Inhuman Remains

Forty-one

We had just returned from the beach at Montgó, where we’d gone to escape the strong afternoon breeze that was stirring up the sand at St Martí. We were in the living room, drinking carrot and orange juice and Coronita beer respectively, and Sky News was on the box. I allow one telly in the house, and that’s all, although sometimes I cheat by watching on-line.

I wasn’t paying much attention as the evening bulletin began. The main story of the day came from Westminster, where the dour and unloved Prime Minister had attempted to freshen up his image by freshening up his cabinet.

One by one, the losers appeared, one or two with brave smiles, the rest about to trip over their long faces. And then the winners were paraded, in no obvious pecking order: third in line, the new Home Secretary, was. . Justin Mayfield, MP.

An official photograph appeared on screen, and then the programme cut to live footage from the doorstep of a posh terraced house, a red-brick job in a nouveau riche suburb like Fulham or Herne Hill. There he was, the man I’d last seen being given a one-finger salute by Frank as we wished him goodbye, smiling haughtily alongside his smug-looking little wife, a stumpy blondette.

‘I know her,’ Tom exclaimed.

‘Yes, I know him too. He’s on the telly a lot, but I met him a couple of weeks ago.’

‘Not him.’ Tom sighed, in his be-patient-with-her voice. ‘Her. I’ve seen her.’

I stared at him. ‘You must be mixing her up with somebody else.’

‘I’m not,’ he insisted. ‘I’ve seen her.’

‘Where?’

‘Here, in the village. It was her, I know it.’

Tom is brilliant with faces. I decided not to argue. ‘When was this?’

‘A few months ago. April, just after school started again. Remember the day the old car broke down when you were coming to pick me up, and I had to come home on my bike and wait for you in Can Coll?’

‘Yes, I remember that.’

‘It was then. I saw her then, and I spoke to her.’

‘You mean she spoke to you?’

He shook his head. ‘No, I spoke to her. I asked her why she was videoing our house.’

‘She was doing what?’

‘I told you, Mum.’ I was trying his patience.

‘As in, she was filming the whole village?’

‘No, just here, so I asked her why, and she just laughed at me and told me not to be nosy, so I told her it was our house, and that you wouldn’t like it.’

‘Then what?’

‘Then she went away, out of the square, just as the man at Can Coll came over to see what was happening.’

‘Well, isn’t that something?’ I murmured.

My telly is fed through a very clever little box. Among other things it lets you rewind programmes, and that was what I did with the Sky News bulletin, running it back until I saw that upwardly mobile house and its self-satisfied occupants. The box also lets me freeze frames. I’d never used the facility until then, but when I did I saw that it gave a clean, sharp image. I went right up to the screen and peered at Mrs Mayfield.

It took a second or two, but I realised I’d seen her before too. She hadn’t been blonde then. She’d been dark-haired, and she’d been calling herself Lidia Bromberg.

I tossed the remote to Tom so he could watch what he liked, and dashed into the hall. I was about to pick up the phone, when I remembered Moira and thought better of it. I had reported my mobile lost and they’d given me another, but I still had Adrienne’s. I used that to call Mark Kravitz on his.

‘How are you feeling?’ I asked him. Even as I spoke, my mind was working, adding pieces to a jigsaw.

‘Perfectly all right. I have a condition, Primavera; I’m not an invalid. I’ve had an okay day, in fact.’

‘Then I’m about to upgrade it to brilliant. Would you like to shove one up that Moira woman?’

‘In the sense of retribution, yes.’

‘Then dig up all you can for me about the wife of the new Home Secretary. I think my son has just made her day as bad as yours has been good.’