Quintin Jardine: On Honeymoon With Death

‘I take it from the fact that Interpol have a file on him,’ I said, ‘and from your tone, that Mr Capulet is bent.’

‘Bent?’ For once Fortunato’s English let him down.

‘Crooked. Not straight. A criminal.’

‘All three. Capulet is, or maybe was, a friend of the friends. He has contacts with organised crime in France, Italy, Spain and the United States. He has homes in Paris and Florida.’

‘What was his business?’

‘He was a merchant, you might say. He was registered, quite legitimately, in Monaco as an antique dealer. He bought and sold internationally; often he would act for individuals on an agency basis. They’d give him lists of what they wanted, and he would find the items and acquire them. He did very well.

‘But there was a suspicion that he had another, more lucrative business. He may have been involved in the movement of goods from one country to another, usually, but not always, on an informal basis.’

‘He’s a drug smuggler?’

‘Smuggler yes. . or so the police believe. . but drugs no, apparently. According to the Interpol file he did not deal in narcotics. He was suspected of smuggling cigarettes, alcohol and people; those three illicit commodities.’

‘People?’ Prim exclaimed.

Fortunato gave her a smile and a shrug. ‘Sure. There’s money to be made by moving people from one country to another; Moroccans into Spain, Chinese and Asians into Britain. . Christ, Chinese everywhere. . Africans anywhere in mainland Europe, and into the States.’

‘But if you know all this, why wasn’t he in jail?’

‘No, we suspect all this. Nobody has ever been able to prove any of it. But maybe he is in jail, dear Primavera.’ He seemed to caress her name with his tongue. ‘Maybe he is in prison in another continent, under another of his names.’ Outside, a diesel engine barked into life. ‘Or maybe he’s in a plastic box on his way to the morgue in Figueras.

‘To answer your question, criminals like our French friend do their business on the basis of bribery. People are paid to be absent from their posts at certain times, or not to search particular consignments, or to develop sudden deafness should they hear voices coming from within a container as it is being unloaded from a truck or a ship. It’s very difficult to catch them.

‘Whatever the truth, he hasn’t been seen anywhere for over a year, by the people whose business it is to watch him. On my way here, I checked with Interpol; in Lyon …’

I interrupted. ‘I thought it was based in Paris.’

‘That’s what everyone thinks. No, it’s in Lyon; Quai Charles de Gaulle. Christ, it even has a website. I used the telephone though; I called them when my men gave me this location, and asked about M. Capulet. They told me that he had dropped out of sight.’

‘At around the same time the house was put on the market?’

‘A few months before that.’

‘Mmm. If that is him in the van, he might have had a problem when it came to giving the sale instruction to the lawyer.’

Fortunato frowned.

‘So?’

‘So if it is him, and he didn’t authorise the sale, who did? His sister?’

‘A good question. One of many Interpol may be asking. . if it turns out that way.’

‘How about his antiques business?’ Prim asked.

‘As far as I know it’s still trading; but it was run by a manager for much of the time. Capulet needed it, you see, to make his wealth look legitimate.’

He finished his brandy. ‘I must go,’ he announced abruptly, rising easily from the couch.

As we walked him to the door, he looked down at Prim. ‘It is good to see you again, my dear,’ he said quietly, giving her forearm a gentle squeeze. ‘I am happy to see that you seem to be happy.’

‘You too,’ she murmured.

He seemed to remember that I was there. ‘I hope that we don’t have to disturb you much more, Senor Oz. If your latest specimen turns out not to be Capulet, we won’t. But if it is. . well, that may be another matter.’

He shook my hand, kissed Prim briefly on the cheek once more, and stepped out into the night.

I did my best to put it out of my mind; honest. I might have succeeded too, had Prim not been clearly as preoccupied as I was trying to pretend I wasn’t. . if you see what I mean.

We made it all the way through dinner; big steaks, with fried red peppers, washed down with a bottle of Vina Pomeral. Maybe it was the brandy I had earlier, but eventually, as we settled down into our armchairs with mugs of coffee, it overcame me.

I looked at her, trying to smile. ‘Remember what you said about you and the captain? Just good friends, and all that stuff?’

She nodded. When she reddened, I knew what she was going to say.

‘That wasn’t exactly true,’ she exclaimed, then paused, and her eyes fell. ‘Christ, it wasn’t at all true!

‘We had an affair, Ramon and I. It started a few months after you had gone back to Scotland, to marry Jan.

‘I told you that I used to see him in Meson del Conde, in St Marti, remember. The first time he was with this nice young woman; he introduced her as Veronique, his wife. The second time she wasn’t there. I was at a table in the square one evening, when he appeared and asked if he could join me.’

She shot me a glance. ‘I didn’t just jump into bed with him, you know. He sat down, and we began to talk: a lot, as it turned out. I told him about how you had gone, and why. He told me about himself, and Veronique. I hadn’t realised that they were separated, when I met them before. That evening, he had been trying to persuade her to come back to him: with no success, at that point at any rate.

‘At some time that second evening, I said that I was bored. About two days later Ramon called me. I had told him about having been a nurse, and without another word he had arranged an interview for me in the hospital in Girona. I saw him again after that, after I got the job, for a “thank you” meal in the restaurant. Afterwards I took him home to the apartment. . and I asked him if he wanted to sleep with me.’ She chuckled, bitterly. ‘He was every centimetre the gentleman; he even asked if I was sure! I said, “Too right, I am!”

‘That was the start of it.’

‘How long?’ I asked. I felt strange, like a voyeur, in a way. I was aware of the need to be calm and rational, yet surprised to find that I actually was. I knew I wasn’t Prim’s only lover, but, with one unforgettable exception, she’d never discussed any of my predecessors, or successors; not till right then.

‘Five months. After a few weeks he moved in. We kept ourselves to ourselves at that point; I didn’t mix with the British crowd at all, so as far as I’m aware none of them know about it.’

‘He was gone when I met you again.’ I realised that was an assumption. ‘He was, wasn’t he?’

She nodded.

‘So what happened?’

‘I got bored, and threw him out.’

‘Just like that?’

She nodded.

‘Why don’t I believe,’ I challenged her, ‘that that’s the whole story?’

She hesitated, looked down, and went an even deeper shade of red. ‘I became pregnant by him,’ she whispered, and I could see that her eyes were glazed with tears.

I haven’t been struck dumb very often in my life, but score one on that occasion.

‘Oh my,’ I murmured eventually. It was all I could say.

‘I had a termination,’ she went on, in that same small voice.

‘Why did you do that?’ I asked, in a tone as quiet as hers.

‘Because I didn’t love him. And because he was still in love with Veronique; I knew that. He told me eventually that she’d been unfaithful to him. He assured me that he hadn’t simply been using me to get even, but he could never make me believe that. Not quite. Honestly, I had told him to go before I even suspected I was in the club.