with, but I only have a poste restante address. No problem if you can’t do it.’
‘For you I can do it. You got me your sister’s signed photograph: you’re my heroine.’ That’s true. Alex is a movie fan: he keeps the photo in his office, and makes damn sure that all his colleagues know of my family connection, even if Dawn’s career has been on hold since she and Miles had their second kid, Eilidh, a wee sister for Bruce. It does no harm to have every cop in town keeping a special eye on my son.
It didn’t take him long. ‘The address is Calle Alvarez Quintero forty-seven. I checked the local property register. But it’s not a business, it’s a residence, right in the city centre, near the town hall. It’s listed as belonging to a lady named Benitez.’
Maybe that disclosure should have taken me by surprise, but it didn’t: I was beginning to catch a faint scent of fish. ‘Thanks, Alex. Give me a call next time you’re heading this way and I’ll buy you lunch . . . but not for a few days. I’m off to Sevilla.’
I was frowning as I ended the call. A multi-million-euro rural complex operating from a city-centre house? That didn’t sit right with me. I decided to dig a little deeper, and to set up a reason for my visit.
I can hear you asking something. Since I have a friend in the police, why didn’t I report Frank as a missing person and leave it to them? Good question. Right now, I wish I had, but then I didn’t because, given Frank’s record, I was concerned that criminality lay behind his disappearance, and I reckoned that my aunt had suffered enough public embarrassment at his hapless hands.
Instead, I went to the final section of the d’Amuseo website, ‘Investment Opportunities’, and clicked on it. I was greeted by a short, encouraging statement.
While the bulk of the equity in Hotel Casino d’Amuseo will be held by leading financial institutions, a number of shares in the holding company have been reserved for private investors. In addition to unrivalled growth potential, these carry with them the benefits of discounted rates in the hotel and ski-lodge and membership of the golf club. For further information, contact Lidia Bromberg, director and sales manager.
‘Why not?’ I said, and dialled the number Alex had checked out for me. It rang four times, then a solicitous automated voice told me, in Spanish, that my call was being diverted. The sound changed to a double tone, which I heard a further six times until finally, in a lousy accent, ‘ Sí ?’
‘Is that Lidia Bromberg?’
‘Yes?’ She switched to English; there was a degree of caution in her voice.
‘The same Lidia Bromberg who’s marketing director of Hotel Casino d’Amuseo?’
‘Yes.’ Instantly, she sounded more comfortable and more confident. ‘And you are?’
‘A potential investor in your complex,’ I replied. ‘My name is Janet More.’ The decision to use my previously borrowed identity was made on the spur of the moment. If Frank had let slip the celebrity names in his family when he was in Switzerland, there was a better than even chance he’d done it in Spain.
‘What level of investment did you have in mind, Mrs More?’ Her accent was definitely not British; if I’d had to name it on the spot I’d have said middle rather than eastern European, German probably.
‘It’s Ms More, and that’s not something I care to discuss over the phone. Let’s just say that I have access to substantial funds.’
‘Our starter level is around two hundred thousand US.’
‘Is that all?’ I asked. ‘Your club doesn’t sound too exclusive.’
‘Ah,’ she said, a little too quickly, ‘but that is only our starter level.
Once potential investors take a look at what we have to offer, in terms of benefits and capital growth, invariably they go way above that.’
‘And what do you have to offer?’
‘A piece of the biggest and most exciting leisure development ever undertaken in Europe.’
‘I
‘For you I can do it. You got me your sister’s signed photograph: you’re my heroine.’ That’s true. Alex is a movie fan: he keeps the photo in his office, and makes damn sure that all his colleagues know of my family connection, even if Dawn’s career has been on hold since she and Miles had their second kid, Eilidh, a wee sister for Bruce. It does no harm to have every cop in town keeping a special eye on my son.
It didn’t take him long. ‘The address is Calle Alvarez Quintero forty-seven. I checked the local property register. But it’s not a business, it’s a residence, right in the city centre, near the town hall. It’s listed as belonging to a lady named Benitez.’
Maybe that disclosure should have taken me by surprise, but it didn’t: I was beginning to catch a faint scent of fish. ‘Thanks, Alex. Give me a call next time you’re heading this way and I’ll buy you lunch . . . but not for a few days. I’m off to Sevilla.’
I was frowning as I ended the call. A multi-million-euro rural complex operating from a city-centre house? That didn’t sit right with me. I decided to dig a little deeper, and to set up a reason for my visit.
I can hear you asking something. Since I have a friend in the police, why didn’t I report Frank as a missing person and leave it to them? Good question. Right now, I wish I had, but then I didn’t because, given Frank’s record, I was concerned that criminality lay behind his disappearance, and I reckoned that my aunt had suffered enough public embarrassment at his hapless hands.
Instead, I went to the final section of the d’Amuseo website, ‘Investment Opportunities’, and clicked on it. I was greeted by a short, encouraging statement.
While the bulk of the equity in Hotel Casino d’Amuseo will be held by leading financial institutions, a number of shares in the holding company have been reserved for private investors. In addition to unrivalled growth potential, these carry with them the benefits of discounted rates in the hotel and ski-lodge and membership of the golf club. For further information, contact Lidia Bromberg, director and sales manager.
‘Why not?’ I said, and dialled the number Alex had checked out for me. It rang four times, then a solicitous automated voice told me, in Spanish, that my call was being diverted. The sound changed to a double tone, which I heard a further six times until finally, in a lousy accent, ‘ Sí ?’
‘Is that Lidia Bromberg?’
‘Yes?’ She switched to English; there was a degree of caution in her voice.
‘The same Lidia Bromberg who’s marketing director of Hotel Casino d’Amuseo?’
‘Yes.’ Instantly, she sounded more comfortable and more confident. ‘And you are?’
‘A potential investor in your complex,’ I replied. ‘My name is Janet More.’ The decision to use my previously borrowed identity was made on the spur of the moment. If Frank had let slip the celebrity names in his family when he was in Switzerland, there was a better than even chance he’d done it in Spain.
‘What level of investment did you have in mind, Mrs More?’ Her accent was definitely not British; if I’d had to name it on the spot I’d have said middle rather than eastern European, German probably.
‘It’s Ms More, and that’s not something I care to discuss over the phone. Let’s just say that I have access to substantial funds.’
‘Our starter level is around two hundred thousand US.’
‘Is that all?’ I asked. ‘Your club doesn’t sound too exclusive.’
‘Ah,’ she said, a little too quickly, ‘but that is only our starter level.
Once potential investors take a look at what we have to offer, in terms of benefits and capital growth, invariably they go way above that.’
‘And what do you have to offer?’
‘A piece of the biggest and most exciting leisure development ever undertaken in Europe.’
‘I
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