I’d brought my aunt’s mobile with me from Spain, as a temporary replacement for my own. I used it to send texts to my number and to Frank’s, a pointless gesture, as I neither expected nor received replies, but one that I felt I had to make.
Dad doesn’t have a computer either, but he does have the Courier, the Herald and the Scotsman delivered every morning. I read through their news pages, but none of them was keeping tabs on the story of two missing English tourists. (If they had been from Dundee, Glasgow, or Edinburgh, that would have been another matter.)
I felt helpless after that, frustrated that there was nothing more I could do. I kept it from Dad, though, as I devoted myself to looking after him, not that he needs much. My mother was a formidable cook, and after her death, I’d had recurring visions of poor old widowed David living on a diet of Tesco ready-meals and Wall’s ice-cream. Those notions were banished in the spell when Tom and I lived with him, before moving to Spain. I discovered that he had taken over Mum’s mantle: the vegetable garden and the fruit bushes were as well tended and productive as ever, and in fact he was cooking so damn much that every so often he’d have to deplete the stock in the freezer by catering for a church evening function.
The main way in which I cared for him was simply by listening to him as we sat together over meals, or in the garden, providing a ready ear, and an alternative viewpoint when I disagreed with him. That was how he and Mum had lived out their lives, and that was what he missed most of all. As we talked, I discovered he was not as solitary a figure as I had thought. He and Mac Blackstone, Oz’s retired dentist father and Tom’s other granddad, kept in touch, and visited each other frequently. It didn’t surprise me when he told me, for Mac’s a good man, but I was delighted to hear it.
It wasn’t until the third day of my visit that I thought about Mark Kravitz, and realised I owed him a call. I rang his land-line. As always he was brisk and business-like when he answered.
‘Mark, it’s Primavera. I’m in Scotland, at my dad’s.’
‘You’re safe?’ he exclaimed. ‘Thank Christ for that.’
‘Didn’t Susie tell you I was?’
‘Yes, but it didn’t stop me worrying, especially when I saw a report in the Telegraph on Saturday morning about a missing English couple. Them?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is it as bad as it read?’
‘Yes. They haven’t found any bodies yet, but I’m having trouble looking on the bright side.’ I paused. ‘Mark, are you still up for checking a couple of things for me?’
‘Of course.’
‘Then would you please look into a French mining company called Energi, and find out what you can about its ultimate ownership, and its finances, especially about a twenty-million-euro investment in Hotel Casino d’Amuseo. Also, find out, if you can, whether there is any money still held in the company bank account in Luxembourg.’
‘Will do.’
‘Thanks. Hey,’ I added, ‘remember Lidia Bromberg?’
‘Yes. You didn’t go to meet her, did you?’
‘I didn’t have to. The bitch tried to kidnap me in Sevilla, her and Councillor Caballero.’
‘I’m not going to say I told you so,’ he murmured, after a few seconds’ silence. ‘Oh, hell, I am. How did you get away?’
‘Frank rescued me.’
‘Frank?’
‘Yes. He and Hermann Gresch were planted in the operation by Interpol. He was recruited in prison by MI5.’
‘You what?’ he gasped.
‘Does that surprise you?’
‘Prim, nothing about those people surprises me. Mind you. .’
‘In that case here’s another for you: someone on the inside sold them out. Frank reported back to his controller and he was betrayed.’
‘With seventy-seven million euros in the pot that doesn’t stun me either. Leave all that with me, Prim. I’ll make those checks.’ He paused. ‘But tell me: what are you going to do with this information when you get it?’
‘I don’t know for sure, but one way or another it’s going to help me get even with whoever did this to my aunt and my cousin.’
Thirty-six
Mark called me back next morning, just as Dad and I were about to head off on a shopping expedition to Perth. I still have a few items of clothing at his place, but I’d exhausted the summer stock.
‘I’ve done your digging,’ he began. ‘First and foremost, the money’s been moved out of Luxembourg. Pintore and Company, the lawyers, weren’t for telling me anything, so I had my London solicitor call them and imply that they were representing an investor in the project who was getting worried about his cash. They admitted that the funds had been transferred to a new account, in the Cayman Islands, outside their control. It was done legally and above board, on the basis of a written instruction signed by the chairman, Alastair Rowland, over the company seal. It was delivered to their offices by courier last Thursday, and the money was transferred the same day.’
‘More or less as I thought. What about Energi?’
‘As you said, they stand to lose twenty million euros if the project collapses. But don’t read too much into the transfer: there may have been a legitimate reason for it. The test is what happens to the money next.’
‘Come on, it’s a scam. Frank told me as much.’
‘Maybe, but I haven’t found any proof of that, not yet at any rate.’
‘Why did Energi make the investment in the first place?’
‘On the instructions of the nominal owners of the company, the Banovsky Corporation.’
‘That fits with what Frank told me he found when he broke into Emil Caballero’s house.’
‘He broke in? Your cousin was full of surprises, wasn’t he?’
‘Much good were they to him. What have you found out about Banovsky?’
‘At the moment, not a hell of a lot. It’s based in Bratislava, but as a corporate entity it doesn’t really exist any more. It’s an old family business going back several generations. That’s all I know for now, but I’m going to do some more research to build up the complete picture.’
‘Who runs Energi?’
‘Hired hands. There’s a CEO, a director of mining operations, and an accountant, none of them shareholders. I’ve spoken to a French mining-sector specialist. He told me that Energi is highly geared; currently it has over seventy-five million in bank debt, and that’s just about its turnover. That borrowing is supported by the book value of its assets, but the cost of servicing it has pushed it into the red for the last few years. The time-bomb, though, is that its mines are approaching exhaustion, and they don’t have any reserves to tap, so those assets are actually significantly overvalued. Its future is tied to the success of Hotel Casino d’Amuseo.’
‘Won’t they be able to write off the twenty million against tax? Wouldn’t that help?’
‘No. If the owners of the company, the Banovsky Corporation, could come up with seventy-five million euros to eliminate bank debt, that would help. Otherwise the plug will be pulled.’
I frowned. ‘Seventy-five million,’ I repeated. ‘More or less the sum that’s just been moved out of the Hotel Casino d’Amuseo account.’
‘Yes, but again, let’s not get ahead of ourselves.’
‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Whoever owns Energi, whoever owns the Banovsky Corporation, they could have set up the scam themselves, to keep the business afloat. Couldn’t they?’
‘They could,’ Mark conceded, ‘if it is a scam. If it’s not, it’s a corporate gambler’s last throw. Even if it is bent, it can be presented that way.’
‘So,’ I asked, the seventy-five-million-euro question, ‘who does own the damn thing?’
‘Not “who”, Primavera, “what”. This much I do know: the owner of Banovsky is a private numbered trust established through a Swiss bank, and it would take an order from a judge to reveal who the beneficiary is. To make that order the judge would have to see strong evidence of likely criminal involvement.’