Last Resort Read online

  It was a young man’s apartment, no mistake. The furniture was modern and expensive. The kitchen area was state of the art, with an induction hob and twin fan ovens, an American-style fridge freezer, and Miele white goods. In the rest of the living space there were the inevitable toys, a wall-mounted fifty-inch flat screen TV, an X-Box One, and some hi-fi equipment that I recognised as Cyrus, because I have some myself, although not nearly as new as Hector’s.

  There were only two photographs on show. One showed Pilar flanked by two men, one young, the other older, their likeness marking them out as father and son, as clearly as Ignacio and I are, once you’ve seen the right shot of me at his age.

  The other showed the man I took to be Hector, with a woman. She was in the same age group as him, and she was beautiful, a real traffic hazard on any pavement, in any city; she had an oval face, dark hair and brown eyes that seemed to reach out and grab me. The pair were both clad for the ski slopes, and they were standing against a background of deep snow.

  ‘That was taken in Andorra, in January of last year,’ Pilar volunteered.

  ‘Who’s the girl?’

  ‘Her name is Valentina; she’s a Russian girl. She was his big romance at the time, but he broke it off.’

  He did? I thought. What a mug.

  ‘Would you mind if I looked around, señora?’ I asked, when I had finished being impressed.

  ‘Of course not; that’s what you’re here for.’

  I thanked her and headed straight for the bedroom. The only furniture was a bed and two side tables. All the wardrobes and storage had been built in when the attic apartment was created, and was hidden behind three large mirrored doors. I slid them along to reveal as much as I could.

  His shirts were folded and stacked on a shelved area. They were quality, real designer labels, not market copies. His socks and underpants were stored in drawers, all laid flat, not scrunched into balls as all of mine are. ‘Very neat, Hector,’ I murmured.

  Jackets, trousers and suits, including the ski costume I’d seen in the photograph, and one other, same brand different colour, all hung on a rail. There were three spare coat hangers, and two of the trouser clips that I always ask the Marks and Spencer assistants to put into the bag. Hector bought his own, it seemed; they were metal, with padded grips to make them easy on the garments.

  ‘For sure,’ I murmured, ‘this is a very well-organised guy; a place for everything and everything in its place. The clothes he wore to work, fair enough. That accounts for a couple of empty hangers, but the others?’

  I looked at the shirts once more. A dozen were short-sleeved, summer wear, four were heavier, long-sleeved, and ten were formal business shirts. ‘Should there be twelve of those?’ I wondered.

  I slid the doors along to reveal the rest of the long wardrobe. It was split between shoes and storage. Again the footwear had been placed carefully in a fold-down rack, left foot, right foot, side by side, each in its proper place, even the ski boots. Two slots were empty.

  Alongside there was a rack holding five ties, all silk, all plain colour, no stripes or patterns; three shades of red, pale green and yellow.

  In the storage area two pairs of skis stood on end, beside two matching four-wheeled cases. One was the size of a cabin bag, the other much larger, the size that few people use these days because of weight restrictions. Had there been a third in the set?

  I was in Hector’s bathroom when Xavi’s voice came from the doorway.

  ‘How are you doing? Pilar’s gone downstairs to check on Simon,’ he said, then added, ‘I’m worried about her, Bob. The very fact that she’s dressed like a bag lady tells you how strung out she is.’

  I made the appropriate reassuring noises. ‘She’ll be fine. We’ll find her boy, her husband will have his dodgy heart valve replaced, and she’ll be back to normal.’

  ‘Simon’s operation is high risk,’ he countered. ‘And as for Hector, we’ll find him, but in what condition?’

  ‘Hey!’ I said, sharply. ‘Don’t go all fatalistic on me. You’re assuming the worst, that the guy’s been taken, or simply taken out. It’s not as easy as that. He left here in his high-performance sports car as if he was going to your office in Girona.

  ‘We’ve just covered the same road that he would have taken; it’s wide open and there appears to be constant traffic. Suppose someone was targeting him, how would they get him to stop?

  ‘I say they, because the scenario needs at least three people: one to keep him subdued and under control in a getaway vehicle, one to drive it and one to get Hector’s car off the road. Even then, how exactly do you hide a canary-yellow Porsche?’

  ‘What do you think happened?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure, but I do know that your abduction theory is wild, fanciful and plain fucking wrong. Mostly, my friend, I deal in evidence, as you do as a journalist. Instinct can come into my work, but I’ve never been able to arrest and charge someone on that basis alone. I’ve always had to prove it. I’ve found no evidence here, so far, that we’re looking for a victim.’

  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,’ s
he 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 th
ese 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.