Inhuman Remains

Twenty-three

I still felt okay about it in the morning, when I woke just before seven, to the gentle rocking of the train as it pulled out of a station, Tarragona, I guessed, recalling the destination list I had seen as we got on.

I got out of my bunk and did some stretching exercises, as far as I could in the limited space. I washed the rest of myself, smeared my roll-on antiperspirant under my arms and on the inside of my thighs, then dressed.

By the time I was finished, and looking acceptable, Frank had begun to stir. He propped himself up on an elbow and looked down at me. ‘Morning.’ He yawned.

‘And to you. How do you feel?’

‘Fine. The tiger’s back, I promise.’ He paused. ‘Prim, about last night, I’m sorry.’

‘Listen,’ I replied, ‘I’m not going to shag you every time you say you’re sorry so give it up.’

He laughed. ‘Damn it,’ he said. ‘No, I didn’t mean that; it was lovely. What I meant was I’m sorry you saw me like that, but the truth is, all that stuff yesterday, it scared me shitless.’

‘And what’s wrong with that? How do you think I felt when I walked into that hotel room and saw Caballero holding a gun on me, or when you told me the truth about the Canadian and his mate?’

‘I meant to ask you about them,’ he told me. ‘When you met them in that restaurant, did you tell them why you were in Seville?’

‘Hell, no. I told them I was a single mum playing the tourist for a few days, while my aunt minded my child.’ The implication of that dawned on me as I spoke. ‘Oh, shit! I told them where they could find your mother. Frank, I’m so sorry.’

‘Now you’re at it,’ he exclaimed. ‘Prim, you weren’t to know. Don’t give it another thought, please.’

‘That’ll be difficult; shooting my mouth off to two strangers. What was I thinking of?’

‘Nothing, forget it.’ He swung his legs over the edge of the bunk, and sat there, looking down at me. He had a small erection. . not that he could ever have a large one, to tell you the truth. . and in the full light of day, that made me feel a little awkward, and want to get out of there.

‘I’ll make room for you to get washed and dressed,’ I volunteered. ‘I’m off to the restaurant car for breakfast. I’ll order for you. Coffee and croissants enough?’

‘That’ll be fine.’

I left him to it and made my way along the train. As I sat down at a table for two, I realised I wasn’t sure whether I should be feeling like a whore or a social worker. I settled for the latter, and gave my double order to the waiter.

I had finished mine and was contemplating scoffing Frank’s croissant when he arrived. He must have been carrying a razor in his rucksack. . or maybe the Swiss Army knife did that job too. . for the slight stubble he had been sporting was gone. He had changed into a white T-shirt, so new it almost gleamed: I could see creases, as if to confirm that it had just come out of its wrapping. His hair was perfectly groomed and he smelled of something I thought I recognised as Aramis.

‘I wonder where we’ll be having breakfast tomorrow,’ he said, as he sat.

‘With respect, Frank,’ I told him, ‘I hope I’ll be having breakfast in Monaco with my son and his half-siblings, and that you’ll be safely reunited with Auntie Ade.’ It had occurred to me that maybe the smartest thing for me to do when the train pulled into Barcelona was to jump into the first available taxi, head for the airport, reclaim my Jeep and drive as fast as I could out of the Dodge Goddamned City that my life was threatening to become.

The croissant stopped halfway to his gob, as if he had read my mind. ‘I hope so too, love, but I need you with me when I go to see Justin.’

I frowned at him. ‘First, please don’t call me “love”. For the avoidance of doubt, what happened last night happened mainly because I felt sorry for you, and partly, I suppose, because I haven’t had sex for going on three years. Second, why is it so important that I go with you?’

‘Corroboration,’ he replied. ‘What the security services and Interpol tried to do through me and Gresch, and the way we were sold out from within the organisation, has massive implications. Governments have fallen for less, and Justin’s a member of the bloody government. But he’s a highly moral guy, not the sort to let a wrong go uncorrected. I can persuade him to take this to the highest level, but he’ll need both of us to tell our stories. If heads are to roll over this. . and they bloody well will, or my name’s not Frances with an “e”. . it’ll take your evidence as well as mine to convict them.’

I couldn’t argue with his reasoning; also, I thought of the weakness he’d revealed the night before. It was more than a possibility that whatever inner strength had sustained him though six weeks in hiding had been exhausted, and that he needed to draw on any resources I had in that department. ‘Right,’ I said, ‘I’ll come with you. Hopefully, he’ll arrange protection for us, and organise a proper search for Auntie Ade.’

‘Thanks. I appreciate it.’

I asked our waiter for more coffee, and for some toast and jam. As the train moved north, we finished breakfast, looking out of the window at the rugged skyline, through the slight haze that rose from the ground as the sun evaporated the dew that had settled through the night.

Before long the countryside began to change as we reached the outskirts of the urban sprawl that is Barcelona. The place has become a tourist Mecca since the 1992 Olympics helped to bring Gaudí’s wonderful architecture to the world’s attention, but all of that is to be found at its heart. Like virtually every city I can bring to mind, it ain’t very pretty on the outside.

The platforms in Sants Station aren’t architect designed either. They used to be darker than the London Underground, until new construction let some daylight in. As the train pulled in, we went back to our cabin and packed, if that’s what you could call it. For all my good intentions, I had become a bag-lady, alongside Boy Scout Frank with his rucksack. We took our time over it, waiting until no more passengers seemed to be leaving the train; only when the cleaners began to move in did we step down on to the platform.

He led the way up the escalator, ever cautious, in case our enemies had got ahead of us once more, a possibility if they had a car and had driven like hell through the night. But there was no sign of the Canadian or his mate. I was going to head for the taxi rank, as usual, but Frank vetoed that. Instead we left the station by a side entrance, went into a shop on the edge of the square, and mingled with the early-morning shoppers for a while, before leaving by a different door, into another street, further away from the station. My guide and protector seemed to be back on form.

We walked briskly along the shaded pavement until we saw a taxi available for hire. I flagged it and climbed in as Frank took one last look around, to be sure. ‘Hotel Arts, please,’ I told the driver. The courtesies are always observed in Spain. I don’t know another nation where ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ are used as often.

He nodded. ‘You’ve been to Córdoba?’ he asked, as he drove off.

‘How did you know that?’ I asked suspiciously; paranoia had me in its grip, good and proper.

‘Your bag,’ he replied. ‘I recognised it. My sister lives in Córdoba;

I go there a couple of times a year, and sometimes I shop with her. Did you visit the Mezquita?’

‘Yes. Everyone does, don’t they?’

‘All the tourists, yes. Are you tourists?’

‘What do you think?’

I saw him smile in the rear-view. ‘You, I’m not certain, but your friend, he’s not Spanish.’ I glanced at Frank, sitting silently beside me, looking inscrutably Asiatic.

‘No, that’s for sure. Actually, I’m Scottish, and so’s he. . well, half of him.’

‘That explains it. Scottish people speak good Spanish; better than the English. They cannot make our sounds.’ It hadn’t occurred to me before, but he was right: the ability to pronounce ‘loch’ properly does help a hell of a lot when speaking Castellano.

The morning traffic was at its peak, and so it took a while to reach the hotel. Our driver apologised for the delay, but said that it would have been worse if he had gone on to the throughway, the Ronda Litoral. Frank frowned doubtfully, but I knew that he was speaking the truth.

We pulled up in the covered driveway that is the entrance to Hotel Arts. A doorman came forward to greet us, but backed off when he saw how we were dressed and noted our lack of luggage. We walked up to Reception. ‘Has Mr Justin Mayfield checked in yet?’ Frank asked.

‘He arrived last night, sir,’ the clerk replied.

‘Is he still here?’

‘I believe so, sir.’

‘Could you page his room for me, please? Tell him that Frank McGowan is downstairs and needs to speak with him on a matter of great urgency.’

‘Certainly, sir.’ As we looked on, she lifted a handset and dialled. There must have been an answer for she turned her back towards us abruptly, as if to make it difficult for us to hear what she was saying. As I watched her back, she nodded, then swung round to face us once again and handed the phone to Frank. He took it from her, picking up the base as well. ‘Yes, Justin,’ I heard him say, ‘it’s me. No joke. I’m not alone either. My cousin’s here with me. She and I are in a bit of a crisis and we need your help.’ He was silent for a while. ‘Listen,’ he said eventually, ‘I didn’t come all this way to be brushed off. I’ll say two words to you, okay? Gretchen Roberts.’ I saw a smile cross his face and then he nodded. ‘Much better. Yes, we can do it that way if you want; she won’t mind.’ He recradled the instrument, and handed it back to the clerk. ‘We’re in,’ he told me. ‘At least, I am for now. He wants to see me first. When he’s one hundred per cent happy, he’ll call you up. You okay with that?’

I shrugged. ‘And if I wasn’t?’

‘Thanks, Prim. I’m sure it won’t be long.’

He headed for the lift: I found a big, soft chair in the lobby and sank into it. I was still carrying my handbag inside my shopping bag from Córdoba. It had some spare capacity; I rolled the remaining knickers inside the still-wrapped top and transferred them, then folded the redundant container, and slipped it under my seat.

The handbag was unzipped; inside my mobile, recharged, stared up at me. Bugger it, I thought. We were in a place of safety, more or less. If the clever people who were after us could triangulate my position, or whatever the hell it is they do, let them. I called Susie.

‘Prim,’ she exclaimed, before I had a chance to say a word. ‘Are you all right?’

‘We’re safe,’ I told her. ‘How’s Tom? He got to you, didn’t he?’

‘Tom’s fine. As we speak, he’s trying to teach the other two Spanish. And Charlie’s gone down a treat. I fear Janet and wee Jonathan won’t rest until they’ve got a four-legged pal of their own. But you: what’s been happening to you? I’ve had Mark Kravitz on the phone, wondering if I’d heard from you.’

‘I’ve had an interesting twenty-four hours. I’m with Cousin Frank; he’s in a bit of bother, and as a result so am I, but he’s sorting it out now.’

‘Given his past, are we talking about go-to-jail bother here?’

‘No, nothing like that.’ I seized on what she had said. ‘How did you know about his past?’

‘Oz told me, a few years ago.’ Of course he did, I thought. After he’d had Mark spell things out for him. ‘What about your aunt?’ Susie asked.

I confess that I hadn’t thought about Adrienne for a little while. The question brought the three-days threat back to mind. We only had two left, and yet I’d been thinking about cutting and running for Monaco. ‘No word,’ I replied, a little economically, truth-wise. ‘There are people after us, Susie. They have her, and they’re using her to force us to give ourselves up. Frank’s with someone now who can help, but it’ll have to be discreet, no high-profile police searches.’

‘Jesus. Is there anything I can do?’

‘Look after my boy. Call Kravitz and tell him that I’m not able to get in touch with him, but that I’m okay. Thank him for his help over the last couple of days.’

‘Couldn’t he do more? Mark’s got all sorts of connections.’

‘True, but there’s a chance that he might approach the wrong people. You sit tight, Susie.’

‘I will. But let me know as soon as everything’s sorted.’

‘As soon as it is, I’ll come straight to you.’

We said our farewells, and I called Alex Guinart. ‘Primavera, at last,’ he exclaimed. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Phone problem. Any sign of my aunt?’

‘We haven’t found her, if that’s what you mean. I told my boss what had happened and we have a search under way, but low-key. The lady is over seventy; sometimes older people wander off, get lost in the countryside, in the woods. Occasionally, someone vanishes and we never see them again. We’ve been asking questions, without scaring the tourists. That’s the standing order these days: be nice to the visitors.’

‘So there’s been nothing? No news of her?’

‘Not quite. One of my officers spoke to a French couple who were in St Martí yesterday morning. He was a retired policeman, bossy type, the sort who sees everything, knows everything. He said that he saw a woman and a man walk down through the village. She was quite tall for a woman, he told us, with dark but shiny hair, whatever that’s supposed to mean; not young, but not ancient either, in her sixties maybe. That sounds like your aunt, yes?’

‘That’s Adrienne. . or at least it’s a good description of her. What about him?’

‘Much younger: he was about one metre eighty, slim, with bleached-blond hair and a little moustache. The Frenchman said he was a homosexual, and probably American, but I have no idea how he came to either of those conclusions.’

Maybe not, I thought, but if he was describing the guy I knew as Willie Venable, and I was damn certain that he was, he was spot on with the first, and close to the mark, at the very least, with the second. ‘Did he say anything else about them?’ I asked Alex. ‘St Martí’s usually thronged. How did he come to remember that couple?’

‘He said they were walking very close together, as if he was helping her, holding her by the elbow. And they didn’t speak. When the Frenchman said, “Bonjour”, they both ignored him. What do you think, Primavera? Could it have been her?’

‘I’m damn certain of it. I think I know the guy. If you can, you might organise a search of non-EU-citizen airport landing cards, looking for the name Venable, Willie Venable, possibly American, but just as likely Canadian. It’s a long shot, though.’

‘I’ll make a call to the immigration office, in Madrid, to see if they have that name logged in their computer. When will you be back here?’

‘As soon as I can, but my first priority will be to get to Tom. My second,’ I told him, ‘will be to catch up with my goddaughter. How is she?’

‘She’s lovely, and growing by the day. You get back as soon as you can. I’ll keep an eye on your house till you do.’

I felt better after those calls, more in touch with reality, somehow. And for some strange reason, I felt better about Adrienne. If she was being held captive by ‘Willie Venable’, at least she was in the hands of someone I’d met, someone I’d spoken to, and someone who had a streak of kindness in him, unless my judgement of my fellow humans had gone completely out of the window. I wasn’t nearly as confident about ‘Sebastian Loman’. There had been a certain air of toughness about him. But the other one, even if he was an abductor, was capable, I hoped, of treating my aunt properly, and with respect.

I was still thinking positively when the receptionist called across to me: ‘Excuse me, madam, you may join your friend. Take the lift to Reception on the thirty-third floor, where you’ll be met.’

I thanked her and walked across to the bank of lifts; there was one waiting, and it zipped me up to thirty-three in around a quarter of that number in seconds. The doors opened, to reveal a man waiting on the other side. He was in his thirties, tall, a bit over six feet, immaculately dressed in pale green linen trousers and a crisp white shirt, with short sleeves and a button-down collar; I was sure that the lot was straight out of Marks amp; Spencer. His dark hair was perfectly cut, and a gold Rolex gleamed on his wrist as he held out his hand in greeting. His face was vaguely familiar, from Sky News coverage, and from the British newspapers that I buy occasionally.

‘Mrs Blackstone,’ Justin Mayfield exclaimed, with a politician’s enveloping bonhomie, ‘how good to see you. I had the pleasure of meeting your late husband on a couple of occasions through my ministerial office. A fine man, a great British achiever and a very sad loss.’

‘My late ex-husband,’ I felt obliged to point out. ‘Many people share your views,’ I chose my words carefully, ‘and that pleases me, for my son’s sake most of all.’

‘Come and join us,’ said the junior culture minister. ‘My friend Frank has been filling me in on your remarkable adventures over the last day or so, and on his over the last few weeks.’ He led me into a room that occupied an entire side of the great steel-and-glass tower, offering panoramic views of the Port Olympic and the Mediterranean. There was a waiter on duty, but nobody else in sight, other than Frank; he was sitting on a sofa at the far end of the room, with plates and cups on the table before him. ‘Coffee for the lady,’ Mayfield said to the waiter as we passed him, ‘and a selection of sandwiches.’ He ushered me to the sofa, then took a seat facing us.

‘Where’s your meeting?’ I asked him.

‘Downstairs,’ he replied, ‘at midday. I’m seeing the former mayor of Barcelona, from 1992, and my opposite number in the government. ’

‘National or Catalan?’ The question seemed to take him by surprise. I guessed that he might be one of those Westminster types who look down their noses at devolved parliaments.

‘Oh, national, of course.’ I interpreted his superior smile as confirmation of my suspicion. He waited as coffee and some very fancy sandwiches were placed before me, and as the waiter withdrew to a distance. ‘Now,’ he continued quietly, looking at me, ‘from what Frank has told me, this is a very serious situation. He’s says he’s been set up by an informer in the security service, or Interpol. Now your lives are in danger, and that of your aunt. Does that sum it up?’

‘Succinctly. They’ve already murdered one man, two days ago, in Sevilla. I saw his body being taken out of the house where he was held. Yesterday the man I believe killed him tried to kidnap me, together with a female accomplice. If Frank hadn’t been there to intervene, I. . I might have gone the same way, maybe found on a park bench, dead, with a needle stuck in my arm and my prints on the syringe.’

‘Then let’s thank God he was there,’ said the minister, ‘and as resourceful as he’s proved.’ He grinned at him. ‘You’ve changed since we worked together, chum. That spell inside must have done you good after all.’

‘I don’t recommend it,’ my little cousin retorted. There was something childlike about his expression. I couldn’t help it: I thought of him sucking my breast, and felt my cheeks go hot under my tan.

‘Maybe not.’

‘Can you help us?’ I asked Mayfield, point-blank.

He turned towards me, leaning closer to both of us. ‘I’ve heard whispers of these black operations,’ he said, his voice lower. ‘They’re a European initiative, and I’ve also heard that not everyone in our security service approves of them. So Frank’s story hasn’t taken me completely by surprise.’ He looked me in the eye. ‘Yes, Primavera, I can help you. But I have to do it very carefully, or I could put you in even bigger danger. Before I can initiate action, I have to get back to London. My programme here is informal, but it’s fixed, so I can’t cancel any of it. However, I’ll be back in Westminster tomorrow; as soon as I get there, I’ll ask for a private meeting with the security minister. I know her well, and I expect that she’ll go ape-shit when she hears what’s happened. Meantime, I need you to lie low for twenty-four hours. As soon as I’ve briefed the minister, we’ll try to bring you in, and we’ll round up the people who are chasing you.’

‘And Frank’s mum?’ I demanded. ‘My aunt? What about her?’

‘I gather that you still have two days of this deadline to give yourselves up. She’ll be safe until then.’

‘Or as safe as she can be,’ Frank muttered gloomily. ‘We can’t even be certain she’s still alive now, or if she is, that they’ll let her go.’

‘So why don’t we offer to turn ourselves in,’ I suggested, ‘at the end of the deadline? Your people could close in then, and round them up.’

Mayfield frowned. ‘There would be an unacceptable risk of something going wrong. If we did that and any of you was killed, the government would be seen to have sanctioned using two civilians as bait. None of my colleagues could ever be seen to go along with that.’

‘Unofficially?’

‘Not even. You take that course of action and you’ll be on your own.’

‘So what you’re saying is that you can save us, but that Adrienne’s probably had it. Am I correct?’

‘I’m trying desperately not to say that,’ the minister admitted. ‘Do what I say: lie low and wait. We’ll do all we can to rescue Ms McGowan.’

Frank jumped to his feet, taking me completely by surprise. ‘Fuck off, Justin,’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s not good enough. If push comes to shove, we can look after ourselves. I’m going to do all I can to rescue my mother. Come on, Prim.’

I could have stayed there. I could have let him go on his own and taken a room in the Hotel Arts for as long as proved necessary, or I could have gone back to my earlier plan, pick up the car and leave at full speed. But I didn’t. I owed the little guy, didn’t I? Someone had to watch his back. So I stood up and limped after him, still favouring my cracked toe as we headed for the door.

‘You’ll be on your own,’ Mayfield called after us.

‘So what’s new?’ Frank yelled back at him, holding up his right middle finger as a parting gesture of friendship.