As Easy as Murder

Fifteen

I offered Mark a bed for the night. . even with Jonny in residence I still had a couple of spare rooms. . but out of politeness only, for I didn’t expect him to accept. His presence would have begged too many questions, but also, there was the potential problem of the stairs. While his remission was remarkable, given the lows he had experienced, he carried the stick for a reason.

‘Thanks, Primavera,’ he said, ‘but I’ve checked into a hotel in L’Escala; the Nieves Mar. It has a lift, so everything’s on one level, effectively. Suits me.’

He headed for it, to contact his controller, while I headed home to cook for my boys, and one more, since I’d told Jonny to bring Uche for dinner. I’d picked up some steaks on the way back from my business visit, so there wasn’t a lot of preparation to be done, just some baking potatoes to wrap in tinfoil and stick in the oven, and some onions and peppers to be chopped ready for frying in oil. Mind you, my fingers were at risk as I did the chopping, for my mind was still whirling with everything Mark had told me.

Until that afternoon, Robert Palmer had been a rock singer, dead way too soon, one of my favourites; sometimes, when I threw a moody, as I did with monthly regularity in those days, Oz used to call me Sulky Girl, after one of his songs. But suddenly he was someone else, someone with a shady past and an endangered present.

The man had quite a story; pity it could never be told. Some life, some rebirth. Quite a glib talker, Mr Cowling had been; he’d taken me in, and when it comes to people, experience has made me hard to fool. Patterson the Second was so glib that he’d even talked his way into a new life. Yet why did he need it? That was the one problem I still had with Mark’s account. Once the second witness had been taken out of play, why hadn’t he simply led Interpol and the Americans straight to his former partner? ‘That man’s arm must be very long indeed,’ I mused.

Such contemplation came to an end when Tom arrived back from his run with Charlie, closely followed by Jonny. Yes, Uche was coming, he said, but he’d gone home to shower first.

‘How’s your new practice base?’ I asked. ‘Excellent. Lena gave it her seal of approval, so everyone’s happy.’

‘Lena’s still here?’

‘Yes. Lars isn’t playing in this week’s tournament either, so they’ve kept the rental house on for another week.’

Dinner was delayed. I’d rubbed tomatoes and garlic into the cut loaf I’d bought, and I was ready to put all the rest together, but one ingredient was missing. Uche. After the third check of my watch, I frowned at Jonny. ‘You did tell him seven thirty sharp, not seven thirty for eight?’

‘Yes,’ he insisted, heading for the door. ‘I’ll go and chase him up.’

He returned ten minutes later, unaccompanied. ‘I’m sorry, Auntie P,’ he said sheepishly. ‘He’s not there. He’s probably pulled; he was on the phone to those Swedish girls we met yesterday on the beach. He’s a bastard for that. His cock works like a divining rod, only it’s not water it sources. He follows wherever it points.’

‘An observation I hope you won’t share with your cousin,’ I told him, with an attempt at severity. Then I shrugged. ‘Bugger him. Wherever he is, the menu won’t be as good. Come on, let’s eat, before the tomato bread dries out.’

For once, our dinner table discussion wasn’t all about golf. Very little of Jonny’s shop was talked, in fact; instead, Tom started to quiz me about my trip to the winery, and I found myself giving them a rundown on the product range and then on the production process. I even found myself opening a bottle of one of the high-end reds, although Tom wasn’t allowed a demo of that, only a sniff.

He didn’t ask about Mark until we were almost finished. I’d known that he would, eventually, and when he did, it was straight out. ‘Why is Mr Kravitz here?’

I can’t lie to my son. If I ever do, something will break, irreparably. ‘He’s on business,’ I replied; the answer that I had prepared.

‘What does he do, this chap?’ Jonny asked.

His cousin chuckled. ‘He’s a secret agent.’

‘Tom!’ I protested. ‘Don’t exaggerate. Mark’s a security consultant. He’s here on assignment, that’s all, and he looked me up.’ See? Not a word of a lie.

‘Mmm,’ he murmured; that’s my son’s way of saying, ‘And the rest!’

Uche was still absent without leave the next morning. Jonny got no reply when he went to knock him up. He was more than a little angry, for his clubs were in the penthouse, but I persuaded the owner to open it with a back-up key, so that they could be liberated. ‘We are going to have serious words, Mr Wigwe and I,’ he declared as he lugged the massive bag back up to my place. ‘He’s on ten per cent of a chunk of money, and he’s got to realise that you don’t just earn it at the weekend. Wednesday morning on the practice ground is as important as Sunday afternoon on the course.’

I calmed him down with a promise that when Uche showed I would tear a piece off him myself, then sent him on his way to Pals.

I’d arranged to meet the ‘security consultant’ for coffee at his hotel. As it turned out, the coffee was for one; Mark isn’t allowed any strong stimulants, so he had plain water. He was hyper nonetheless. I could tell that he had news and that he was keen to share it with me.

‘Your pickpocket’s been identified,’ he said, quietly, as soon as I’d been served at our terrace table, beside the hotel pool. ‘He is, or was, Bulgarian, and he hadn’t been seen for over a year, not since the raid on Robert Palmer’s factory. His name was Ilian Genchev, he was an agent of Interpol in the Sofia bureau and he was assumed to have been the leak, given the timing of his disappearance.’

‘That’s quick work,’ I commented. I could tell that he was pleased with his team’s progress, and that praise was in order. . but only so much. ‘I assume that he left his name behind along with his country.’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘Have your people come up with the identity he assumed, or with a last known address?’

‘No,’ he admitted, ‘but give them a chance.’

‘Fine, but until they establish those things, does knowing who he was take us one step forward?’

‘Not yet, but come on, Primavera, it’s confirmation that he wasn’t just some fucking petty thief. It rules that out completely.’

‘Okay, so we’ve shuffled an inch or two forward, but essentially we’re still stuck on square one.’

‘That’s a pretty negative way of looking at it.’

‘But not incorrect?’

He sighed. ‘No.’

‘What about McGuigan? Have they made any progress with her?’

‘No. It’s still early days there. You have to remember that the game’s changed in the last twenty-four hours, and my task with it, thanks to you. I was brought in to warn you off searching for Robert Palmer, but the information you gave me stood that on its head. Now we need to find him.’

‘If he’s still alive.’

‘I’d bet that he is,’ Mark said. ‘He’ll be hidden away somewhere.’

‘What makes you so confident?’ I asked.

‘He strikes me as the sort of guy who’d follow advice. People like Palmer aren’t simply given a new passport and credit card and told to get on with it. There is a certain amount of training; absorption of every detail of the new persona’s background, education, career history, family names and professions, and so on, but it doesn’t stop there. Subjects may also be told what to do if their cover is blown and they’re out of reach of their handlers.’

‘For example?’

‘As a rule, they’d be advised to have a bolt-hole identified and ready for emergency use; a safe house by another name. Ideally the witness protection people will know where it is, so they can locate the client once he’s gone to ground and get him to safety.’

‘From which I guess that Palmer doesn’t have one, or you’d be heading there right now.’

His face shifted into something that might have been a smile. ‘He doesn’t have one that Metcalfe knows about, but. . everything you’ve told me he’s done, the way he made his escape and what he did once he was clear of the course, it says to me that he did have a plan.’ He looked at me. ‘Primavera, what can you tell me about his movements when he was here?’

I stared back at him. ‘Not a lot,’ I replied. ‘I only met the man the weekend before last, then our Jonny turned up out of the blue and I was swept up in looking after him and in the golf tournament. The only movements I know about were between L’Escala and the course and back again, and to St Martí for dinner a couple of times.’

‘Can you remember anything he might have said on those dinner dates, about places he’d been to or seen around here?’

I thought about his question for as long as it took me to draw a complete blank. ‘Nah, nuffink. Sorry, Mark, can’t help. We need Shirley for that and she ain’t here.’

‘No, but. .’

Whatever it was that he was about to say was cut off short. His eyes moved from me to a point over my right shoulder, and registered annoyance.

I stared to turn, but a voice told me who had distracted him before I got there. ‘Primavera,’ Alex Guinart began. ‘Excuse me, but can I have a word?’ He spoke Catalan.

‘And a coffee if you play your cards right,’ I retorted as he reached us.

‘I don’t have time,’ he said, brusquely. ‘I was on my way to St Martí when by sheer chance I saw your jeep in the car park. Is your mobile battery flat?’

He was using his cop voice with me; I didn’t like that. ‘No, it’s switched off. I know that most people have forgotten you can do that, but I haven’t.’ He looked at Mark, as if he was about to ask him for his passport. ‘This is my friend, Mark Kravitz,’ I told him, in English. ‘I’ve mentioned him to you before. Mark, this is local law enforcement, Alex Guinart. From his expression, either his piles are killing him or there’s something he desperately wants to tell me.’

I had indeed told Alex about Mark, and I’d described his profession in general terms. He softened a little and they shook hands. I nodded towards a vacant chair. He yielded and pulled it across, but even as he sat, I could see that he was still agitated.

‘What’s up?’ I asked.

‘Do you know a man called Kalu Wigwe?’ he countered, sticking to English.

‘Yes, I do. I met him on Sunday at the golf tournament. He’s a wealthy Nigerian, an emir of part of that country. He’s also Uche’s dad. He offered to take me for a ride in his great big plane, but I reckoned there would be a fare involved and I didn’t fancy paying it. What’s he done? Propositioned the mayor’s wife?’

‘He hasn’t done anything.’ He looked at Mark. ‘This is in confidence, okay?’ he asked.

‘You may rely on my discretion, sir.’ The reply was impassive; it was also in perfect Castellano.

‘A couple of hours ago,’ Alex continued, relieved to be free to speak his own language, ‘he was kidnapped at gunpoint from his aircraft, in the private section of Girona Airport. His absence wasn’t discovered until forty-five minutes ago, when ground staff went on board to find out why the plane was making no move to meet its booked departure time, and why the crew weren’t responding to radio messages. They found them tied up and gagged. When they were freed, they told us what had happened. They were expecting Mr Wigwe, at eight thirty. Fifteen minutes before that his son arrived, pointed a gun at them, made them lie down and secured them. He bound them hand and foot then dumped them in the galley, which is lockable. The rest they didn’t see but heard well enough. Kalu Wigwe arrived, voices were raised, and then there was silence. Nobody saw them leave but one of the airport workers told our people that there was a car parked on the concourse by the steps; an old battered Seat Ibiza that had once been white. It didn’t occur to him to ask the driver what the hell it was doing there, but he did give us a description of the man who was waiting behind the wheel. A white man, oldish, but still with dark hair, wearing a blazer with gold buttons.’ He frowned at me. ‘Who the hell does that sound like, Primavera?’

I stared at him, absorbing what he had just told me and coming to terms with the implications. ‘Who does it sound like?’ I mimicked. ‘You know bloody well,’ I replied, ‘but forgive me if I deal with the “what” of the situation. My nephew’s pal, his bagman, has turned out to be a gun-toting kidnapper, and I’ve let him mix with my son. I’ve made him welcome in my house, treated him like family. I’ve been betrayed; let me deal with that for a little, Alex.’

Then I looked at Mark and I could tell that his mind was exactly in synch with mine and that we had reached the same conclusion. It looked as if one very big question had just been answered, but for sure, it had been replaced by a whole new set of riddles. ‘Well?’

My friend nodded. ‘I reckon my remit has just been overridden,’ he murmured. He looked at Alex. ‘Same basis?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘What I’m about to tell you is between us,’ he said, ‘okay?’

The acting intendant frowned. ‘I’m a police officer, Mr Kravitz. I can’t make that promise.’

‘With respect, Mr Guinart, you’re an investigator, so you’re bound to have confidential discussions all the time, with informants and the like. Just listen to what I have to tell you and we’ll see where we go from there.’

‘Yes,’ he murmured, cautiously. ‘We’ll see.’

Alex took off his uniform hat and sat back in his chair, as Mark launched into the story of the colourful background of the man he had known as Patterson Cowling. He told it from the beginning, meticulously, ensuring that every chapter was understood before moving on to the next. He omitted only one piece of information, the background of the man whose identity Robert Palmer had been given, but that really wasn’t something that ‘local law enforcement’ needed to know.

When the tale was told, Alex took a single huge breath, then exhaled, loudly. ‘And you want me to keep this thing among the three of us,’ he said. ‘Not tell my bosses. Are you crazy?’

Mark nodded, affably. ‘Probably. But how would their being in the loop help us at this stage?’

His eyes widened, then he laughed. ‘Help “us”?’ he repeated. ‘Mr Kravitz, Mark, I hate to remind you, but this is Spain, my territory, so there is no “us”, just me, and my investigation; my double murder investigation which has just been complicated still further by a kidnapping.’

‘Sure, Alex, this is your patch. But you’re wrong; I do have a locus here. I’m working for two agencies, one of them being Interpol, of which Spain is a member; I think you’ll find that gives me a fair bit of clout. I don’t want to be rude, threatening even less, but I could make a phone call and within half an hour you would be taken out of the game. Trust me, I could, but I don’t want to; because other people would get involved and we don’t have time to wait for them, because you’re Primavera’s friend, and because from what she’s told me, you’re a damn good cop.’

‘Thanks,’ Alex said. ‘But I’m a cop with a career and a family. I don’t want to join the private sector, as a security guard in a bank, or driving an armoured car. I have a problem with this.’

‘Or an opportunity, depending on how you view it. You’re the man in charge here, yes? The senior investigator?’

‘Yes.’

‘So you call the shots?’

‘To an extent,’ he conceded, warily.

‘Then work with me on this. What I’ve just told you, about Robert Palmer; the great mystery, the secret he’s keeping, has been the identity of his partner, the man from whom he’s hiding, in fear of his life. Now, put these facts together: last Sunday, he disappeared from the viewing stand at PGA Catalunya, at the very moment that Kalu Wigwe walked into the driving range. This man, this rich and powerful man, has just flown into Spain, ostensibly to support his son’s player in the championship, but also in the wake of the murders of Ilian Genchev and Christine McGuigan, two people believed to have been hired to confirm Palmer’s identity.’

Alex raised a hand, palm out, like a traffic cop. ‘Hold on, hold on, hold on,’ he exclaimed. ‘Who the hell is Ilian Genchev?’

‘That’s not really important,’ Mark said, dismissively. ‘This is. Now, three days after Palmer fled, a man who fits his description as closely as you’d need for a provisional identification, at worst, is involved in kidnapping Wigwe from his plane. So,’ he continued, ‘Mr Senior Investigating Officer, what are we entitled to suspect from that?’

He sighed, a concession of sorts. ‘I get it,’ he murmured. ‘Mr Wigwe may well be the man Palmer’s partner, or so close to him that he will recognise him for sure, even as he is today.’

‘May be?’ I protested. ‘Alex, it’s a bloody certainty.’

‘No,’ Mark intervened. ‘It’s not; Palmer may have had other enemies. But it’s highly likely. If we ever want to know for sure, we’ll have to find Kalu fast, for I don’t believe he’ll survive this. But there are other questions, Primavera, you know that.’

‘Too right. What the hell is Uche doing snatching his father from his plane? Could we be wrong? Could Uche be Palmer’s partner?’

‘No chance, he’s too young.’

‘Then why is he hand in hand with Palmer?’

‘Yes, that one’s valid, and one more. Why did they take him off the plane at all? They had a gun on the crew; they could have flown out and taken him anywhere, but they chose to stay in Spain. Something else is going on here. Alex, if we track them down, you get all the answers and you close off all your investigations. Will you work with us, for now?’

He frowned. ‘For a very little while,’ he decided. ‘If only because I see nothing else to do. What do you need from me?’

‘Contact your office; tell them that the matter of the kidnapping is in hand, that you have new information and that you’re following it up.’

‘That’s all?’

‘Yes. While you’re doing that, I’ll make a call, and Primavera, so will you. I want to know as much as I can about Uche. Clearly there’s more to him than first impressions tell you.’

‘Do you want me to speak to Jonny?’

‘Let’s keep him out of it. I reckon that Graham Metcalfe can find out more than Jonny knows. No. Remember what I was saying about bolt-holes? Well, I want you to track down Shirley Gash, wherever she is, to see if she can help with that. Can you do that?’

I nodded. ‘With luck. She should be in Singapore just now; her cruise liner isn’t due to sail until tomorrow. If I contact the company she’s sailing with, they should be able to tell me what hotel she’s in.’

And then my common sense switched itself on. I checked my watch and realised that where Shirley was it was late afternoon. As Alex went outside to call in from his car, and Mark went inside to phone from his room, I took out my mobile and hit her entry.

There were a few more clicks that usual, but I got a dialling tone, rather than straight to voicemail, usually a good sign. She picked up a few seconds later. ‘Girl,’ she squealed, ‘you’ll never guess where I am. I’m in the bath.’

‘I didn’t think that was your “on the toilet” voice. You got company?’

‘Don’t be daft; I’ve had enough of that for a while. I’m happy because I’ve got this wonderful room with a bath that lets you see right out over the marina.’

‘Go on then; stand up and wave to the sailors.’

‘I just did, but I’m way too high for anyone to wave back. Now,’ she went on, ‘have I got news for you. You’ll never guess who I’m having dinner with tonight.’

‘Patterson.’

‘Huh. Cow. Try again.’

‘Mac Blackstone.’

There followed a couple of seconds of atypical silence. ‘How the. . How did you know that? Ah, I can guess. He’s been in touch with Jonny.’

‘Maybe he has, but not since I saw him last. That was a shot in the dark by me. I remembered that he and Mary have just been cruising, and that he was heading back there.’

‘Yes, and they’ve just got off the ship I’m on. I sail tomorrow, they go home. He’s had a great time. She looks as if she’d only enjoy an execution.’

‘Her step-grandson would agree with you. But I didn’t call you for your social diary. I need to ask you something.’

‘If it’s about him,’ she said, firmly, ‘I’ll make a point of not remembering.’

‘Shirl,’ I said, ‘hear me out. This is serious. If I tell you it could be a matter of life or death you’ll think I’m being melodramatic, but I’m not.’

‘Whose life or death?’

‘Uche’s father. Maybe Uche’s too. Maybe your bloke’s. We don’t know for sure.’

I had her attention. ‘What do you need to know?’

‘I want you to think about anywhere you were with Palmer, probably not in L’Escala, but maybe not too far away, somewhere different, somewhere he was interested in.’

‘Excuse me, but who in the name of Agatha Christie is Palmer?’

‘Slip of the tongue, sorry. I have a CD of his in the car just now.’

‘Just as well. I don’t think I could have taken another secret. Let me think.’ I heard water ripple in the background. ‘We went to Mas Torrent. How about that?’

Mas Torrent is a very posh, very public and very expensive hotel. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Mmm. In that case, there’s only really La Central.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a spa hotel, up near Darnius, close to the reservoir. We went up there for a couple of days, week before last, while I was getting ready to show Patterson off in L’Escala high society.’

‘I don’t know it.’

‘I’m not surprised; it’s quite hard to get to, five kilometres along a very dodgy road. Mind you, it gets worse beyond the hotel. I’d think twice about taking a car up there, all ruts and bumps and rocks.’

‘But you went up it?’

‘Yes, on our first morning there. We walked up it following a sign that said there was a restaurant up there. We were on the road for an hour and more, uphill all the bleedin’ way, but somewhere we must have taken the wrong turn, for we never found the bloody restaurant, only this old abandoned house. The track was windy all the way, until we came to a fork; we reckoned that we went right when we should have gone left. We should have known, ’cos it got even worse after the split.’

‘House?’ I repeated.

‘It had been, at one time; it was an old stone building.’

‘How did you know it was abandoned?’ I asked.

‘Holes in the slate roof, half the windows broken, no electricity, no proper sanitation, no running water, just a well outside; I have an instinct for these things, my dear. The odd hunter might have stopped there, in fact that’s probably what it was, a hunter’s lodge, but it hadn’t been occupied since Franco’s time.’

‘Did Palm. . Patterson say anything about it?’

‘Yes,’ she chuckled, ‘he made me laugh. He said it was a pity Robin Hood wasn’t Spanish, ’cos the sheriff would never have found him there.’