Inhuman Remains

Five

Tom rejoined us at seven o’clock, his cut-off time for reporting back to Mum. (When he gets to be eight, it’ll be eight o’clock, when he’s nine it’ll be nine, when he’s ten. . we’ll see.) In fact he had never been out of my sight, since he had spent his time swimming with his friends on the guarded beach, playing a slightly over-ambitious game of volleyball, and tidying up empties around the cabin bar, a labour of love for which he and his mates are rewarded with the odd free soft drink. Tom never goes off on his own: he’s a gregarious boy, and when he’s not with me he’s with friends. He always tells me where he’s going, and if it’s too far for him to cycle, or involves the public roads, I take him there and pick him up. We may have a relaxed lifestyle, but I’m a responsible mother, and nowhere near the soft touch for him that some people may believe I am.

We let Adrienne decide where she wanted to eat, and what. From the options we laid out she chose a takeaway paella (I always leave those to the experts) from Mesón del Conde, to be eaten on the east-facing top-floor terrace that’s accessed from my bedroom. That suited me, since all the restaurants are jammed on Saturdays in the summer and also since there was stuff I wanted to ask her.

I didn’t get round to it, though, until after ten, when Tom had gone off to bed with Charlie, and his new friend Harry Potter (I plan to allow him only one a year: I reckon that the later books are a bit too dark for pre-teen kids), leaving us old folks in the candlelight, looking out across the bay and starting on our second bottle of Palacio de Bornos, from El Celler Petit, our local wine shop.

‘So,’ I began, settling down into my chair, ‘what’s this crap about semi-retirement? You don’t look ill. Are you?’

‘Of course not.’ Adrienne snorted. ‘Why shouldn’t I ease off? I’ve passed the age I will not mention, Primavera. Am I not entitled to enjoy my golden years?’

‘Yes, but last time we met you told me you were fit as a tick and that you’d die in harness. It’s not in your nature to ease off. You and my mother may have lived your lives in very different ways, but you’re cut from the same genetic cloth. She worked until she died. If she’d gone on till she was ninety it wouldn’t have been any different. She couldn’t do inactive. She wrote six days a week, then dragged my dad down to church every Sunday, but it was to fill her spare day, rather than to commune with her Maker. What do you do at the weekends, Auntie?’

‘I review my clients’ royalty statements, and I catch up on some other book-keeping. But I go out a lot, to the Tate Modern, for example. And I’m a regular at the NFT,’ she added, proudly but a little defiantly also.

‘Exactly. You aren’t capable of sitting on your arse and doing nothing, any more than Mum was, any more than I am, if I’m honest. So what’s behind this sudden and irrational decision?’

‘I have an assistant in the agency, Fanette. You remember her: you met her last time you came to see me in London. I felt it was time to give her more responsibility, with a view to her taking over from me completely.’

I laughed as I topped up her glass. ‘Adrienne, she must be pushing fifty-five by now. She’ll be ready to retire before you are. Come on, straight answer. I’m my mother’s daughter: you couldn’t bullshit her, and it won’t work with me either.’

She frowned as she looked across the wide bay, at the lights of Santa Margarita. ‘It seems that it won’t,’ she murmured. Her eyes snapped back towards me. ‘I had decided that I wasn’t going to broach the subject, you know; after this afternoon, after seeing what a nice life you have now, I realise I have no business interrupting it.’

‘With what?’

‘A mad idea I had. But forget it: it’s quite inappropriate. Your father would go berserk if he knew I had even thought about it.’

I chuckled again. ‘Dad doesn’t do berserk. Dad does “Primavera knows best”, meaning that if your idea is that crazy I’ll be the first to tell you. So out with it.’

‘If you insist. It’s Frank.’

Why hadn’t I guessed that? I should have known from the off that the only person in the world who could divert Auntie Ade’s attention from her agency and her clients was her precious wayward son.

‘What about him?’ I asked, trying to stay casual. ‘He’s not in trouble again, is he?’

‘I don’t know. The fact is, Primavera, I don’t even know where he is.’›

‘Is that unusual? I mean,’ I added hurriedly, as I saw her eyebrows start to knit, ‘does Frank always make a point of letting you know where he is?’

‘Yes, he does,’ she said, mollified. ‘He always keeps in touch.’

‘How?’

‘Mostly by email: he says he has a lap-top and that he’s on-line virtually all the time. We live in a virtual world now, my dear.’

‘But when did you see him last?’

She thought about her answer. ‘Fifteen months ago, on the first anniversary of the day that I reached the age I never mention. I thought I’d got away without anyone twigging I was a year older, but Frank turned up out of the blue and took me to dinner at the Savoy.’

‘And you haven’t seen him since then?’

‘No.’

‘You said “out of the blue”. Does that mean he wasn’t living in London at the time?’

‘He hasn’t lived in London since they gave him his passport back, and that was going on for three years ago. When he got out of the pokey he had to report to a probation officer for a year and have a registered address, so he moved in with me. But as soon as he was free to travel, he was off. A pity: when he was with me he got involved with the agency. He did very well: for a while I entertained hopes that he’d come in with me as a partner, but when I made the offer, he told me it wasn’t what he wanted to do.’

‘And what did he want to do?’

‘He was rather vague about that.’

‘Where did he go when he moved out?’

‘Switzerland. He got a job as a chalet maid in Davos, in an international ski facility called Cinq Pistes.’

‘As a what?’

‘Chalet maid. I’m not kidding. He filled out an application on the Internet, using his proper name, Frances. The company who owned the resort assumed he was female and took him on.’

‘What happened when he turned up?’

‘He showed them the name on his passport and pointed out that he had ticked the “M” gender box on the form, so any misunderstanding was theirs. They huffed and puffed, but in the end they agreed that he could give it a try.’ She smiled. ‘He lasted two weeks as a cleaner: that was how long it took them to work out he was rather over-qualified for the job. They moved him into the office, into the publicity department at first, but within six months he was head of sales and marketing.’

‘Is he still there?’

‘No. When he took me to the Savoy, he told me he was being moved to another company within the group. He was to become a director and sales manager of a new hotel and casino complex that’s being readied for construction just outside Seville. A few days later, he called me to say he was in post, and to give me his new business address. After that I heard from him, or I got in touch with him, every couple of weeks or so. He told me he was very busy, and kept apologising for never coming to see me. I understood, of course: business has always been my priority too. He sent me flowers at Christmas and on my last birthday. Everything seemed to be going fine, until suddenly. . it all stopped.’ Her voice faltered, and she did her best to bury her face in her wine glass for a few seconds.

I waited for a moment. ‘When did you hear from him last?’ I asked, when I judged she was ready.

‘In the middle of May,’ she replied. ‘Around six weeks ago. He sent me an email saying he’d be in London on business, and that he’d stay with me for a few days, but he never arrived. I had his room ready, and the fridge stocked with all his favourites, but he didn’t show up. I called him and asked where he was, but his phone was on voicemail. I sent him a text, but got no reply. So I sulked.’

‘Weren’t you worried then?’

‘Not really. Frank’s never been all that reliable when it comes to keeping dates with his mum.’

‘How long did your moody last?’

‘About a month. I’d planned to sit it out until he got in touch with me to apologise, but it got too much for me. So I sent him an email, asking how he was, as if nothing had happened. Again, no reply. I texted him and called him, but it was the same. Finally I called the office number he’d given me, and asked to speak to the sales manager. I was put through to a woman. I told her I didn’t want to speak to her, but to Frank McGowan.’

‘And?’

Adrienne’s carefully drawn eyebrows rose. ‘And she said, “Who?” I repeated myself. She said, “Who’s he?” in a dry way, and in a mid-European accent that I didn’t care for. I told her that he was her sales manager and my son, and advised her to mind her tone, to which she told me that she was the sales manager, that her name was Lidia Bromberg, and that she had never heard of any Frank McGowan.’

‘So it was bullshit: the big job in Switzerland, the promotion to Spain, it was all crap?’

‘No!’ my aunt protested. ‘It was real. I visited him in Davos. I had a week there, in the resort, as his guest. So was the casino; the number I called was on his business card, plus he sent me some literature on the place.’

‘Then he’s been fired, Auntie. He’s been up to something, he’s been caught and they’ve sacked him.’

‘If that’s so, why not tell me? Why would that woman deny his very existence?’

I didn’t have a snappy answer for that one. ‘What have you done about it?’ I asked instead.

‘Nothing that’s worked. I contacted the embassy in Madrid, but they had no knowledge of him. The man I spoke to assured me that if he’d been arrested, or involved in a serious accident, they’d have been informed by the Spanish authorities. He checked with all nine consular offices, and he even contacted the Guardia Civil, to see if they had any unidentified. .’ She paused. ‘But there was no one.’

‘How about his friends? Lady friends?’

‘There was a girl in Davos, Susannah. I met her when I was over there: she was head receptionist at the resort. I called her. She told me that they kept in touch after Frank moved to Spain, but there was nothing between them any more. She’d had a Christmas card from him, but nothing since. She did say she thought he was involved with someone else, but she couldn’t give me a name.’

‘How about London? Anyone there?’

‘Not many. His business colleagues dropped him when the trouble arose, and so did most of his school chums. There are still one or two, though, people who stayed loyal. Justin’s the closest, Justin Mayfield. He and Frank worked in the House of Commons, in the dying days of the last Tory government. They were both researchers: Frank worked for a junior minister and Justin was with an opposition back-bencher. ’

‘What does he do now?’

‘He’s a junior minister himself; number two in the Culture department. He’s been an MP for seven years. I called him, of course; his assistant said he was busy, and that he would get back to me. He hasn’t though; not yet, at any rate.’

Some long-buried instincts started to murmur within me. I pushed myself out of my chair. ‘Let’s get this right, Adrienne,’ I said. ‘You’re telling me that Frank’s vanished into thin air, and that the company he was supposed to be working for has denied all knowledge of him.’

‘That sums it up.’

‘What about the bird in Davos, Susannah? If she and Frank had a thing going, she must be concerned too. Can’t you get more out of her?’

‘Maybe. I don’t know.’

‘Then it’s time you spoke to her again. And it’s time you rattled the man Justin’s cage again. If he’s Frank’s closest friend, it’s time he was told about the situation, if nothing else. As a government minister he’ll have clout.’

And then a thought struck me, like a car I hadn’t seen coming. I found myself grinning at her. ‘But that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’ I exclaimed. ‘You want me to find him for you.’

‘No, no, no.’ She shook her head, but not quite emphatically enough. ‘How could you do that, really? You have Tom, you have a dog. Your hands are quite full enough, Primavera.’

‘I have a computer with a broadband Internet connection.’

‘So have I, but even today, there are limits to what the web can achieve. I need a hands-on approach.’ She sighed heavily. ‘And, yes, I admit that when I decided to visit you, I did have in mind the fact that you and Tom’s father ran an investigation business a few years ago, before all the later stuff happened to you. But now that I’ve seen how you live, I can’t possibly expect. .’

‘No, you can’t, Adrienne.’ I picked up my glass from the table and took a sip of sauvignon blanc. It was warm, so I refreshed it from the bottle in the ice bucket. As I leaned against the terrace rail, ostensibly looking down at my aunt, I found myself seeing other things, scenes from times past, from affairs that might have been described as adventures, with a tall figure by my side, one whose smile and good looks were a match for a much darker persona. Old thrills, old dangers, all in the past. Compared to which, asking a few questions about my crooked, probably recidivist cousin. . ‘But now that we’ve established that,’ I continued, ‘if you were able to look after Tom and Charlie for a few days, I suppose I could catch a flight down to Sevilla.’

She stayed poker faced: I made a mental note never to play cards with her. ‘I couldn’t possibly allow that, Prim. .’

There were men out on the bay, in boats, fishing for squid. I could see, like fireflies in the night, the bright lights they used to draw their catch to the surface. I grinned at her, aware that she was luring me into her net. ‘Cut the crap,’ I retorted. ‘We both know that you could, and that you will.’