Inhuman Remains (36 page)

BOOK: Inhuman Remains

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I didn’t give her my real name. I called myself Lidia Bromberg. I did give her a distorted, but still recognisable lapel pin, and suggested that she contact Intendant Gomez of the Mossos d’Esquadra, to report her son missing, and that she also should let the Canadian Embassy know what she had done. I left the poor woman in a state of shock.

My second call was on the way home. We stopped off in London, and there, in Mark Kravitz’s flat, I had another meeting with the rodent-like Moira from MI5. Mark had arranged it, at my request. This time the woman was polite, cautious, and curious.

I told her my story in every detail, save two. I invented names for Justin and Ludmila Mayfield. (Yes, an investigation might trip over Ludo, but very quickly it would look the other way, given who her husband was.)

I gave her my copy of
Reverse Circle
, by Michael Jacks, and advised her to read it. I told her how much Frank, and probably his mother, had got away with, in terms of cash and murder. I said that, although I had no proof, I believed that my cousin might now be using the name Jason Lee. Finally, I asked her what her service, if it was really interested in major crime, proposed to do about it.

‘We’ll look out for them,’ she replied.

As far as I know, they’re looking still.

Me? I’m watching the sun rise out of the sea, from my bedroom terrace. One day my Tom will deign to join me, but not yet, not yet. He’s his own man.

Author’s Note

T
here is no house in St Martí d’Empúries that corresponds to the one where Primavera and Tom claim to live.

Shirley Gash’s home is fictitious also, as is Mark Kravitz’s flat, Emil Caballero’s White House, and the Mayfields’ upwardly mobile terrace.

There is no such book as
Reverse Circle
and no such author as Michael Jacks, although my buddy Michael Jecks, the UK’s foremost author of medieval murder mysteries, gets pretty damn close.

The rest of the businesses, scenery and locations described here are all real, if ‘tweaked’ on occasion.

Welcome to the laid-back world of St Martí d’Empúries, where the sun never sets unless it feels like it.

Visca Catalunya
.