Inhuman Remains

Thirty-six

Mark called me back next morning, just as Dad and I were about to head off on a shopping expedition to Perth. I still have a few items of clothing at his place, but I’d exhausted the summer stock.

‘I’ve done your digging,’ he began. ‘First and foremost, the money’s been moved out of Luxembourg. Pintore and Company, the lawyers, weren’t for telling me anything, so I had my London solicitor call them and imply that they were representing an investor in the project who was getting worried about his cash. They admitted that the funds had been transferred to a new account, in the Cayman Islands, outside their control. It was done legally and above board, on the basis of a written instruction signed by the chairman, Alastair Rowland, over the company seal. It was delivered to their offices by courier last Thursday, and the money was transferred the same day.’

‘More or less as I thought. What about Energi?’

‘As you said, they stand to lose twenty million euros if the project collapses. But don’t read too much into the transfer: there may have been a legitimate reason for it. The test is what happens to the money next.’

‘Come on, it’s a scam. Frank told me as much.’

‘Maybe, but I haven’t found any proof of that, not yet at any rate.’

‘Why did Energi make the investment in the first place?’

‘On the instructions of the nominal owners of the company, the Banovsky Corporation.’

‘That fits with what Frank told me he found when he broke into Emil Caballero’s house.’

‘He broke in? Your cousin was full of surprises, wasn’t he?’

‘Much good were they to him. What have you found out about Banovsky?’

‘At the moment, not a hell of a lot. It’s based in Bratislava, but as a corporate entity it doesn’t really exist any more. It’s an old family business going back several generations. That’s all I know for now, but I’m going to do some more research to build up the complete picture.’

‘Who runs Energi?’

‘Hired hands. There’s a CEO, a director of mining operations, and an accountant, none of them shareholders. I’ve spoken to a French mining-sector specialist. He told me that Energi is highly geared; currently it has over seventy-five million in bank debt, and that’s just about its turnover. That borrowing is supported by the book value of its assets, but the cost of servicing it has pushed it into the red for the last few years. The time-bomb, though, is that its mines are approaching exhaustion, and they don’t have any reserves to tap, so those assets are actually significantly overvalued. Its future is tied to the success of Hotel Casino d’Amuseo.’

‘Won’t they be able to write off the twenty million against tax? Wouldn’t that help?’

‘No. If the owners of the company, the Banovsky Corporation, could come up with seventy-five million euros to eliminate bank debt, that would help. Otherwise the plug will be pulled.’

I frowned. ‘Seventy-five million,’ I repeated. ‘More or less the sum that’s just been moved out of the Hotel Casino d’Amuseo account.’

‘Yes, but again, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Whoever owns Energi, whoever owns the Banovsky Corporation, they could have set up the scam themselves, to keep the business afloat. Couldn’t they?’

‘They could,’ Mark conceded, ‘if it is a scam. If it’s not, it’s a corporate gambler’s last throw. Even if it is bent, it can be presented that way.’

‘So,’ I asked, the seventy-five-million-euro question, ‘who does own the damn thing?’

‘Not “who”, Primavera, “what”. This much I do know: the owner of Banovsky is a private numbered trust established through a Swiss bank, and it would take an order from a judge to reveal who the beneficiary is. To make that order the judge would have to see strong evidence of likely criminal involvement.’

‘Well?’

‘How often do I have to say this? There is no such evidence. Energi will say that it made the investment in d’Amuseo as a step towards securing its future by diversifying into other sectors.’

‘How do you know that?’

‘Because my contact has already asked the CEO, and that was his reply. Energi is just another investor. If this does turn out to be a fraud, and the owner of Energi is behind it, we have a perfect circle, pretty much a perfect crime.’

I sighed. ‘So that’s it?’

‘That’s it.’

‘How about Lidia Bromberg? Does she have a past?’

‘Not one that I can uncover.’

‘And Sebastian and Willie, where do they fit in?’

‘Who the hell are they?’

I’d forgotten he didn’t know; I explained.

‘Hired heavies,’ he declared, at once. ‘Hit-men, bought and paid for. You’ll never find them either. Nor,’ he continued, ‘will you ever find a trace of Frank and his mother, if they’ve been as efficient with that end of the operation as they seem to have been with the rest.’ He must have heard my reaction. ‘Sorry, Prim. They’re your family. I shouldn’t have been so blunt, but it’s the truth, I’m afraid.’

‘It’s a truth I’ve been trying not to face,’ I admitted. ‘But I can’t avoid it any longer. They’re gone, and the door’s closed on the affair. I suppose all I can do now is thank my lucky stars that they didn’t kill me too when they had the chance.’

‘What do you mean?’ Mark asked sharply. I filled him in on the only relevant piece of the story that he didn’t know (I’ll never give him all the detail; not the personal stuff), and added Alex’s view of the reason I’d been spared.

‘You are undoubtedly crazy,’ he told me, when I’d finished. ‘You are also very lucky, for I don’t buy your pal’s theory. Suppose you had disappeared along with the others? Yes, it would have made news, but given your history, when no bodies turned up, it would have been written up as Primavera buggering off again. A lot of money was spent searching for you once before, remember. I don’t believe that would have happened twice.’ I could almost hear him shake his head. ‘A taser,’ he murmured. ‘Jesus.’

‘Hey,’ I retorted. ‘I was shot with the fucking thing. Now I know for myself how effective they are, I’ll be getting another one.’

‘Not in Britain, please. They’re illegal.’

‘Why should the bad people have all the advantages?’ I protested.

‘Because that’s the way real life is,’ Mark replied seriously. ‘Look at the thing we’ve just been investigating. We think it’s a crime, but it isn’t, not yet at any rate. We’re no further forward.’

As I thought about that, I realised he was wrong. ‘We are,’ I countered. ‘We might not know who Alastair Rowland is, but we’ve got a sample of his handwriting, in that law office in Luxembourg.’

‘You know,’ he said, ‘sometimes you can be smarter than you usually act. Leave that one with me. I’ll call you if I make progress.’

‘Okay. If it’s more than a couple of days, you’d better use my temporary mobile. I’m heading home on Thursday.’ I gave him Adrienne’s number.

‘Thanks, but. . there’s something else. When you go back, could you do it via London?’

‘That’s what I am doing. I could rearrange my flights, I suppose, and stop over.’

‘Do that. Come to my place, but let me know when you’ll be arriving.’ He gave me an address, and said it was near Paddington.

‘I’ll do it,’ I promised, ‘but what’s this about?’

‘Someone wants to meet you, that’s all.’ If I hadn’t known him as well as I did, I might have thought he was being evasive.