Inhuman Remains by Quintin Jardine

d’Amuseo [ I read silently ] will be the new heartbeat of Andalusian culture, offering the classic mix of twenty-four-hour gambling and high-quality year-round entertainment. Our highlights include
    • A state-of-the-art American no-limit gaming hall, featuring roulette, blackjack, craps and slots.
    • Two theatres featuring spectacular shows and concert appearances by global entertainment stars.
    • A championship golf complex designed by Ryder Cup legend Syd Hoylake.
    • An associated ski-lodge in the Sierra Nevada with a private transport link for our winter guests.
    • A five-star, two-thousand-bedroom hotel with a hundred opulent suites, and restaurant options to suit all tastes.
    Your pleasure is our only concern.
     
    ‘I’ll bet it is,’ I murmured, as I clicked on ‘Our People’, ‘but there’s more to it than that.’
    We are an international team of professionals in the leisure industry, with almost a century of combined experience. Our principals are
    • Alastair Rowland, chairman of the board. An internationally renowned hotel impresario, who has led successful ventures in Italy, France and the US.
    • George Macela, chief executive officer, with experience of similar ventures in Reno and Florida.
    • Lidia Bromberg, director and sales manager.
    Doesn’t tell you much about the last two , I thought. Come to think of it, it doesn’t tell you much about any of them.
    I switched from the website to a search engine, and keyed in each name in turn. How many hits did I have? None. Not one of these leading professionals in the leisure industry had left a single footprint on the Internet. On the trail of George Macela, I visited sites in Reno and in Florida, where the Seminole Indian tribe have casino interests. The name drew no results on either of them. Then I realised something else: the searches didn’t even lead me back to my starting point. The ‘new heartbeat of Andalusian culture’ had yet to be detected by the worldwide web.
    I returned to the d’Amuseo site and clicked on ‘Contact Us’. I found no more than the details on the slip that Adrienne had given me: no street address, only the post-office box and telephone numbers. Nothing, except . . .
    The phone was a land-line and so it had to be sitting on a desk somewhere. I went back in my mind to the days when Oz and I were in the investigations business, when we were at our happiest and when our lives were at their least complicated, and I recalled finding out then that while reverse telephone directories did exist, they were restricted, and that their use was even illegal in some countries . . . unless you were a cop.
    Once upon a time I knew a policeman whose territory took in St Martí d’Empúries. His name was Ramón Fortunato, and I use the past tense deliberately. Like too many men in my past, he wasn’t altogether nice, but he did have a sergeant, Alex Guinart, whom I’d met on occasion and whom I do like and trust. He’s a sub-inspector now, and since I’ve been back in town, our paths have crossed: we started by having a beer or two together . . . when he was off duty, since the restaurants don’t like people in uniform sitting at their tables . . . and soon I grew close to him, and his new family, his wife Gloria and their baby, Marte. I can turn to Alex for advice when I need it, and I did.
    I called him on his mobile: from the background noise I guessed that he was in the small Mossos d’Esquadra station in L’Escala. ‘Primavera,’ he answered, having read my number as he took the call, ‘how goes it?’ He and I converse in Catalan. (I don’t use English unless I have to; for example, with another Brit. We move to Spain in our thousands, but we’re so damn clannish that most of us don’t bother to learn the languages.)
    ‘I’m fine, thanks, Alex,’ I replied. ‘Can you do me a favour? I’ve got a phone number, and I need to tie an address to it. It’s a business in Sevilla that my cousin’s involved