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thought he was involved with someone else, but she couldn’t give me a name.’
    ‘How about London? Anyone there?’
    ‘Not many. His business colleagues dropped him when the trouble arose, and so did most of his school chums. There are still one or two, though, people who stayed loyal. Justin’s the closest, Justin Mayfield. He and Frank worked in the House of Commons, in the dying days of the last Tory government. They were both researchers: Frank worked for a junior minister and Justin was with an opposition back-bencher. ’
    ‘What does he do now?’
    ‘He’s a junior minister himself; number two in the Culture department. He’s been an MP for seven years. I called him, of course; his assistant said he was busy, and that he would get back to me. He hasn’t though; not yet, at any rate.’
    Some long-buried instincts started to murmur within me. I pushed myself out of my chair. ‘Let’s get this right, Adrienne,’ I said. ‘You’re telling me that Frank’s vanished into thin air, and that the company he was supposed to be working for has denied all knowledge of him.’
    ‘That sums it up.’
    ‘What about the bird in Davos, Susannah? If she and Frank had a thing going, she must be concerned too. Can’t you get more out of her?’
    ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’
    ‘Then it’s time you spoke to her again. And it’s time you rattled the man Justin’s cage again. If he’s Frank’s closest friend, it’s time he was told about the situation, if nothing else. As a government minister he’ll have clout.’
    And then a thought struck me, like a car I hadn’t seen coming. I found myself grinning at her. ‘But that’s why you’re here, isn’t it?’ I exclaimed. ‘You want me to find him for you.’
    ‘No, no, no.’ She shook her head, but not quite emphatically enough. ‘How could you do that, really? You have Tom, you have a dog. Your hands are quite full enough, Primavera.’
    ‘I have a computer with a broadband Internet connection.’
    ‘So have I, but even today, there are limits to what the web can achieve. I need a hands-on approach.’ She sighed heavily. ‘And, yes, I admit that when I decided to visit you, I did have in mind the fact that you and Tom’s father ran an investigation business a few years ago, before all the later stuff happened to you. But now that I’ve seen how you live, I can’t possibly expect . . .’
    ‘No, you can’t, Adrienne.’ I picked up my glass from the table and took a sip of sauvignon blanc. It was warm, so I refreshed it from the bottle in the ice bucket. As I leaned against the terrace rail, ostensibly looking down at my aunt, I found myself seeing other things, scenes from times past, from affairs that might have been described as adventures, with a tall figure by my side, one whose smile and good looks were a match for a much darker persona. Old thrills, old dangers, all in the past. Compared to which, asking a few questions about my crooked, probably recidivist cousin . . . ‘But now that we’ve established that,’ I continued, ‘if you were able to look after Tom and Charlie for a few days, I suppose I could catch a flight down to Sevilla.’
    She stayed poker faced: I made a mental note never to play cards with her. ‘I couldn’t possibly allow that, Prim . . .’
    There were men out on the bay, in boats, fishing for squid. I could see, like fireflies in the night, the bright lights they used to draw their catch to the surface. I grinned at her, aware that she was luring me into her net. ‘Cut the crap,’ I retorted. ‘We both know that you could, and that you will.’

Six
    T om was very good about it, when I told him I had something to do for Aunt Adrienne and that she’d be house-sitting with him and the dog. If he’d been upset in the slightest, I’d have aborted the mission there and then, but he assured me he didn’t mind a bit. In truth I was the one with reservations; my son’s early years had been a little nomadic, thanks