Last Resort by Quintin Jardine Read Free Book Online

head, but it was no risk, because he’s a genius.’ He drew a deep breath into his massive chest. ‘And now he’s disappeared.’
    ‘Disappeared?’ I repeated.
    ‘Without trace, four days ago. He left home for the office last Friday morning, at eight o’clock as usual, but he never arrived. He hasn’t been seen since, or heard from.’
    ‘Could he have jumped ship?’ I asked.
    ‘What do you mean?’
    ‘Could he have gone to work for someone else?’
    ‘Not a chance,’ Xavi replied. ‘Hector loves his job; there is nobody on the payroll anywhere who’s more dedicated than he is. Money isn’t an issue either; he’s on a director-level salary, a healthy six figures after tax, plus a performance bonus. For the last three years, he’s been the highest earner in the entire InterMedia group . . . and that includes Joe and me. On top of that he owns a piece of the business. I said that the company is family owned, but over the years Pilar Roca has been rewarded with share options, to be exercised in the event of a sale, and since the digital revolution started, Hector’s been on the same deal. Today, they own ten per cent of the business between them.’
    ‘What’s Hector’s personal situation?’
    ‘He’s thirty-six, and he’s single. He’s had a few relationships, but he isn’t in one at the moment; they’ve all broken up because he’s so focused on his work. He has an apartment in Barcelona, but most of the time he lives in the family home. Pilar and Simon have a nice big house in Begur, and Hector has his own part of that, just as Joe has here.’
    ‘Do you know for sure that he left home at eight?’
    ‘One hundred per cent. His mother made him breakfast, then she heard his car leaving the garage. After that, as I said, he didn’t arrive at the office and nobody has seen him or heard from him since then.’
    ‘Are you sure he isn’t in love, and just slipped off for a few days? Lust can do strange things to people, make them behave out of the ordinary. My boy Ignacio is living proof of that.’
    ‘Pilar says no; she’s sure she’d have known if there was anyone new around. She’s going quietly mad over this, by the way. Besides, the one thing it would not have made him do is switch off his mobile phone. It never leaves him; it’s an extension of his personality. He’s one of those people who tweet everything, short of bowel movements, although I’m sure he’s shared a few thoughts while sat on the throne. His Twitter account has been silent since last Thursday, and likewise Facebook.’
    ‘Where’s his office?’
    ‘Hector’s based in our group headquarters on the edge of Girona. So are Pilar and I, but we’re not there every day, as he is.’ The big guy smiled. ‘I’m making up for the times when I was never away from the office.
    ‘Everyone in the company reports to me ultimately but my hands-on involvement these days tends to be with our bankers and those people and organisations whose goodwill is important to us.’
    ‘Politicians and civil servants?’
    ‘Exactly.’
    ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘If I understand you correctly, the group is run at top level by three people.’
    ‘More or less. Pilar supervises all our newspapers and magazines, with each editor reporting to her. Hector’s title is digital media director; he runs all the websites and has oversight of our radio and television stations, through assistants at sub-board level. We have a finance director, of course, Hilario Mendez. That gives us a six-person board, with Joe being the chairman, and Sheila as non-executive director.’ He grinned again, and glanced at his wife. ‘After we’d been here for a couple of years, I realised that I talked through every major business decision with her, and most of the smaller ones too, and that her input was pretty sharp, so we brought her into the circle.’
    ‘I was the same with Sarah,’ I confessed. ‘Her being a forensic pathologist, we’ve had some very