We had no interest in seeing his pool but we had to smile and go along with it. It was surrounded by decking and by a dozen sun-beds, eight of them occupied by slumbering same-sex couples, half of them holding hands, and one bold pair holding something else. Happily Antonio didn’t linger in the heat, but led us back to the shelter of the hotel’s controlled climate, to the dining room, to the guest lounge and to the spa, which he described as ‘the pampering centre’.
We had been there for around three quarters of an hour before he led us upstairs and into the suite that Willie and his ‘mother’ had occupied. It was lavish, no mistake, with one bedroom, a very private terrace, overlooked by nothing save the sky, and a convertible couch in the sitting room that could have slept a family of four. Nearby, there was a single chair; I knew who had occupied it, not that long before, and what she had done there.
I took out my mobile. ‘Mind if I take a picture?’ I asked.
‘Not at all.’ Antonio laughed. ‘Can I be in it?’
‘Of course, sit in the chair.’ He did. I snapped him and stored the image.
‘I’ve never met Willie’s mother,’ said Frank. ‘Is she nice?’
‘Very grand. She looks early sixties, so she must have been over thirty when she had him, but she carries it well. She had very little to say for herself, though. Nor did he, for that matter, unusually for him. Maybe he was missing Sebastian. They stayed here throughout their visit, and had all their meals room service.’
‘How long did they stay?’
‘Just one day. They checked in for lunch yesterday, then out again mid-morning.’
‘They didn’t happen to say where they were going, did they?’ I quizzed him. ‘It would be nice if we could bump into them, as a surprise.’ ›
‘No, I’m afraid not; they didn’t mention it.’ He ushered us out, back into the corridor and downstairs to Reception. ‘So,’ he asked, ‘were you impressed enough to come and stay with us? I think you’ll find our atmosphere restful, whatever your sexual orientation.’ I had the fleeting impression that maybe he hadn’t bought our cover story, but that maybe he didn’t care either.
‘Absolutely,’ I assured him. ‘Give me a card and we’ll be in touch as soon as we can define our available days.’
He seemed happy with that, and gave me not only a card, but a glossy brochure. He waved us off as I drove out of the car park. I’d found some Shirley Bassey to play on the stereo. He seemed to like that. ‘Remember,’ he called out, ‘honk again when you’re clear of the gate.’
I honked. And then I stopped. ‘The video of Adrienne,’ I said. ‘Do you have the number it came from?’
Frank slid his phone open. ‘Yes.’ He called it up and handed it to me. I recovered the image of Antonio in the chair, selected ‘send in message’, keyed in the number and gave the transmit command.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ my companion exclaimed.
I looked at him, right eyebrow raised. ‘As my late former husband would have said,’ I announced, ‘I’m rattling our Willie’s bloody cage.’
Twenty-six
There was no chance that Sebastian, or anyone else, was on our tail … the terrain was such that we’d have seen them a kilometre off. . and so, instead of hiding out, I drove back the way we had come, turned into the Gualta Pitch and Putt course, and parked the Jeep.
‘Where are we going now?’ Frank asked, a little irritably. I think he sensed that I was taking control of the operation. He was right too. I was on ground I knew, and I reckoned that gave me an advantage.
‘I feel the need of a beer,’ I told him, ‘or a glass of white wine.’ I led the way into the club house and to the bar. We found a table outside, in the shade, and I ordered drinks. ‘Tom’s having golf lessons,’ I volunteered. ‘I bring him here.’
‘I’ll bet he’s good,’ Frank muttered. He sounded a little jealous. Would you believe it?
‘He is,’ I admitted cheerfully. ‘Lovely swing for a seven year old, the pro says. His dad was a good player; his grandpa Blackstone still is, and so’s his cousin Jonny. In the autumn he’s going to college in Arizona, on a golf scholarship.’
‘Lucky lad,’ he growled.
‘Listen to you,’ I retorted. ‘You had a Cambridge education, then chucked it all away trying to prove you were the cleverest lad on the block.’
‘Bloody well am, too. I got away with the three hundred thou I’ve stashed in Switzerland.’
‘You got away with it? You did five and a half years inside for it. And will it support you for the rest of your life?’
‘It might, if the Canadian catches up with us,’ he pointed out.
‘To hell with Sebastian. I told you, we think positive from now on.’
He shot me a wry smile. ‘So, Detective Blackstone, what do we do next? We had a lead, and now we don’t.’
‘We wait. It’s their move.’
‘What if they don’t make it?’ He was deadly serious again. ‘What if they go ahead and kill my mum?’
‘What would they have to gain by that,’ I put to him, ‘even in two days, when the so-called deadline expires? You’d be an even bigger danger to them if they killed her. She’s a bargaining chip; they need her to get you. Why did Willie send that video? Not to prove they have her; we know that. He did it to prove she’s alive.’
‘What if they send me her ear through the post?’
‘How? Through your old Sevilla post-office box number? I don’t think they’ll expect you to be emptying that any time soon. Trust me, the next step is theirs.’
We sat there and watched the day wear on, until it was well past six, and until I would not have been driving anywhere else with just one more beer. I went to the ladies’, put some of it back into the system, then called to Frank from the terrace doorway: ‘Come on. Time we were going.’
‘Where?’
‘To our bolt-hole. It’s only ten minutes away.’
In fact it took longer. The traffic into Torroella de Montgri was screwed up, thanks to punters going home from the beach at Pals, then we found ourselves behind the inevitable tractor, and so half an hour had passed by the time we arrived in L’Escala, and at Shirley’s. I phoned her as we turned into her street, and she opened her massive sliding gate so that I could drive straight in. Her garden wall is even higher than the one round Masia Josanto. The place is a fortress, complete with a look-out tower on top that reminds me of Oz’s old loft in Edinburgh, where he and I first. .
She was waiting for us at the top of the staircase that leads to her door, wearing the usual swimsuit but with a sarong wrapped round it. She hugged Frank, almost enveloping him, as I introduced him. ‘Come on through, the pair of you. You look bushed. Go on out to the pool while I get some drinks.’
‘Just water for me!’ I called after her. I know the way, so I led Frank through to the garden and to Shirley’s enormous pool, one of the biggest in any house in L’Escala. I was unbuttoning my top before he closed the glass-panelled door behind me. I peeled it off, unfastened my skirt and let it fall, stepped out of my pants, and dived straight in. Maybe I’d have been a little more modest if I hadn’t had the beers, but he’d seen the territory, even if he wasn’t getting close to it again.
‘That’s our Primavera.’ Shirley laughed as she carried a tray from the kitchen. ‘She always prefers skinny-dipping,’ she revealed to Frank. ‘There’s a nudie beach along the coast. She and I go there sometimes, when Tom’s in school. Don’t mind me if you want to join her in there. If you’re shy, go and have a rummage in that box outside the summer-house. There’s all sorts in there; you’re bound to find something to fit.’
He took her at her word, and re-emerged after a couple of minutes, wearing a pair of red shorts. I hadn’t seen Frank’s body before, in a proper light. For all that he was lightly built, his muscles were well defined, and he looked fit, in the way a runner does, or a feather-weight boxer.