out,’ I suggested, bluntly.
‘I could,’ he agreed, ‘but I’m not there yet. I want to try to recover Hector . . . assuming he’s still recoverable. Resources aren’t a problem. I’ll hire my own people to find him and get him back safe. My hope is that you’ll be able to tell me where to begin.’
‘Mmm.’ I scratched an itch on my right temple. ‘A few months ago, I ran across a couple of guys who might have been useful to you on the recovery part. But they’re no longer in the game.’
‘Why not?’
‘Let’s just say that a colleague and I retired them; but let’s not dwell on that. Before you get to that stage, you need to make sure of the situation. And for that you will need the best investigator in the business.’
‘Where will I find him?’
‘You’re looking at him. Go and open another bottle of cava; my brain’s a little rusty, and that’s the best lubricant I know.’
Five
To this day I’m not sure why I said that, but in doing so I tossed the dice and crossed the river and did all the other symbolic stuff involved in stepping from one life into another.
It was the moment when I realised that in my heart I had always wanted to remain the hands-on cop I had been, rather than the civil servant . . . albeit a very senior one . . . that I’d become.
It was the moment when I realised that what I’d laughed off as the ‘Sherlock Option’ when considering my future was actually a possibility, and a very live one at that. I had skills and if someone wanted to hire them for a purpose within the law then why the hell should I not accommodate them?
After I’d made the offer, I felt as surprised as Xavi looked, but it was out there and I wasn’t going to renege on it.
Once he’d popped the cork on another bottle of Freixenet and Sheila had left us while she looked after dinner (this is a fact; I know quite a few millionaires, and not one of them has a cook), he got down to business.
‘What are your terms and conditions for this sort of assignment?’ he asked.
I hadn’t considered either, not at all, but my reply was instantaneous. ‘I have only one condition. Whatever I do I’ll play by the rules; by that I mean I’ll be bound by the same constraints that I was as a police officer. By that I mean I will not be hacking anyone’s communications.’
‘I wouldn’t expect otherwise. And your terms? By that I mean financial.’
‘In the future, I haven’t a clue, but this is a favour for a friend.’
‘You’ll have expenses, surely?’
‘Will I? I may make a couple of phone calls and it’ll all be sorted.’
‘Really?’
‘No, probably not,’ I admitted. ‘We don’t get that lucky very often. Xavi, I have no idea where this will go. If there are costs incurred, I’ll let you know . . . but chances are you’ll be involved in what I do. In fact the more people I have to speak to, the deeper in you’ll be.’
‘Fair enough,’ he said, ‘but why?’
‘For one very good reason: I’ve had a place here for a long time but I only speak restaurant Spanish, at best, and a lot of that’s got Catalan mixed in. I’ll get by as best I can, but there will be times when I’ll need a translator, and given the sensitivity of this business, that can only be you. Besides, you’re a pretty damn good investigator yourself. You built a career on it, if you think about it.’
He frowned. ‘I suppose I did,’ he conceded. ‘But journalists tend not to interpret, we simply establish facts and report them.’
‘So do detectives; the remit’s the same except we report to the fiscal, not the public. The only advantage we have is that when we want to interview people they can’t slam the door in our faces. So, will you be my voice when I need it?’
‘Of course. Where will you begin?’
‘First off,’ I responded, ‘I’m going to look for Hector’s car. He was last seen driving to work, you said. Generally you can make a person disappear more easily than a car. What did he drive?’
‘A Porsche Boxster, a little yellow thing; looks like a fucking canary with wheels. It’s not the most practical car for these parts, but it’s what he wanted.’
‘What he wanted?’ I repeated. ‘Does that mean it’s company owned?’
‘Leased,’ he volunteered. ‘All the directors’ cars are, apart from Joe’s Merc.’
‘That could mean it’s still in one piece; if it had been involved in an accident or dumped somewhere, the police would have contacted the leasing company, and they’d have been on to you. First thing tomorrow morning you should make a call.’
‘To whom?’
I countered with a question. ‘Who’s your best contact in the Mossos d’Esquadra?’
‘Comissari Canals in the Girona office . . . but Bob, you know how I feel about police involvement.’
‘You can’t avoid it,’ I insisted. ‘You only need to tell him that one of your cars is missing, and ask for his help in finding it. You don’t need to say that the driver’s missing as well.’
‘Won’t it
be logged into their system as a theft?’
‘Along with how many hundred others?’ I pointed out. ‘It’s necessary, Xavi, or we’d have to find it ourselves. Once we have it, who knows what we’ll find in it?’
‘What’s your guess about that?’
‘I’ll be hoping to see traces of anyone who was in that car, other than Hector.’
‘Okay,’ Xavi agreed, ‘I’ll call Canals. What else do you need?’
‘I want to talk to Hector’s parents.’
‘Why, Bob? They can’t tell you any more than I have.’
‘Nonetheless, I want to hear it from them. They may recall something that’s significant to us, something he said or did. But I really don’t want to anticipate. You’ve told me what you believe, Xavi, and I can understand why you do, but I have to go into this with a completely open mind.’
‘Then tomorrow I’ll arrange a meeting with Pilar, in the office in Girona.’
I didn’t fancy the idea. ‘Why can’t we go to Begur?’ I asked. ‘I’d much prefer that.’
He gave a huge sigh. ‘There’s a problem with Simon. He has a very bad heart condition; he needs a valve replacement, urgently. It’s scheduled for next week; Pilar’s been told that he must be kept calm and quiet until then. They have him on constant sedation, until they’re ready to admit him to hospital in Barcelona. He can’t know about this.’
‘Then he won’t,’ I said. ‘But I’d still like to go to Begur. You said that Hector has his own section of the house. Would it be possible for me to see it without Simon even knowing I’m there?’
He looked at me, a little sceptically. ‘Do you really need to?’
‘Open mind, Xavi,’ I repeated. ‘I have to start this from scratch, with Hector saying adios to his mum, and I’d like to see the rooms he left behind him. It may be that before this is done we’ll need to go to his Barcelona pad too.’
‘We won’t find him there; I called his landline, no answer, and I even got someone from our office in the city to call round on some pretext or other.’
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