‘What did you do?’
‘Something else I’d been trained to do. I hit them with a mace spray I carry all the time. It’s tricked up to look like an inhaler. Then I legged it.’
‘And all this happened six weeks ago?’
‘Yes.’
‘So where have you been since then?’
‘Keeping as quiet as I could. I have a safe-house; I set it up as soon as I began to suspect that Gresch was bent, and that the whole operation might be compromised. It’s on nobody’s budget but my own, a rented flat to the north of the city.’
‘Couldn’t you have got in touch with anyone? Your controller, for example. Or even, dare I say it, your mother?’
He stared at me. ‘And there was me thinking you were bright,’ he said. ‘I was shopped, Prim, by my own team, sold out from within Interpol. I’d suspected Gresch, but he was innocent. You can tell that now, can’t you, because he’s fucking dead. My guess is that they kept him doped up, then when you started to snoop around, and it all got hairy, they killed him.’
‘You mean Caballero did. I saw him go into the house.’
‘So did I. I was watching you, remember.’
‘So why didn’t you show yourself yesterday?’
‘Because I’d probably have got us both killed. They let you stay out there as bait for me. But I didn’t bite until I had no choice.’
‘So how will it play out in Sevilla?’
Frank shrugged. ‘Good question, but this is how I see it. George Macela is dead, exposed as the con-man Hermann Gresch. Lidia Bromberg will limp off and get her arse stitched, telling the hospital she fell and cut it, then she’ll vanish. The money has gone, be sure of that; the investors have been done and Energi will post a tax loss. Emil Caballero will scream his outrage at being conned, and may even claim to have invested cash as well as land in the project. The Guardia Civil will launch an investigation that will go precisely nowhere.’
‘And you?’
‘I’m royally fucked, cuz. I’m totally deniable, and I’ve been set up by my own team.’
‘But why?’
‘There has to be a mole, an insider on the payroll of the people behind all this. Maybe it’s my controller, maybe somebody above her, but someone’s spilled the beans to. .’
‘Alastair Rowland?’
‘Why not? Let’s call him that. It’s as good a name as any other. In any event, he’s got my number and my name; now he wants me. And because you’re with me, he’ll want you too.’
‘But how will he find us? You’ve done, if I may say so, a brilliant job of covering our tracks.’
‘He doesn’t have to find us.’
‘What do you mean?’
He took out his mobile, and held it up. ‘I never answer this thing, but it does receive texts. That’s why I didn’t get rid of it. I haven’t checked it today.’ As I watched, he hit a couple of buttons, then sighed. ‘Ah, shit, the bastard thinks like I do. Take a look.’ He handed it across to me.
A text message showed on the tiny screen; it was in proper English, not in shorthand, and it read, ‘Either you have three days to live, or your mother has. Involve the police and she’ll have no time at all.’
Twenty-one
Somehow that text made me feel like a prisoner again, and I wasn’t having that. My mobile had been charging in my room while we were talking. I went in, unplugged it and switched it on.
‘You can’t use that,’ Frank exclaimed. ‘They could track us through it, believe me.’
I wasn’t sure that I did, but I humoured him. ‘It’s all right, I’m only going to check my text messages.’
There were three, all from Mark Kravitz, all asking me to get in touch to confirm that I was okay. I picked up the hotel phone to call him, but my cousin vetoed that too. ‘You’re the paranoid one now,’ I told him.
‘No, I’m not. If they’ve been monitoring your phone, they could be tapping the number you’re going to dial now, if you’ve used that to call it before.’
‘The man I’m going to call would know if his phone was being tapped.’
‘Wouldn’t make any difference, if they trace the incoming call back to here. As for me being paranoid, that’s no bad thing in a situation like this. Christ, it’s almost a requirement.’
‘I’ll call Susie, in that case, to let her know I’ll be out of touch for a while.’
‘Did you call her earlier?’
‘Yes, to make arrangements for Tom.’
‘Then they could be tapping her phone too. These people have someone inside Interpol, Prim. There’s nothing they can’t do. Do you want to put your son in danger?’
‘My son is with Conrad Kent by now; I can’t think of anywhere safer.’
‘Then be content with that, and let things be.’
There was a line of logic in what he was saying. I put the phone back in its cradle. ‘Come on,’ I told him. ‘Let’s get the hell out of here. Let’s lose ourselves among the tourists; let’s visit the Mezquita.’
Frank frowned. ‘I don’t know about that.’
Suddenly I was steaming mad. I had volunteered to find the little sod for his mother’s sake, and for her sake alone, and here I was, caught up in a mess of his making, my life in constant danger, my aunt God knew where, and my son on the way to a secure location. I snapped. ‘Well, I bloody do!’ I shouted at him. ‘I’m going out, and if the thought of stopping me even crosses your mind, be warned that your Swiss Army knife doesn’t have a special tool for retrieving it from up your fundament!’
With a sigh and a shrug, he gave in. ‘Okay, if you insist. I’ll come with you, though.’ He sounded as if he was doing me a favour. I let him carry on believing that.
We left the Hotel Conquistador and crossed the road, passing though an arched gate that led into a rectangular courtyard that was one big orange grove. There was no fruit on the trees, yet it had a distinctive citrus smell. Frank must have caught the twitch of my nose. ‘You should see it, here and in Seville, when they’re ready to harvest,’ he said. ‘The trees are thick with fruit; a lot of it falls off before they can pick it, and gets squashed on the ground. The smell is fantastic. They’re not very good to eat, though: most get used for marmalade.’ I’d known that, but I let him lecture me. He seemed to enjoy it.
We bought tickets at the admissions booth, but declined the audio tour guides, as the attendant wanted us to leave our passports with her as security for the machinery. The Mezquita is vast. I don’t know how many football pitches you could fit inside, but I’d guess at more than a couple. It’s one of the strangest buildings I’ve ever been in, having been a grand mosque during the Moorish occupation of Andalusia, until they were driven out and it was reconsecrated by their conquerors as a Christian church. Much of the area was open, encircling a great chapel. We had a look in there: it was full of Japanese tourists and we mingled with their group, until Frank’s paranoia kicked in again and he got nervous in case my western face … he was okay. . stood out in the crowd.
We moved across, into a museum section filled with artefacts of the Christian period. We stood for a while, awestruck. . at least I know I was. . by a thirteenth-century processional cross fashioned from silver and rock crystal. ‘What are we going to do?’ I asked quietly.
‘I don’t know,’ my cousin replied.
That gave me no comfort. ‘And here was me thinking you had the situation in hand.’
‘We’ve got three days; they’ve given us that long to turn ourselves in. My guess is that we may need that long to get to wherever they’re holding Mum, but we can only find that out if I reply to that message. If I do that they could pinpoint our present location and close in on us.’
‘And Adrienne?’
‘I don’t want to think about that. They want us out of the way because we know the story. She doesn’t, but if they’ve let her see their faces, if she can identify them. .’
‘Are you working up to saying she’s a goner anyway, so what’s the point of giving ourselves up?’
‘Hell, no! I’m going to get her out of this, wherever she is. I just need time to think about how.’ His back straightened, and he stood a little taller, as if he had just reached a decision. ‘First thing tomorrow,’ he declared, ‘we take the train to Barcelona, and we recover your car. Wherever they’re holding Mum, it won’t be far from your place. I don’t think they’d risk transporting her any great distance. We’ll have the whole of the next day to find her. If we haven’t. . I’ll hand myself over, and you do what you were planning, drive to Monaco and get under the protection of this Conrad guy. Once you’re there, do what you can, even if it’s only recovering our bodies.’