‘Everything you’d expect. Road-blocks on the highways out of Girona, door-to-door around the apartment block, looking for witnesses who might have seen the abduction. They’re also recovering street camera footage; with luck they’ll have some video.’

  ‘Suspects?’

  ‘Lottie didn’t say. I doubt that there are any.’

  ‘It has to be business-related,’ Alex said. ‘Back home he’s made a lifetime’s worth of enemies, but here he only has a business profile . . . a high one at that. What about the Basque nationalists? Are they still active?’

  ‘No, they’re not. They disarmed years ago, and even if they hadn’t, latterly their policy was not to stage active operations . . . assassinations, in other words . . . in Catalunya as it was in the same situation as they were, an autonomous region seeking independence. The Catalans themselves, they’ve never been violent, not to that extent.’

  ‘And the new Right?’ she suggested.

  ‘They’ll be considered, I’m sure,’ Dominick conceded. ‘But I wouldn’t subscribe to that. They’ve been steadily increasing their profile in the Madrid Parliament. I don’t see them risking that by targeting individuals in that way.’

  ‘Then who could it be?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted, ‘but one thing. I hope they’re going to find the truth of an old adage.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Be careful what you wish for.’

  Sixty-Three

  ‘I’ve been awake pretty much all night,’ Lottie Mann confessed. ‘I expected him to walk through that door at any minute.’

  She and Comissari Roza were seated on stools at the breakfast bar in Skinner’s apartment, contemplating the two croissants that remained of the six that the Catalan had brought with her. Mann broke the deadlock by reaching out and taking her third. ‘Another coffee?’ she asked.

  Roza nodded. ‘I’ll do it.’ She stepped down, rinsed the cups that they had drained and placed them under the nozzle of the bean-to-cup machine. ‘None of your capsules for Sir Robert,’ she observed.

  ‘No,’ Mann confirmed, swallowing a mouthful. ‘When he was in the police, even in his few months in Glasgow, he was famous for having a coffee machine on the go all the time in his office. The word was that his wife had ordered him to cut down, so he drank hardly any at home. Then it was just filter stuff. He’s gone up-market now.’ She paused as her colleague took a call, watching the narrowing of her eyes, listening to the tone of her brief responses.

  The comissari stayed silent when it was over, focusing on the coffee cups as the milk frother did its work. She carried them back to the breakfast bar and resumed her seat. ‘They’ve ruled them out,’ she said.

  The Scot gasped. ‘What?’

  ‘’It wasn’t the extreme Right,’ Roza told her. ‘Our security branch reached out to them, to their people in Parliament. They promised us that the only interest they have in Sir Robert is in persuading him to have InterMedia adopt a more neutral line editorially. They are realists; they know that isn’t going to happen, so their real focus is on the rest of the Catalan media . . . good luck to them with that.’

  ‘Do you believe them?’

  ‘Yes, I have to. If they turned to violence it would give the moderate majority in the Cortes an excuse to crush them. They know that.’ She paused, eyeing the last croissant but deciding to leave it for Mann. ‘But there’s more, much more. Our scrutiny of the street cameras was able to pick up the moment of the kidnapping. There is a verifiable image of Sir Robert, so there is no doubt. The vehicle is a Cadillac Escalade. Footage shows that it went through two roadblocks, then joined the autopista heading south.’

  ‘Hold on,’ Mann insisted. ‘How did it go through two roadblocks? They were told to stop big dark vehicles. Lita, cars don’t come any bigger or any blacker than a Cadillac fucking Escalade. Were they all asleep?’

  ‘No,’ her colleague replied. ‘They were wide awake, enough to know that they could not stop it, because it had diplomatic plates: red, code two seven. That’s American, Lottie. They have him. They’ve snatched a UK national and a major Spanish business figure from the streets of Spain. Fuck! On my watch!’ She sighed and sipped her coffee. ‘Last night . . . I will never forget this . . . I said he was way below my pay grade. Now, he is way above it. I must take this to Major Teijero, my boss, in Sabadell. I guarantee that he will shit himself . . . maybe literally. He will certainly take it to Manuel Mateu, the Catalan security minister. And he is a friend of Sir Robert, so he will take it to Madrid.’

  ‘And what about InterMedia?’ Mann asked. ‘Its chairman’s been snatched off the street. Who’s going to tell them? Who’s going to tell Xavi Aislado?’

  ‘Not me,’ Roza said firmly. ‘If your old boss was looking at this situation objectively, looking at his own abduction, the way it was done and who did it, what would he do? Would he go public? Would he break the biggest international scandal in years? Tell me. You know him, Lottie, I don’t.’

  Mann gazed at the last lonely croissant, took pity on it and picked it up. ‘As a man called Mick Herron would put it,’ she murmured, ‘this stuff is straight off Spook Street. The Gaffer’s more than fifty per cent spook himself, always has been. I’m pretty sure he’d say to sit on it for twenty-four hours and see how it plays out.’ She wrapped the croissant in paper torn from a kitchen roll, and stepped off the stool. ‘Come on, let’s go to Barcelona and see your bosses. I’m not a spectator here; he’s my translator, remember, so I have an interest. I feel that I’m representing him, and his family and everyone back home. I need to be part of what happens next.’

  Sixty-Four

  Awareness returned to him slowly. He was lying on a firm surface, his head on a cushion. At first he thought he was in a dream. Minutes went past as he anticipated his awakening, but he was still disconnected from time and so. for all he knew, they could have been days. His name, he thought, was Bob, but he was not quite certain of this.

  Surgery. The word swam into his head and lodged there. A random knife attack, blues and sirens, then a gurney and bright lights, people in gowns and masks, and then nothing but dark thoughts and visions. So why, he wondered, did he still have twin pinpoints of pain in his back and an ache in the right side of his neck, just below the jawbone?

  ‘Is he still out?’

  The voice seemed distant and yet close, all at the same time. Familiar too. His father? Couldn’t be, with that accent. His father was from Motherwell, not Minneapolis. And come to think of it, his father was dead.

  ‘Zonked,’ a second voice said, one he had not heard before. ‘Maybe we gave him too much. Fried his brain.’

  ‘That would be unfortunate,’ Agent K said. ‘It might cause difficulties.’

  Agent K? he thought. Where had that come from? And then he remembered the movie, how suddenly he was in the middle of it. Although . . .

  Bob Skinner lay there, on the firm surface, cushion under his head, and waited for his memory to reassemble itself fully, taking care to keep his eyes closed as he anticipated what would happen when he decided to awaken. Zappy thing, he promised himself, would be the least of their worries.

  Sixty-Five

  Lottie Mann was not, as a rule, a nervous passenger but there was something about the curves of the southbound AP7 towards Barcelona, the density of its traffic and above all the speed at which they were travelling, that scared her witless. Okay, they were in a police car to which normal speed limits did not apply but nothing, not the decals on its sides, not the blue lights, not the screaming siren sounds, put it beyond the reach of the laws of physics and their consequences, most of all those of hitting an immovable object at upwards of a hundred and seventy kilometres an hour. When the ringtone sounded on the car’s hands-free system and Lita Roza slowed down to take the call, she breathed an audible, thankful, sigh of relief.

  ‘Diga me.’ Mann had come to recognise ‘Talk to me’, as the Catalan way of taking a call.

  ‘La companyia d’helicòpters va tornar a trucar. Hi havia un passatger en aquell vol. Un canadenc anomenat Gilbert Land.’

  ‘Gràcies.’

  She turned to Mann as the call ended. ‘Did you get that? The helicopter taxi company responded. The passenger they took to the Ruidaura masia was Gilbert Land.’

  ‘That begs a big question, doesn’t it?’ Lottie looked ahead, holding back a smile as she saw that the traffic ahead was gridlocked. ‘Where is Mr Land now?’

  ‘Yes,’ Roza agreed. ‘And one more. Where is the mujer? Where is Geraldine Black?’

  Sixty-Six

  She seemed gaunt as she gazed at the screen, taking in what she had been told. ‘I knew it was too good to be true,’ she sighed. ‘Everything was falling into place for us yesterday; we had a heart-to-heart and at the end of it we were ready, both of us, to commit to Spain, with me building my work life around his. Now, it’s all falling apart.’ Her hand went to her mouth. ‘Oh God, that sounded so selfish. Alex, I didn’t mean it like that; it’s such a shock, what you’ve told me, is all.’

  ‘We know, Sarah,’ Dominick Jackson replied. ‘It’s a huge shock, we appreciate that. Alex reacted to it by having a swim. You reacted to it with guilt, where there is none. So, let’s all think rationally, all three of us. Agreed.’

  She looked back at them, drinking in the reassurance that his calmness offered; his arm was around Alex’s shoulders, as if he were holding her together.

  ‘Are we afraid for him?’ he asked. ‘Yes, we are. It takes power to snatch Bob Skinner from his own home. Do we have confidence in him? Yes, we do. Do we expect to see him again? Yes, we do, once he’s sorted out his present situation and made the people involved feel very sorry indeed.’

  Sarah realised that she was smiling. ‘I expect they’ll need counselling afterwards,’ she chuckled.

  ‘If they do,’ Dominic said, ‘they can find their own counsellor. This one won’t be sympathetic.’

  Alex kissed the back of his hand, taking her stepmother by surprise. She offered a shy smile and shrugged. ‘That was then,’ she murmured. ‘This is now.’

  Sixty-Seven

  ‘Is this verified?’ Major Teijero asked.

  ‘It is,’ Roza assured him. She had asked him to speak in English, for Mann’s benefit.

  ‘The Americans have done this, in Catalunya, without asking permission?’

  ‘Without asking permission of the Mossos. That’s all we can say for certain. If they asked the security ministry in Madrid, do you think they would tell us?’

  ‘I would hope they would,’ the major replied. ‘But if they chose to keep the circle of knowledge very small one might understand it.’

  Mann had abandoned restraint. ‘This one might not,’ she snapped. ‘Sir. If it was the fucking Russians, we’d be sending drones over Moscow, not making exculpatory noises.’

  ‘You might,’ he said, stiffly. ‘We might not. I am only in effect a regional official. I have no power.’

  ‘In that case why am I wasting my time talking to you? I’m trusting Spain to sort this out, not you, but that trust’s vanishing by the second. Either you put me in a room with someone who does have power, or I’ll do what I might get the sack for not having done earlier, that being, phone my boss in Scotland, my big boss, the chief constable. He’s a quiet man, but Bob Skinner’s one of his closest friends. If this goes wrong and something bad happens the shite that flies off the fan will fucking engulf you and you will be kissing your career goodbye.’

  Teijero stiffened; beneath his summer tan his face had turned chalk white. ‘Ladies,’ he hissed, ‘if you will leave me for a few minutes, I will make a telephone call.’

  ‘ “Ladies”,’ Roza muttered, once they were outside. ‘Sexist little fuck! Did you mean that?’ she asked. ‘The threat to phone your boss?’

  Mann smiled. ‘Do you think I’m crazy? I called him last night, then again as soon as we knew about the Americans being involved. He’s given me full authority to act on his behalf, as you’ve just witnessed. I have a big arse, Lita, but I make sure it’s covered all the time.’ She nodded towards the major’s closed door. ‘What do you think he’s doing now?’

  ‘Covering his,’ the comissari said, ‘although it’s a lot skinnier than yours.’

  As she spoke, Teijero’s door reopened. ‘Please remain here, ladies. I have called the minister and told him what has happened. I expected to be summoned to Barcelona, but no. He is coming here. Particularly, Chief Inspector, he wishes to see you.’

  Sixty-Eight

  Skinner lay as still as he had been lying since he recovered full control of his senses, and of his memories. His eyes were closed, but he was aware of all the movement around him. He knew that there were two men in the room, no more, and he knew who they were.

  Finally, he allowed himself to stretch out his arms and to shift his position, accompanied by a grunt and a sigh. He opened his eyes, looking around as if in surprise, but in reality scanning the room for cameras. He saw none, only a table with two chairs, one occupied by Agent K.

  Agent J stood over him. ‘Sir, you’re awake,’ he said. ‘We’ve been worried about you. Here, let me help you stand. You need to get the blood circulating again.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Skinner whispered, as the American took his arm and raised him to his feet. Agent K came across to help, but he shook his head. ‘That’s better,’ he murmured, clenching and unclenching his fists several times. ‘What drugs did you use on me?’

  ‘Propofol and pentobarbital,’ Agent J told him. ‘We were maybe a little too heavy on the propofol.’

  ‘Maybe, but it’s the best sleep I’ve had in years. Are you left-handed?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, sir, I am. Why do you ask?’

  ‘It means that you’re the one that stuck the needle in my neck.’

  Skinner’s smile vanished. He seized the man by the lapels, lifted him off his feet, drew him close and, as he did so, head-butted him between the eyes as hard as he could, hearing the satisfying crunch of a breaking nose. He threw him across the room and in the same movement turned to meet Agent K as he came to his colleague’s aid. He feinted to the left, inviting a punch, and grabbing the man’s arm as it came. Spinning him round, he jerked upwards, dislocating K’s shoulder and elbow in the same movement, and drawing a scream. It had taken five seconds.

  Moving fast, he took a firearm from K’s hip holster. J was semi-conscious, in danger of choking on his own blood. As Skinner removed the pistol, he turned the man on his side. Holding both pistols he stepped across the room. When the door opened and Agent L rushed in, taser brandished, he was standing behind it. He pressed a pistol to the back of her head with his left hand. ‘Bang,’ he murmured, ‘you’re dead.’ With his right hand he took the stun gun and shot her, point-blank.

  ‘Well, children,’ he said as he surveyed the carnage. ‘Look how your day’s turned out. If I had the zappy thing like you guys had in the movie, I’d erase your memories. But I don’t, so you’ll have to remember this for the rest of your lives.’

  He walked over to the table and laid down the weapons then waited. A few seconds later, a woman appeared in the doorway. She was white-haired, leaner than she had been when they had met years before but still unforgettable.

  ‘Merle bloody Gower,’ Skinner exclaimed, with a widening grin. ‘I might have known.’ He looked down at the three casualties and sighed. ‘Are these the best you could find?’ he asked. ‘I think I feel a little insulted.’

  Sixty-Nine

  Lottie Mann peered at her watch, her eyes wrinkling as she tried to focus on the hands. ‘A present from my other half,’ she explained. ‘It has a mother-of-pearl face, which makes it bloody difficult to see when it’s got light reflecting off it, but it was expensive and he was really chuffed with himself when he gave it to me, so I have to wear it.’

  ‘What does your husband do?’ Lita Roza asked

  ‘Dan was a cop. We worked together for years. He’s retired now but he lectures part-time at one of the police colleges. But he’s not my husband; we have this Scottish word, “bidey-in”, that you won’t find in too many dictionaries. I’m his.’

  ‘But he isn’t yours?’

  ‘We moved in with him, me and my son. His house was bigger.’

  ‘Does that make you feel secure?’ the Catalan wondered.

  ‘With Dan, always. I’m protected in his will.’

  ‘But if you break up? I have two woman friends; each of them was in a long term relationship that broke up and he kept the house.’

  ‘We won’t. Dan and me, we’re like Alex Skinner and her new fella. We’re solid, we’re for life.’

  ‘But if you did?’

  ‘I never sold my old place. It’s rented. That’s all the answer I can give you.’ She frowned at her watch again, gave up and checked the hour on her phone. ‘He’s taking his time, this minister of yours. The major said he was on his way.’

  Roza smiled. ‘Don’t take the major literally; Senor Mateu will be here as soon as he can, and as soon as the Barcelona traffic allows. Nobody is exempt from that. It’s one reason why our headquarters are here in Sabadell and not in the . . .’

  There was a rap on her office door. ‘Entrar,’ she called; it opened and a sergeant stepped into the room. Quickly and quietly he gave her a message; he spoke too quickly for Mann to grasp any of it.

  ‘Progress,’ the comissari announced, as he left. ‘The car that is registered in the name of Gilbert Land has been found. It’s gathering bird shit and parking tickets in a town called Ribes de Freser in the comarca of Ripolles in the north of Catalunya. It’s a pretty little place, almost a kilometre above sea level. It’s a tourist centre but for many it’s only a junction on the way to somewhere else. We have officers checking the hotels and hostals. When we are finished here, we will go there.’

  ‘Hold on,’ Mann exclaimed. ‘What about the Gaffer? He’s my priority.’