Inhuman Remains

Nineteen

‘What’s the game plan?’ I asked, as we headed back towards the city. ‘Indeed, do you have a game plan?’

‘Oh, yes,’ my cousin replied, ‘and it’s a good one. But rather than have me describe it, just watch, Primavera, watch and learn. Where did you get that name anyway?’

‘From my mum.’ I let out a small, outraged snort. ‘And don’t you go there with the names, Frances. At least mine was planned, not an accident forced upon me by an intellectually under-developed employee.’ To my surprise, I found that even under all that stress I was laughing.

‘I can only blame her for the girlie first one,’ he confessed. ‘The other, that was all dear old Ade’s idea.’

‘Ulverscroft?’

‘Yes. It’s a publishing company; they specialise in large-print books.’

‘For the hard of hearing?’

He grinned. ‘No, you’re thinking of the taped version. Do you know,’ he went on, ‘that this has now become the longest conversation we’ve ever had, and probably the longest time we’ve ever spent in each other’s company.’

‘Not quite,’ I advised him. ‘The first time you came to visit us my dad took the three of us, you, me and Dawn, to the beach in St Andrews. I remember it, because I didn’t want to go, but Mum persuaded me that he wouldn’t know what to do when you had “little boy’s needs”, as she put it.’

‘What the hell did that mean?’

‘It meant that I had to take you to the ladies’ toilet, and make sure you did everything properly.’

‘You mean you got to watch?’

‘And worse. You were only just three at the time.’

‘You’ll be glad to hear that I can go on my own now.’

‘So could Tom, when he was that age. So can Charlie, and he’s even younger.’

‘You have two kids? I thought. .’

‘Charlie’s a Labrador.’

‘My God. Who was the father?’

‘Shut up and drive, you idiot.’

He did, into a small commercial area to the south-west of the city, where he parked in a supermarket car park, well away from the store.

‘Are we going to shop our way to freedom?’ I asked.

‘I told you. Watch and learn.’

He reached into his pocket and produced the most elaborate Swiss Army knife I’d ever seen. ‘Is that what you used on Bromberg?’

‘Yup. Specially sharpened to meet the need, should it arise. Three-inch blade, but that will do the job, as you saw. And, of course, it does many other things.’

From its many tools, he selected a Phillips. . no relation. . screw-driver, jumped out of the car and proceeded to remove the number-plates. ‘Back in a minute,’ he said, when he was done, and disappeared into the rows of parked cars.

Actually, two minutes had passed, but no longer, when he returned with two different plates, which he fixed to our stolen jalopy. ‘There,’ he declared, with more than a little pride, as he climbed back into the driver’s seat. ‘It’s going to take the owner of the other car a couple of days at best to notice that he has a new registration. If Caballero does get loose, if he makes it to the road and stops someone, if. . long odds against, in the circumstances … he calls the cops. .’

‘Then they’re not going to find the number he gives them on a silver Suzuki.’

‘Exactly. And just to confuse them further. .’ He switched on the engine and drove off, not out of the car park but round, closer to the store. He parked once more, this time in a space about fifty metres from a big sign that read ‘Taxi’. I looked and saw a couple of cabs waiting for takers. ‘Come on.’

We grabbed our belongings, Frank locked the Suzuki and we walked, unnoticed, across to the rank. I nodded to the first driver and he nodded back. ‘Station,’ Frank told him, as we slipped into the back seat.

‘But what if they’re watching the station?’ I asked him quietly.

‘That’s a small chance we’ll have to take, but I reckon that at the moment they. . quote, unquote. . will be looking for Caballero’s car, and for him. If they’ve found him by now, and I doubt that, they’ll be looking for the Suzuki. Either way, we’ll know in about ten minutes.’

That was more or less how long it took the taxi to drop us at the entrance to the big airy railway station. I paid the driver, and we headed inside. Frank found a timetable board and studied it. He smiled. ‘Perfect,’ he murmured. He turned to me. ‘There’s an AVE. . that’s high speed. . to Madrid in twenty-five minutes. We’ll take that.’

‘Madrid? I want to go to Barcelona. That’s where my car is.’

‘We’ll get there, eventually, when it’s safe.’

‘Safe? To hell with it, Frank, I’ve had enough of this. I can still catch my flight: I’m taking another cab to the airport, flying to Barcelona and driving to Monaco to join Tom.’

He looked at his watch. ‘Primavera,’ he pointed out, ‘less than two hours ago, Caballero and that woman were about to cart you off somewhere and kill you.’

‘That’s an exaggeration. They weren’t going to kill me. If they were they’d have done it at the hotel.’

‘Listen, Emil Caballero is an extremely well-connected man in this city, but not even he could commit murder in a public building and expect to get away with it. You got in their way; you annoyed them. What use were you to them alive?’

‘And your mother?’ That didn’t need saying at that point, and I regretted the words as soon as they were out. Frank had been olive-skinned before he acquired the permatan, but still he went pale.

‘That’s between me and them.’ He shot me a piercing look. ‘There’s no chance of a misunderstanding, is there? Your son didn’t overreact or anything, did he? Could she have gone for a swim?’

‘Tom was on the beach. He’d have seen her. She was in the middle of making their breakfast, Frank. She took nothing with her. Plus, she told me the other day she doesn’t believe blue-flag beaches are any cleaner than the rest. . “Shit doesn’t know it’s not supposed to wash up there,” was how she put it. . and that she wouldn’t put as much as a toe in the Mediterranean.’

‘That’s my dear old mum for you. Okay, I’ll grant you it sounds bad. But to answer your question, my guess is that she’s been taken to put pressure on me.’

‘So tell me. Why? What’s this all about?’

‘Soon, once we’re settled. For now, you go and get us two tickets on the AVE to Madrid. How much cash do you have? You don’t want to be using your credit card.’

‘Four hundred and something.’

‘That’ll be enough.’

It was. In fact it was enough for me to buy club class, which let us use a very nice lounge for the fifteen minutes or so that it took for our train to be called. I took a glass of white wine from the bar, and spent the time doing women things, hair, makeup. . not that I ever use much more than the lippie I had in my bag. . and such. When I was finished I looked a little less like someone who’d just emerged from a fight to the near death, and a flight from danger. Or was that into danger?

Club class on the high-speed train was as close to the in-flight equivalent as Renfe could manage, with a hostess to show us to our seats and bring us drinks and nibbles. As soon as she had gone and we were settled in, I looked across at Frank, ready for the explanation he had promised. He was asleep, wasn’t he? Like a baby, as if nothing had happened and we were just another couple of tourists. Except, we weren’t: we didn’t have any clothes for a start. . at least, I didn’t, for I had no clue what was inside Frank’s rucksack. After the Swiss Army knife episode, there could have been a white tuxedo in there and it wouldn’t have surprised me.

He dozed for a while, waking just as the train slowed and cruised past an establishment that looked suspiciously like a prison. I waited for it to pick up speed once more, but it didn’t. Instead it eased its way into a station.

Frank jumped to his feet and grabbed his bag from the overhead rack. ‘Come on,’ he said.

‘But this isn’t Madrid. You’ve only been asleep for half an hour.’

‘I know; this is Córdoba. We’re not going to Madrid.’

I couldn’t be bothered to ask why. I followed him, pausing as he dropped a word into the ear of the hostess, and a fifty-euro note into her hand. ‘What did you say to her?’

‘I told her that we were breaking the journey and that we’d be taking a later train.’

‘And are we?’

‘No. We’ll stay here overnight.’

We climbed the stairs that led from the platform and walked the short distance to the station concourse. Happily, I saw a row of shops. ‘How much cash do you have?’ I asked him. ‘Those train tickets used up most of mine, and I need to buy some clothes.’

‘I’m flush.’ He delved into the magic rucksack, peeled off six fifties from a roll, and handed them to me.

‘I take it you’re okay.’

He nodded. ‘Mostly I buy cheap basics from street markets and dispose of them as I use them.’

I wrinkled my nose. ‘You were brought up that badly?’

The shops took care of my needs. I was able to buy three pairs of sensible knickers, another pair of shorts, two tops and a light, non-crushable skirt with Frank’s cash, plus a small, cheap roller case.

‘Why did you need that?’ he asked when he saw it.

‘I’m not sleeping rough, boy,’ I advised him. ‘We’re finding a hotel, and not the kind that’s used to guests arriving with their clothes in shopping bags.’

‘In that case. .’

There were plenty of taxis at the rank, as nobody else had got off our train. The driver of the first looked pleased to see us. When Frank told him, ‘Mezquita,’ he nodded, as if that was where everyone wanted to go. As it happens, that’s probably true. The twelve-hundred-year-old mosque that became a cathedral is Córdoba’s only serious tourist attraction. Our taxi dropped us near the entrance, outside a hotel called the Conquistador.

‘This looks okay,’ I declared, and marched up to Reception.

They had two rooms available, doubles for single use. ‘How will you be paying?’ the clerk asked.

‘Credit card,’ said Frank, and slapped a piece of plastic on the desk.

‘Hey,’ I whispered, as the man took it across to his terminal, ‘how come I can’t but you can?’

‘I have resources they can’t trace,’ he told me.

I stared at him hard. ‘The time has come, cousin,’ I said, a little harshly perhaps, considering that he’d saved my skin, ‘for you to tell me the whole story. Now, or we stay here and max out that card until you do.’