Robert Wilson: The Hidden Assassins

'I don't know exactly what I'm looking for. It could be a block-booking for a minimum of four rooms made by some foreign tourists, possibly French, maybe from Paris. The booking would have been made for El Rocio,' said Falcon. 'It could possibly be for more rooms, but the crucial thing is that they would have four-wheel-drive cars, driven down from Northern Europe rather than hired locally.'

The manager spent time at his keyboard, shaking his head as he entered variations on Falcon's data.

'Around the time of El Rocio I've got large tour groups in coaches,' he said. 'But there's nothing in the smaller block-bookings of between four and eight rooms.'

There were roadworks where the metro was being built outside the Hotel Alfonso XIII and Falcon decided that this was not the sort of place they'd stay in. He'd had a look at the Porsche Cayenne on the internet, and he reckoned that the owner of a car like that would be looking for exclusivity. Somehow the Alfonso XIII's grandeur made it passe. It was a conservative person's hotel.

He tried the Hotel Imperial. It was hidden away down a quiet street and overlooked the gardens of the Casa Pilatos. He had no luck there either. His epiphany of last night was beginning to take on the luridness of an early-morning idea that looked absurd in the cold light of day.

The first indication that his creative instincts hadn't gone completely awry was at a boutique hotel where the receptionist remembered a woman from London, calling in March, asking for four rooms before and after El Rocio with parking for four vehicles. The hotel had no parking and only two rooms for the dates she'd wanted. The woman had asked to hold those rooms for twenty-four hours to see if she could find another two elsewhere. The receptionist showed an email from a UK company, which had arrived after the call, from a woman called Mouna Chedadi making the booking on behalf of Amanda Turner. Falcon was certain that he'd found what he was looking for.

He started working his way through a list of local hotels, asking for a booking made by Amanda Turner. Thirty-five minutes later, he was sitting in the manager's office of the Hotel Las Casas de la Juderia.

'She was lucky,' he said. 'A group had just cancelled ten minutes before she called and she got her four deluxe suites together.'

'What about their cars?' asked Falcon, giving him Mouna Chedadi's name to make the search through the hotel email database.

'They had four cars,' said the manager. 'And I see here, she was asking if they could leave them in the hotel while they went on the pilgrimage to El Rocio.'

'Did you let them?'

'The garage isn't big enough to hold four cars for people who aren't current clients of the hotel at that time of year. They were told that there were plenty of car parks in Seville where they could leave them.'

'Any idea what they did with their cars?'

The manager called the receptionist and asked her to bring in the hotel registration forms for the four rooms. She confirmed that the eight people had arrived in taxis from wherever they'd parked their cars.

'They stayed here on 31st May,' said the manager, 'and left the following day to go on the pilgrimage. They came back on 5th June and left again on 8th June.'

'I remember they were going to Granada for a night,' said the receptionist.

'They came back here on 9th June and left…have they left yet?'

'They paid their bill last night and left at seven thirty this morning, when the garage opened.'

'So they did leave their cars here when they came back from Granada?' said Falcon. 'Do you know the models?'

'Only the registration numbers.'

'What do they give as their professions?'

'Fund managers, all four of them.'

'Did they leave any mobile phone numbers?'

Falcon asked for photocopies of the forms. He went outside and phoned Gregorio, gave him the four UK registration numbers and asked him to find which models they belonged to. Back in the hotel he asked to speak to the bar staff who'd been on duty the night before. He knew what English people were like.

The bar staff remembered the group. They tipped very well, like Americans rather than English people. The men drank beer and the women drank manzanilla, and then gin and tonics. None of the bar staff knew enough English to understand anything of their conversation. They remembered a man who'd had a short exchange with them and then left soon after and there was another couple, some other foreigners, who'd joined them for drinks. They'd all gone out for dinner afterwards.

The other couple were identified as Dutch, and were called down to reception. Falcon worked on identifying the lone man who'd had a brief chat with the group before leaving. The bar staff said he looked Spanish and spoke with a Castellano, rather than Andaluz, accent. The receptionist remembered him and said that he'd paid his bill last night as well. She dug out his registration form. He'd given a Spanish name and ID card. He'd arrived on 6th June and had parked a car in the hotel garage as well. Falcon asked them to scan the ID and registration form, paste it into an email and send it to Gregorio.

The Dutchman appeared looking hungover. They'd had a big night out with the English, who they'd met on the pilgrimage to El Rocio. They hadn't got to bed until two in the morning and yet the English said they were leaving early.

'Did they say where they were going?'

'They just said they were going back to England.'

'What about their route?'

'They were staying in paradors, then going via Biarritz and the Loire to the Channel Tunnel. They all had to be back at work a week tomorrow.'

Falcon paced the patio, willing his mobile to start vibrating. Gregorio called back just before 10 a.m.

'First of all, that Spanish ID card was stolen last year and we haven't got a visual match for his face in any of our files. His car was a Mercedes and was hired in Jerez de la Frontera on Monday, 5th June in the afternoon, and it was returned at 9.15 this morning. I've told them not to touch the car until they hear from us. Are you going to tell me what this is about?'

'What about the car models of UK registrations?'

'They're coming through now,' said Gregorio, reading them off. 'A VW Touareg, a Porsche Cayenne, a Mercedes M270 and a Range Rover.'

'You remember the car manuals Yacoub saw?'

'Let's meet in your office now. I can get secure phone lines there.'

Forty-five minutes later Falcon was still waiting in his office, making notes as the complications to the scenario multiplied in his mind. Gregorio called from Elvira's office and told him he'd set up a conference call with Juan and Pablo, who were in Madrid.

'The first thing I want to hear is the line of logic in all this,' said Juan. 'Gregorio's talked us through it, but I want to hear it from you, Javier.'

Falcon hesitated, thinking there were more important things to discuss than the workings of his brain.

'This is urgent,' said Juan, 'but we're not in a panic. These people are going to take their time travelling back and it's going to give us time to find out what we're up against. I've sent some people from the bomb squad to take a look at the Mercedes in the car-hire company down in Jerez. Let's get the information first and plan our action afterwards. Tell me, Javier.'

Falcon talked him through last night's thought processes, the transmission with Yacoub and the car manuals, the notes he'd looked over about El Rocio, the high brisance of hexogen, the idea of crippling the EU with attacks on tourist resorts and financial centres. Juan was irritable and interrupted frequently. When Falcon happened to mention seeing himself on television, Juan was sarcastic.

'We saw it here, too,' he said. 'Very nice, Javier. We don't allow ourselves to get too sentimental in the CNI.'