Free Inhuman Remains by Quintin Jardine Page A

they had , I thought. That much was true, at any rate. Maybe I was damning the whole operation out of sheer mistrust of my cousin.
    ‘So they’re building?’ I probed.
    ‘No, I don’t think so. A friend of mine in the licensing section told me they haven’t started construction yet, although everything’s been approved since May.’
    ‘Maybe they’re waiting for their contractor to be ready. Do you know where I can find them?’
    ‘Sorry,’ said Ignacio, shaking his head. ‘You’ll need to ask my colleagues.’ He paused, looking towards the main door. ‘Ah, too bad,’ he exclaimed. ‘The co-ordinator of planning, Mr Caballero, would have been able to help you . . . that’s him . . . but he looks as if he’s in a hurry, and I’m afraid he’s too important for me to interrupt. You should come back tomorrow, and ask to speak to him.’
    I followed his gaze, and saw a tall, dark-haired man, with high cheekbones, in a lightweight cream suit. Now there’s a coincidence , I thought.

Eleven
    W hy was a council planner calling in at a sleeper address for Hotel Casino d’Amuseo? Damn good question, I reckoned, as I wandered idly along the narrow shopping streets off the Plaza, and it was one that I couldn’t answer. When it came to it, there was precious little I knew for certain at that point.
    But I was learning. Frank McGowan was known locally as Roy Urquhart. That would explain why he hadn’t given his mother a business card, but why would he need a false identity? And what about George Macela? Was that his real name, or was it phoney too?
    No, the only thing I had established was that the whole project was well thought of in the town hall and that there was nothing to back up my instinctive suspicion. The friendly Ignacio at the town hall had told me they had all the permission they needed to start construction. I’d be interested to hear what Lidia Bromberg had to say about the timetable when we met. I was going to see her as a potential investor. How many others had they drawn into their project and where had their money gone? But should I meet her, or should I call a halt there and then and report my cousin’s disappearance, and his use of a false name, to the Guardia Civil?
    I suppose that was the first real test of the new Primavera, the one I’d set out to be. Maybe I failed it. Maybe that’s exactly what I should have done, report it to the authorities. But I didn’t: I decided against it, for reasons I believed were legitimate. For a start, I’d have been shopping Frank, putting my cousin in the frame as a convicted criminal operating in Spain under an alias, and raising large sums of money into the bargain. That didn’t bother me of itself, but it would have bothered my aunt, and I had to consider her feelings. The clincher, though, the possibility that stopped me from trotting off to the Guardia Civil, was a real fear that I might be held myself, not as a suspect, but as a witness, and that I might find myself stuck in Sevilla, cut off from my son.
    I felt exposed, though, no mistake about that, and just a little bit nervous about my meeting with Lidia Bromberg . . . if that was her real name. I’ve become pretty self-reliant, in all things, over the years, and I’ve got out of the habit of turning to others, even my dad, for help and advice. That’s not to say that I don’t have a Mr Fix-it. Miles Grayson, my brother-in-law, is a very influential man. Trouble is, he’s also straight as a die and I knew that any advice he gave me would involve the police, and might even be conditional upon it.
    And then I thought of Mark.
    Back in the old days, Oz had a . . . How best to describe him? Let’s call him an associate. His name is Mark Kravitz, and he describes himself as a security consultant. But he’s one of the very few consultants I know who doesn’t have a website, and if you Google his name the only hits you’ll make will be a rock musician and an American judge, neither of whom