Last Resort (11 page)

I smiled at his grim concern. ‘In fact, it’s the opposite. He hasn’t been taken; he’s fucking gone.’

I closed the door of his bathroom cupboard and went back to the living area, just as Pilar returned.

‘Señora, can you tell me,’ I began, ‘when you last saw your son; literally, the very last time.’

‘Friday morning,’ she replied, looking at me as if I was daft. ‘Xavi told you that.’

‘No, I mean where, on that morning, in this house.’

She frowned. ‘It was in the kitchen, downstairs. Simon was awake at that time and the three of us took breakfast together.’

‘How did he seem? What was his mood?’

‘What do you mean? I don’t understand.’

‘Was he happy? Was he preoccupied? Did he seem different in any way from his usual self?’

‘I would say,’ she ventured, after a few moment’s thought, ‘that he was positive; you say in English, in a good place. He talked to his father of his operation. He said that he had researched the surgeon on the Internet, and had found that his success rate for this type of surgery is much better than others. He told him the names of famous people who have had heart surgery and recovered from it. President Clinton was one of them, Burt Reynolds, the actor, was another. Yes, he was happy. Then he left to go upstairs and be ready for the day.’

‘Was he dressed as he usually did for work?’

‘No, he was wearing a casual shirt and jeans. But as I say, he went upstairs to change.’

‘What does he wear in the office?’

‘He dresses properly, as a senior executive should. A suit, and in the winter he will wear a necktie with his shirt . . . always the same one, his favourite colour,
azul
.’ I formed a mental picture of the rack in the wardrobe: no blue tie there.

‘How did you know that he was leaving?’

‘He called from the hall. “
Adeu, Mama y Papa
.” Then I heard the garage door open and his car start. You cannot mistake its noise for another.’

‘Between him going back to his apartment and him leaving, how long was it?’

‘Not long,’ she replied, at once. ‘Four minutes. Because you ask I remember it. The kitchen clock was showing exactly half past when he go upstairs, and a little before
ocho y triente cinco
.’

‘Okay,’ I murmured.

‘What are you thinking?’ Xavi asked.

‘I’m thinking that was a hell of a quick change. Señora, Pilar, there are two matching
maletas
in his wardrobe. Do you know how many there should be?’

‘
Tres
.’ Her eyes widened. ‘Do you say . . .’

‘I’m saying nothing yet. Come and look at this, please.’

I led her back into the bedroom and slid the mirrored doors open.

‘Can you tell me what should be there that isn’t?’

She peered at the hanging garments, then at the shirts on their shelves.

‘A suit,’ she declared, ‘three shirts, maybe four, I am not sure, and his black leather jacket, the one I bought for him in a shop in Torroella de Montgri.’

‘He packed a case,’ I said. ‘When the three of you had breakfast, those were travel clothes he was wearing.’

I looked at my friend. ‘As I said, Hector wasn’t taken anywhere, mate, he went. There’s no shaving gear, wet or electric, in his bathroom, and no deodorant either.’

‘But why would he do that?’

‘Jesus, Xavi, this is a wealthy young man with a sports car and an apartment in Barcelona. It was a Friday. Does the phrase “Dirty weekend” translate into Catalan or Spanish?’

‘That’s what you think? He’s gone off with a woman?’

‘It’s the most logical conclusion I can draw from the evidence.’

‘No!’ his mother insisted. ‘My Hector, he would not . . .’

‘Come on, señora. Are you telling me that your son has never done anything unconventional, or that he’s open about every aspect of his sex life? He was upbeat over breakfast, he was positive about his father’s prognosis. He was happy with life, and I believe with something that was about to happen in it.’

‘I talk to him a lot, Bob,’ Xavi said. ‘He’s dropped no hint of a new woman.’

‘Why should he? We all like a bit of privacy.’ I turned back to Pilar. ‘Does your son keep a paper diary, a list of engagements?’

She shook her head. ‘No. Hector’s office is in his laptop, in his phone, and in his iPad. I can see by looking around that they are all gone, as I would have expected.’

‘I don’t see a landline phone anywhere,’ I pointed out.

‘He does not have one, not in the apartment. He only has his hand phone, as many people do today.’

‘Okay. Señora,’ I said, ‘here’s what I recommend: that you stop worrying about your son and devote all your attention to your husband.’ As I spoke, Xavi’s mobile sounded, and he stepped out on to the terrace to take the call. ‘Let him have his break,’ I continued, ‘and the chances are he’ll come back even happier.’

She smiled. ‘I will, although when he comes back there will be hell for him. I go downstairs now to make coffee; you and Xavi please join me when you wish.’

I thanked her, then turned to look at my friend. He seemed to be in a conversation that was unusually animated, by his standards. As I watched he nodded, vigorously, said something that I lip-read as ‘
Gracias
’, or the Catalan equivalent, then ended the call and came inside, closing the door behind him.

‘That was Canals,’ he said. ‘He’s found Hector’s car. A Mossos patrol spotted it in a public car park in the centre of Girona.’

‘Do they know how long it’s been there?’

‘Since Friday morning; the entry system photographs the number plate as each car checks in, and gives it a unique ticket. It’s part of the security; stops the wide boys from pulling a ticket from the entry barrier then stealing any car they can get into.’

‘We should look at it,’ I told him.

‘What’s the point, if you’re right and he has buggered off for a few randy days in Barcelona with his mobile switched off?’

‘I only said that for his mother’s sake, Xavi. The girlfriend notion may still be right, but I’m having trouble seeing the man you’ve told me about being that irresponsible. A long weekend is one thing, but it’s fucking Wednesday now: five full days and no contact?’

‘Mmm.’ His earlier elation vanished. ‘That’s true. Okay, there’s a spare key for the Porsche in the office. We’ll pick it up and take a look at it.’

‘Yes, but before then there’s something else we should do. Does he have a computer in your office?’

‘Yes, of course. It’s an iMac; the entire business runs Apple.’

‘Then let’s get into it. Maybe he’s left a hint there of what he’s up to.’

‘That might not be so easy. Each of the directors sets his own password.’

‘Sure and yours is probably your wife’s name and birthday.’

He smiled, and nodded. ‘Pretty damn close,’ he admitted.

‘Who manages your IT?’

‘Julia Gutierrez. She controls the systems right across the group.’

‘Out of your head office?’

‘Yes. Her department is on the floor below mine.’

‘Then we’ll find out how clever he is, and how quickly she can get us into Hector’s desktop.’

Twelve

I
had expected the headquarters of InterMedia to be in the centre of Girona. Instead I discovered as we arrived there that it was located on an industrial estate on the western outskirts of the city, beside a massive printing hall that produces half of the group’s daily newspapers in Catalunya and all of its weekly magazines and supplements. The factory was a grey, rectangular building, with an adjoining circular office pod that seemed to be built of dark, smoked glass, and reflected distorted images of everything around it.

‘We moved here ten years ago,’ Xavi told me as he pulled up in a space in the car park, with his Sunday name, ‘Sr Xavier Aislado’, on a sign. Joe’s classic Merc was parked in the next bay.

‘This is our biggest production centre,’ he said, ‘but we’ve got others spread across the country. I’d give you the grand tour but we don’t have time; maybe later, when everything’s sorted.’

I opened the passenger door as he spoke; as it swung, the wing mirror caught a glimpse of a sleek, silver, medium-sized car, pulling into a bay in the general park, fifty or sixty yards away. It was a Skoda Spaceback, and it was the second time I’d seen one of those that morning. There aren’t too many of them around in Spain and I am not a man who believes in coincidence . . . not when they happen to me, at any rate.

The big man led the way inside, then, with a nod and a ‘
Bon dia
’ to a blonde woman heading in the other direction and to the uniformed guy on security, across the big hallway, past the stairs, towards the lifts. ‘That’s the girl Ben was chatting up yesterday,’ he murmured. ‘She looks tired.’

He pressed a call button and the elevator on the right opened at once. ‘The first floor’s for the print hall managers,’ he said as we rode upwards, ‘second floor’s accounts and specialist departments, and the third floor is us. There is a fourth level, but we only use it for board meetings, hospitality and such.’

We stepped out into a central area that should have been dark but wasn’t, because light funnelled down from a cupola, through a glass ceiling. Xavi saw my upward glance. ‘Cost a fucking fortune, that thing,’ he growled. ‘The bloody roof’s a smoked-glass dome, with a watering system that keeps it clean on the outside and cool inside.

‘That’s what happens when you give a Catalan architect carte blanche, but this one’s father’s a big wheel in the Generalitat, the regional government, and he’s done Joe a few favours over the years.’ He grinned. ‘Is that corrupt, Bob?’

‘Possibly,’ I replied, ‘but who’s looking?’

He laughed. ‘That’s exactly what Joe said when I asked him the same question.’

The old man’s office door faced the lift entrance, and it was open. I could see him seated at his desk, with a newspaper in his hand. Xavi stuck his head inside. ‘What brings you in today?’ he asked.

Joe pointed upwards. ‘Lunch: with the president, captain, senior players and coach of FC Barcelona, and our sports editors and football columnists. Two o’clock. Remember?’

My large friend slapped his forehead; the blow would have stunned a normal man. ‘Shit, I thought it was tomorrow.’

‘Fuck me,’ his half-brother sighed, theatrically. ‘And to think I’m the one who is supposed to be the geriatric.’

‘Can you handle it without me?’

‘Don’t be daft. I know bugger all about football, whereas you used to be a pro. You can talk to them as an equal . . . more or less. You must be there.’

Xavi turned to me. ‘Bob, this might change things. I’d invite you to join us, but these guys might not open up with a stranger there.’

‘It doesn’t worry me,’ I assured him, although the football fan inside me was lying in his teeth. ‘I wouldn’t understand three-quarters of it anyway. Let’s get on with what we came here to do, and see what time we have afterwards.’

We stepped into the office next door, which was Xavi’s own. I hadn’t seen properly inside Joe’s, and so I was taken by surprise. The internal walls were solid rather than glazed, panelled in dark rosewood that blended traditional and modern. The furniture matched the walls, apart from the leather swivel behind the desk and two guest chairs, and the floor was carpeted in a smooth British Wilton. There was one painting on display; it was of Paloma, aged around ten, a Carmen Mali original.

To everyone who meets them the Aislados are ordinary guys; every reminder of their wealth comes as a shock.

Xavi dropped into his chair, picked up his phone and gave a series of instructions in Catalan to whoever was on the other end of the line, a secretary, I guessed. Then he rose to his feet once more and motioned me to follow.

Hector Sureda’s room was on the other side of the pod, behind the lifts. It faced north, and was less brightly lit, but fitted and furnished in the same style, although the rosewood desk was much smaller; big enough, though, to take an Apple iMac with a twenty-seven-inch screen, and still allow space to work in comfort. Xavi pushed a button in the rear, to switch it on, then swung it round so that we could see it from where we stood.

‘The IT manager’s on the way up,’ he said. ‘And my assistant’s getting hold of the spare key to Hector’s Porsche.’

The machine booted up, quickly, then stopped in its tracks as a window asked us for a password. Just then, when we needed her most, Julia Gutierrez, the technical wizard, arrived, five feet tall with frizzy dark hair and energy that seemed to radiate from her. She smiled at her boss, looked at the screen, reached for the wireless keyboard and tapped in a few letters.

The window vanished, and the desktop appeared.

Xavi looked at her in blatant astonishment, and muttered something to her that I couldn’t hear, in Castellano. Her reply was spoken faster than I could hope to understand.

As she left, I asked him what they had said.

‘I asked her how she did it so fast,’ he replied. ‘She told me it was no magic; that she made Hector give her his password, just in case he was involved in an accident and she needed access to his files. She added that I shouldn’t worry, that she only has his. Getting into my computer or the finance director’s would take her much longer. She could do it, though,’ he added.

I looked at the screen, and at the desktop wallpaper. ‘Does that remind you of anything?’ I murmured.

‘Should it?’ he replied.

‘It’s a snow scene; the same as in the photo of his Russian girlfriend in his apartment. The same place, I’d say.’

‘Is that significant?’

‘Only in that it must represent a happy memory for him.’

‘You still think he’s gone off with a woman?’

‘As I said, it’s the most obvious answer. But I’m still wondering why he hasn’t come back, and why he hasn’t switched on his phone at the very least. There could be one good reason for that. You can pinpoint someone through a mobile, but only when it’s active. Come on,’ I said, ‘let’s see what the iMac tells us.’

Xavi pulled up a chair, reached for the mouse on the keyboard and clicked on a compass icon at the foot of the screen. Instantly a window opened, showing what I realised almost at once was the homepage on the InterMedia website. ‘We use Safari as the search engine because it’s built into the system. Julia won’t let us download any other in case it causes conflicts. She’s a bit of a control freak.’

He clicked on another icon and the screen changed to show a selection of windows. ‘These are his top sites,’ he said. ‘They’re very straightforward, only the web pages of our own electronic newspapers. This feature monitors your usage and tells you where you go most often.’ He moved the mouse again and the windows became smaller, showing more, with five blanks at the foot of the screen.

‘This should open his diary,’ he murmured as he clicked another icon. It did; the whole of December was set out.

‘Look at that!’ Xavi exclaimed, instantly animated as he pointed at the screen. ‘Last Thursday.’

I followed his pointing finger and saw an entry, an evening engagement timed at eight. ‘
Sopar: B
.’ Supper; no venue, no companion named, only that initial.

‘Now look at today,’ I said. There was one entry; the same lunch with FC Barcelona that Joe had mentioned. ‘That means he was expecting to be back. Who’s B?’ I asked.

‘I haven’t a fucking clue,’ my friend admitted. ‘Let me look at his history, see what he’s been looking at, see if there’s a clue in that.’ He moved to the top of the main window and clicked again. All the icons disappeared.

‘Eh? He’s cleared his bloody history. Now why would he do that?’

‘Because he’s a good housekeeper?’ I suggested.

‘Or because he doesn’t want Julia, or anyone else, to see where he’s been looking. She can override this system if she’s asked, and get into his programme. Wait a minute, let’s look at his email.’

He moved to the menu bar and hit ‘Yahoo’. A new page opened: top right, he selected ‘
Correu
’, and a mail folder opened. He leaned forward and worked though a series of sub-folders, one by one. ‘It’s all business. There’s nothing personal on here, nothing at all.’

‘Should there be?’

‘For staff, no, it’s forbidden, but the directors exchange personal emails.’

‘But don’t necessarily store them.’

‘No, I suppose not. But hold on.’

He picked up the phone on the desk and hit a single button. ‘Xavi,’ he said as his call was answered, then spoke in Catalan.

‘That was his assistant,’ he told me as he hung up. ‘I asked him whether he makes Hector’s travel arrangements. He told me no, he does it himself, and that his trips should be kept somewhere on his computer, so that Susannah, the auditor, can compare them with his expense claims if she wants to make a snap inspection. Mmm, let me check something.’

He went back into the list of folders, muttered, ‘Ah!’ then clicked on an icon.

‘There was something I’d overlooked,’ he said. ‘A sub-folder in a file called “Regional offices”; it’s called “
Viajes
”, that’s journeys in English. I’m looking at it now, and it’s odd. It shows his travel and hotel booking on business trips, but there’s nothing there that’s less than three months old. Hector goes away quite often, at least once a month.’

He opened one more folder, then whistled. ‘Look at this.’ I did. The folder had no heading, only a familiar ‘Trash’ icon, and it was empty.

‘He cleared the history,’ Xavi murmured, ‘and here he’s emptied his trash bin too.’ He turned and looked at me. ‘Bob, this isn’t normal behaviour for Hector. I’m beginning to wonder . . . is he coming back at all?’