I dialled it; a switchboard operator answered. At first he wasn’t sure if he could put me through to the intendant. . Important man, I thought. . and tried to fob me off with Garcia, but eventually I persuaded him that as I was returning his messages, he should take a chance.
‘Thank you for getting in touch, Mrs Blackstone,’ he said, as he came on the line. ‘I tried to call you on Sunday, and again on Monday, until Sub-inspector Guinart advised me that you were out of town.’
‘You have some news for me?’ I asked bluntly.
‘I have, but I’m afraid it isn’t good.’
‘Fire away.’
‘An unfortunate choice of words,’ he murmured. ‘Last Thursday night there was an outbreak of fire in the hills behind Cadaques, in the forest. It took a long time to put out, and at one point it even threatened the town.’ This wasn’t news to me: Shirley and I had seen the smoke from Café del Mar. ‘It wasn’t until Saturday that investigators could begin to determine the cause. They did this very quickly. At the seat of the fire, they found remains that have proved to be human. They had been reduced to ashes, and it was clear that an accelerant had been used.’
‘How many bodies?’ I asked; my mouth had gone dry, and my voice was hoarse.
‘There was very little that was identifiably human, but our pathologist has determined there were two. This is borne out by the fact that my forensic team discovered two bullets among the residue. They also found fragments that they believe were parts of two mobile phones, and a larger piece of a polymer-based substance that we have now determined is what’s left of your taser weapon.’
‘Anything else?’
‘A few scraps, bits of metal, more melted plastic, which may have been the remains of credit cards, ashes that weren’t human, but were probably fabric and paper.’
‘DNA?’ I suggested.
‘Not a chance. Everything was consumed beyond the point of discovery. It’s like a cremation. I’m sorry, Mrs Blackstone, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s conclusive. Your aunt and your cousin are indeed dead.’
I felt my last, lingering hope disappear. ‘Thank you for letting me know,’ I murmured.
‘I have to ask you,’ Gomez continued, ‘who is the next of kin?’
I hadn’t thought about that. ‘I suppose I am,’ I told him. ‘My grandparents. . Adrienne’s parents. . died long ago. My mother was her only sibling, and she passed away a couple of years ago. Adrienne never married and Frank’s father died at sea before he was born. I’m older than my sister so, yes, it has to be me.’
‘In that case, I will need you to come to Girona. At my request the judge has issued the certificates of death, but they need to be registered. There is a form and it requires family information that only you will have. You do have it, yes?’ he added.
‘Yes, I do.’
Among her many interests, my mum included genealogy. She had compiled the entire Phillips-McGowan-Blackstone-Grayson family tree, in considerable detail. It’s on my computer now, updated to include her own death.
I printed the pages I’d need and took them with me to Girona that afternoon. Gomez helped me through the registration process, which is pretty simple, and obtained for me six copies of each death certificate. (This is not the same as the certificate of death, but that’s Spain for you.)
‘What about a funeral?’ he asked, when it was all done. ‘Normally, it would have to happen within twenty-four hours from now, but this situation is unique in my experience. Effectively, it has taken place already.’
‘What happened to the remains?’ I asked him.
‘We have them. I can return them to you, in one or two caskets, whichever you prefer, if you wish that they be scattered or buried in Britain.’
‘Can I have some time to think about that? I should consult my father; he may wish the ashes interred beside my mother.’
‘Of course. Take as long as you like. They’re not going to be a health hazard, not any more.’
As I drove home, it occurred to me that another trip to London might be necessary. I hoped that Adrienne had left a will. If not, with no obvious heir, the settlement of her estate could be hellish difficult. I made it home in time to catch Fanette, who was able to give me the name of my aunt’s legal adviser, a man called Harold Liddell, a specialist in copyright and contract law. I called him, and told him what had happened. He was shocked, but he composed himself quickly. What he told me took a weight off my mind.
‘I drew up Ms McGowan’s will; it names me as her executor. It leaves everything to her son, with the proviso that if he should predecease her, it’s divided between you and your sister, Mrs Dawn Grayson.’
‘But who did die first? How can anyone say for sure?’
‘English law will decree that she did,’ Mr Liddell replied, ‘on the simple basis that she was older: crude but practical. If your cousin also left a will, that overrides your interests, but there is no evidence that he did. However, I must explore that possibility.’
‘How?’
‘Public advertisement. I’ll need to consult an inheritance lawyer about where and for what period, but it won’t be too long.’
‘What about the agency? What happens there?’
‘That dies with Ms McGowan. Her relationships with her author clients were direct; in other words, she was personally entitled to commission. In law there was no agency; she was a sole trader. As her executor, I’ll be required to write to all her clients and their publishers and advise that future royalties should be paid direct. If I remember rightly, that includes your father, as beneficiary of your mother’s literary estate.’
I hadn’t thought of that. Mum’s books still sell to children across Britain and the Commonwealth, in decent numbers. ‘Left to himself,’ I told him, ‘Dad will stick the letter in a drawer and forget about it. I’ll see that doesn’t happen. What about Fanette?’ I added, as an afterthought. ‘Adrienne hinted to me that she was backing out of the business and handing it over to her.’
‘She couldn’t,’ Liddell replied instantly, ‘without the clients’ agreement to the new arrangement. It’s tough on Fanette, but she’s out of a job.’
I didn’t feel too much sympathy, I’m afraid. ‘What do you need from me?’ I asked him.
‘The Spanish death certificates, both of them: give me your address and phone number and I’ll instruct a courier to pick them up. As soon as I receive them, I can act. As for you and your sister, it’ll be a few months, I should think, before I can tell you if you’re going to inherit, but from what I gathered from your aunt, neither of you is penurious, exactly. Between you and me, it won’t be a fortune, after inheritance tax: there’s the house, some investments and some cash; as you can see, there’s no residual value in the business.’
‘That doesn’t bother me. But what about the remains?’
‘They should be preserved. If an heir to Frank McGowan should turn up out of the blue, that person might want the right of disposal.’
I told him where they were, and that made him happy. I left him to call his courier, and got on with the nasty task that I couldn’t delay any longer, telling Dawn and my father that they had two fewer relatives. I decided to clothe it as decently as I could, by telling them only that they’d been caught up in a forest fire.
Dad wasn’t surprised, and he didn’t buy my cover story. ‘My darling girl,’ he replied, when I asked him why, ‘the day I can’t tell when there’s something seriously wrong in your life, I’ll be in the box above your mother. It doesn’t surprise me that the little bastard’. . he spat the word out, with a venom I’d never heard from him before. . ‘has come to a sticky end, but it saddens me deeply that he took Adrienne with him. Probably inevitable, though. The boy inherited his recklessness from her; as witness, the circumstances of his birth.’