That said, I had to admit that the presentation was first class. Okay, the design might not have been original, but imitation is the sincerest form of whatever, and if you’re imitating the best, that’s not so daft. Still, I found myself wishing that I’d asked more questions about the people behind Frank’s big job. My aunt was no fool, but her son was her blind spot.
The d’Amuseo project might still be at the planning stage, but one thing did exist: the ski resort where my cousin had worked his way through the ranks, in short order. Its number was there, on a business card of Frank’s that Adrienne had given me. I picked up the phone and keyed it in, then paused as two truths struck me: one, it was Sunday, and two, it was July, hardly the time to be calling a winter-sports complex. I almost hung up, but it was ringing so I let it, and was surprised when it was answered.
‘Bonjour, Cinq Pistes,’ a male voice announced.
‘Hello,’ I replied. ‘I don’t suppose Susannah’s working today, is she?’
‘Susannah Gilpin? I imagine so, but let me try Reception. Who shall I say is calling?’
‘Tell her it’s Primavera Blackstone, Frank McGowan’s cousin.’
‘Hold on.’
I held on, for around a minute, listening to the theme from Ski Sunday, until a female voice broke in. ‘You’re for real,’ it exclaimed. ‘So Frank didn’t make you up. He told me he’d two glamorous cousins, that one had been married to a movie star, and the other still was, but he wouldn’t tell me any names, so I assumed it was a touch of bullshit, the same as the stuff about the big-name authors he said his mother represents. He wouldn’t say who they were either. But if your name’s Blackstone. .’
‘That’s right,’ I confirmed, ‘and it’s true about his mum as well.’ It’s nice to know, I thought, that Frank has a little discretion after all.
‘How can I help you?’ Susannah Gilpin asked, then paused. ‘You’re not calling to give me bad news, are you?’
‘No, I’m not. You had a call from my aunt a few weeks ago.’
‘Yes, that’s right. But I can’t tell you any more than I told her. I haven’t heard from Frank since Christmas.’
‘When you had a card.’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you send one to him?’
‘Of course.’
‘To the hotel?’
‘No, to his home address. . that’s to say, his private post-office box number.’
‘His private number? All my aunt has is his business address. . and come to think of it, that’s a box number too.’
‘XC2301?’
‘That’s it.’
‘I have that too, but the one I use is XE0142.’
‘What’s the street address of the complex?’
‘I have no idea, Mrs Blackstone. Frank didn’t give it to me.’
‘But can’t you find out through your group? Frank told his mother that he’d been promoted within the organisation.’
‘We don’t have an organisation; Cinq Pistes doesn’t have any subsidiaries, or a parent company for that matter. Forgive me, but I suspect that he didn’t have the heart to tell your aunt what really happened. The year before last, at the start of the season, we had a guest at the resort. He was a Lithuanian, and his booking was made by a company in Kaunas. His name was George Macela. He and Frank struck up a friendship straight away. Frank never said as much, but I got the impression from a couple of things he let slip that Macela might have come to Davos to meet him. He used to go off on sales trips during the summer, and that year, one of them was to the Baltic states.’
‘Miss Gilpin,’ I interrupted, ‘can I ask you something personal? How close were you and my cousin?’
‘As close as you probably suspect. Nothing too intense, but he’s a very attractive little guy.’
‘He’s all that. Apart from his family connections, did he tell you anything else about his background?’
She gave a soft laugh. ‘He never stopped. He made up such wonderful stories. He told me that his father was a Thai pirate who’d kidnapped his mother when she was on holiday in the Far East, and that he’d been hanged for that and other crimes. He told me that he had an economics degree from Cambridge, that he’d worked in your Houses of Parliament. Oh, yes, and he told me that he’d done time for a multi-million-pound investment scam. Is any of that true?’
‘The part about the pirate’s pure fancy. . as far as I understand, although I wouldn’t put much past my aunt. . but the rest is pretty much accurate. He was an MP’s gofer and the scam wasn’t quite that big but, yes, it’s mostly true.’
‘And what about you? You are the cousin who was married to a movie star, aren’t you?’
‘Not for long but, yes, I was.’
‘He talked about you more than anything else. He said you were a few years older than him and that he’d met you a few times as he was growing up. He told me his mother went to your funeral, only you turned out not to be dead after all.’
‘Also true. Did he say anything else about me?’
‘Yes. He said there are two people in the world who scare him stiff. His mother’s one, and you’re the other, because you’re so like her.’
Jesus! A cold shiver ran through me. If Adrienne had given me a glimpse into the future, I wasn’t sure I fancied it. I made another mental note, to ask Tom if he found me scary, hoping he’d laugh at the very idea.
‘Let’s go back to the Lithuanian,’ I said, cutting that discussion short. ‘You thought his meeting with Frank might have been prearranged.’
‘Yes. It was pretty clear that they knew each other. Macela spent more time talking with Frank in the bar than he did on the ski slopes. He stayed for five days, two fewer than he’d booked, then checked out. Three days later, Frank was gone also.’
‘Just like that? Was he fired?’
‘No, he left. We were together in his chalet, the night after Macela left, and he asked me if I would consider going away with him. I said no, I couldn’t do that.’
‘You didn’t fancy him that much?’
‘Not enough to leave my husband. It’s Madame Gilpin, not Miss.
Frank acted as if he was a little disappointed, but he said he understood. A couple of days later, I came into work and the managing director asked me if I knew where he was. His office was cleared, his chalet was cleared, the keys of his company car were lying on his desk, and he was nowhere to be found.’
‘He did a moonlight?’
‘That’s a good way of putting it.’
‘Why, for God’s sake?’
‘That’s what I asked him, when he contacted me a couple of weeks later, in an email, using a hotmail address I’d never seen before. His answer was that if he’d told the boss where he was going he’d have been released without notice. There was more to it than that, though. As well as being head receptionist, I’m Cinq Pistes IT manager. Frank had a PC, as all the management-level staff do, but he also has a personal laptop. When I looked at his computer, I found that all his files, all the information he had gathered while working for the company, had been cleaned out. This is a very prestigious resort, Mrs Blackstone. You would not believe some of the clients who have passed through it. Pop stars, presidents, prime ministers, plutocrats, we’ve had them all; the rich, the famous and the infamous. Frank took all their contact details with him when he left. He transferred them to his lap-top.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because when I asked him in my reply to his email, he admitted it. We also have a central terminal where everything is backed up. The copies had been deleted also. When I challenged him about that he owned up to that also; he told me that the data would be useful to him in his new venture. I asked him what that was, and he told me: a huge new complex called Hotel Casino d’Amuseo, just outside Seville, with a satellite ski lodge in the Sierra Nevada. That’s why he cleaned out those files, he said: rather that than leave them with a company that was now the opposition.’