I was almost ready to go. I took a bottle of water from the stock in the garage fridge, and a couple of isotonics, just in case Adrienne needed rehydrating once she was free. She’d looked well cared for in those videos, but I couldn’t be sure. Almost as an afterthought I ran upstairs and fetched Frank’s rucksack. I’m not certain now, but I reckon my reasoning at the time was that, if he was still alive, and if I could spring both him and his mother, he might want to disappear before the police arrived. Since Interpol had disowned him over the Sevilla affair, there might be a danger of him being caught up in any aftermath.
‘Have I everything I might need?’ I asked myself. Not quite. The taser would knock them down, but for how long? I took Frank’s knife from his bag and cut four lengths from an old blue towrope that hangs on the garage wall, a relic from our former, less reliable vehicle.
I heard two o’clock ring, or maybe even two minutes past, if I’d missed it the first time, since the sound was muffled by the bulk of the great stone house above me. I slid the taser into its holster, safety off, clipped it on to the front left of my belt, so I could reach it quickly, opened the garage door, set the alarm and backed out. I didn’t even wait to be sure that the door had closed behind me, but put the Jeep straight into drive.
Not much was in my favour at the start of the journey. The first hazard was a fat, half-naked middle-aged slob, plodding along in the centre of the track, heading the same way as I was, and refusing obdurately to budge. Eventually I lost patience and blasted him with the horn. He stopped, turned round, glared at me, then stepped sideways when he saw the look in my eyes. As I passed he took a half-hearted kick at the Jeep, a stupid thing to do when you’re barefoot, especially if you connect. I took some satisfaction, as I drove on, from the sight of him in the rear-view mirror, hopping on his left foot, and clutching the toes of the other.
It didn’t get much better when I rejoined the main road: the day was so hot that families were deciding to abandon the beach before they and their kids melted. The car parks were emptying and the traffic was queued back a quarter of a kilometre from the L’Escala-Figueras junction. There was nothing for me to do but grimace and bear it.
Normally, on a clear road, it takes me five minutes, tops, to drive from my house to Bellcaire, the village beyond L’Escala. That afternoon it took thirty-five, and I had made a dent in my water supply by the time I reached the crossroads. I did as the priest had said, and took a left, then drove slowly, looking out for the sign. It was hand painted, but clearly visible. I turned in, left again, stopped alongside it and drew breath.
A dirt track lay before me leading upwards, up a hillside, not directly towards the summit that we Brits all call Tit Hill but to a lower crest alongside it. I had taken Tom up to Castell del Montgri a few months before, on a fine day during the school’s winter holiday, but we had climbed by the path that starts from Torroella. I recalled the view from the old citadel walls, and realised that the building I had seen below, on the edge of a clearing, must have been the abandoned retreat of Santa Caterina. From what I could recall of the terrain, I knew I would be wise to stop short of the place and approach on foot.
Was I nervous? Too damn right I was; I could feel my heart thumping in my chest at a rate well above the normal seventy beats per minute. But also I felt the holstered taser against my side. That, and the sure knowledge that I wouldn’t even think once about pulling the trigger of the lightweight but super-efficient weapon, gave me comfort. I slid the Jeep into drive once more, engaged four-wheel mode, and moved forward.
At first, the track ran parallel to the road alongside, but then it veered off and curved, rising more steeply. I climbed, steadily, up the bumpy road. I had probably driven for a kilometre, when I saw, through a gap in the trees, the spire of the retreat. I hit the brake. There were trees on either side of the road. This was no plantation: they had taken root naturally, and were thickly packed in places, but a short distance ahead, I spotted a small circular area, possibly cut as a passing place. I drove past it, then reversed in, ready for a quick getaway.
I did a spot-check. The cartridges were in the pockets of my jacket. Ropes? I picked them up, stuffed them into Frank’s rucksack, together with the drinks I’d brought for Adrienne, slung it over my left shoulder and stepped out of the Jeep, leaving the key in the lock and closing the door quietly behind me.
The sun was blazing above me as I stepped out on to the track, and its force hit me like a blast from a giant hair-dryer. The road was steeper than I’d realised while I was driving. I pushed myself as hard uphill as my injured toe would let me. Soon I felt my breath quicken, and my shirt wet against my skin. I could see Santa Caterina more clearly, and something else, a pathway off the track, through the woods, that led up behind it. I headed for it.
And Sebastian Loman stepped out from behind a tree, about twenty feet before me. He wore a grey linen suit and white shirt, tie-less, with a little maple-leaf pin in the left lapel; there was a smile on his face. ‘You took your time, Primavera,’ he said.
He was unarmed. I could not believe it, but he had no gun, in his hand or anywhere else that I could see. But I had. I stepped towards him, closing the distance between us, and reaching for the taser. He was still smiling, but I didn’t have time to consider that. I cleared my pacifier of its holster, and sighted it on his chest.
That was when I felt the pressure on the small of my back, against my spine, of something hard and circular. I didn’t need to be told what it was.
‘Best drop that,’ Willie Venable murmured in my ear.
I didn’t have much choice, did I? I sighed and let my insurance slip from my fingers. As it fell, Frank’s rucksack was yanked from my shoulder.
‘And raise your hands.’ I did that too.
Still smiling, Sebastian stepped forward and reached down to pick up the discarded taser. As he did so, I thought about kicking him in the nuts, but decided that if I did I might not be alive for long enough even to hear him moan. He stood up, admiring the weapon. ‘I’ve never seen one of these. Impressive.’ He removed the holster from my belt, his hand brushing the inside of my pocket in the process, and bumping against my spare cartridges. He took them too, and my mobile, then turned and headed up the way through the woods, beckoning me to follow. Willie jabbed me with his gun, to give force to the command. I walked between them, silently, until we reached the old retreat, and its main entrance. As we reached it, I looked across the clearing, and saw, parked on the other side, a big green vehicle, a Land Rover, perhaps.
The doors of the building were secured. As Sebastian produced a key from his jacket, unlocked the padlock that held them and swung them open, Willie stepped alongside me, and I saw him for the first time since Sevilla. He didn’t look as kind and considerate any more.
Light flooded into a big room, a million dust motes swirling in its rays. Through them I saw my aunt, and my cousin, their arms and legs tied as they sat in high-backed wooden chairs. They were gagged. A hand, Willie’s, I think, shoved me inside.
‘So, we have it,’ Sebastian announced, as he closed the entrance, plunging us into gloom, ‘the family reunion.’
‘Yes,’ I snapped, ‘you have it. Now show some decency and let my aunt go.’
‘Honey,’ Willie drawled, ‘this ain’t about decency, this is about money, and you know how it has to play out.’