by Philip Kerr
I turned as Svetlana stepped out on to the deck, towel in hand and glistening. She draped the towel over the back of a basket chair then dived into the water, swam a couple of lengths and then came to the water’s edge. I sat down on a chair near her.
She sank below the surface for a moment and then came powering up again, lifting herself onto the side with arms that were more muscular than I remembered, and sat there in the sun like the Little Mermaid.
‘So, tell me what you think you know,’ she said.
I told her. It didn’t take very long. I was almost embarrassed at the sudden realisation of how little I did know. Perhaps that’s how it is with detective work. You know nothing; and then, a few minutes later, you think you know almost everything.
‘I last spoke to Bekim about two weeks ago,’ she said. ‘He emailed me from London with the intention of hooking up in Athens. I said I couldn’t come because I was working. And he understood that. So, naturally he’d have called Nataliya. No, wait. I need to go back to the beginning, about six years ago. It’s not that I feel the need to justify myself to you, Scott. I don’t. It’s just that when you said you’d kept my name from the police I realised that you’d done me a huge favour. I think that in return I need to tell you absolutely everything.’
44
‘In 2008, when the recession hit this country really hard, some of the banks looked like they would fail. Like a lot of Russians I had money in the Bank of Cyprus and it seemed for a while that I was going to lose it all. For a while my work stopped selling. Art is always the first thing that most people cut back on. But not Bekim, who has a good eye for paintings, and for sculpture, too. He saved me from going under. He bought several pieces of mine and then came up with a suggestion of how I could earn some regular money. He said that even in Greece there were lots of guys in football who would be prepared to pay for a GFE – a girlfriend experience – with someone who wasn’t a professional escort.
‘I thought it was a joke at first. But then he introduced me to an English woman at the Hellenic Football Federation, Anna Loverdos, and some Greek guy from UEFA she was into. Anyway, they were hot for Bekim’s idea. The whole thing was Bekim’s idea. He said we’d be doing a favour to a lot of guys who would otherwise just go and get themselves into trouble on Sofokleous, which is the red light area of Athens. Bekim was the first, of course. The man has a libido like a goat.
‘The first time I went with another man it was some old guy from FIFA. Something to do with the World Cup in Qatar. I was the cherry on top of the money he’d been paid for his vote. The sex was lousy but the money was great. I got paid five thousand euros for spending the weekend with him because some of that was mouth-shut money. The guy gave me a thousand-euro tip. He could afford it, of course. Later on I read in the newspaper that he got over a million US dollars for his vote.
‘Then Anna called me again and before I knew it she was calling once or twice a month. She would tell me to contact some footballer or perhaps an official from FIFA or UEFA. I’d get paid as much as a couple of thousand euros a night, cash. I told myself that turning tricks wasn’t such a bad thing for an artist to do. Fucking a few guys didn’t seem as bad as some of the things that Caravaggio and Cellini had done.’ She shrugged. ‘You can justify anything to yourself, if you want to. I figured that all I really cared about was my work and that if I had to fuck some rich guy in order to keep doing it, then that’s what I’d do. I won’t deny that there were plenty of times when I even enjoyed it. Especially when it was a player. There are worse things to do than sleep with fit and handsome young men.
‘Like I say, the work was part-time, at first. Maybe a couple of times a month. I paid off all my bills; I even had enough to buy a small flat in Athens. Then Anna started to telephone me a bit more often. It seems that there’s no shortage of guys with money in football. Agents, managers, players, officials, even a few match referees who someone wanted to fix before a big game. So I found another Russian girl to help me out when I was busy. Nataliya. She was much more of a professional than I was; and much better at it, too. I’d either see the client myself, if I needed the money, or I’d give the work to Nataliya and take ten per cent. That seemed fair. It’s less than my art dealer charges. I think Bekim preferred her to me, anyway. She was more adventurous than I am. If he was coming to Athens he’d call me or Nataliya direct. He meant well, of course. And he’d recommend us both to a few people. You included.
‘After a while I didn’t want to do it any more. I sold some of my work to a cruise ship company and I was a lot less inclined to fuck guys in football for money. You might find this hard to believe but as a matter of fact, you were my last client. Really, I only did it as a favour to Bekim. He paid me in advance and said I didn’t have to fuck you if I didn’t want to but you were a nice guy, and you’d behave yourself. Anyway, just so you know, I did it with you because I wanted to. But I’ve never done it here on Paros. Not even with Bekim. When I’m in Athens I’m Valentina. When I’m here I’m Svetlana Yaros, the sculptor. And that’s never been a problem until today.’
She gathered her hair in a ponytail at the back of her head and squeezed some of the water out.
‘Stay there,’ she said.
She got up for a moment and went to fetch not her clothes or a robe but a cigarette from the kitchen and I wasn’t sorry about that. Calypso herself could not have looked more seductive.
‘Tell me about Hristos Trikoupis,’ I said.
‘Did he tell you about me?’
‘No. It was Jasmine.’
‘Ah, Jasmine. You have been thorough. For a while I had a regular thing going with Trikoupis. He wanted me to be his mistress, but I wasn’t interested in something like that. He was too hairy for me. Too much like an animal. What is more he has terrible breath.’ She wrinkled her nose with displeasure. ‘We’d have dinner at Spondi and then I’d go to his apartment near the stadium and have sex with him. But I’d stopped seeing him and more or less got out of the football VIP escort business. When you and I went to the game against Hertha he saw us and was furious about it. I didn’t mean to make him angry. But he was so jealous of you. Like, he really hated you.’
‘That explains a lot,’ I said. ‘He said a lot of nasty things in the newspaper about me I figured were just mind games, ahead of the match. But maybe I was wrong about that.’
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘When did you last see Nataliya?’
‘In May, I think. We had a drink together at the Grande Bretagne with two black guys. A Panathinaikos player and his agent. We all went to dinner at a place called Nikolas tis Schinoussas where we met another player, a Romanian guy. He plays for Olympiacos. Then we went back to the Romanian’s place in Glyfada. The agent went back to the hotel by himself.’ She frowned. ‘You’re going to make me try to remember names, aren’t you? I’m not much good with names.’
‘Try.’
‘The Romanian guy was Roman someone or other.’
‘Roman Boerescu?’
She nodded.
‘And the others? The two black guys?’
‘Let’s see now. The player was called something angelic. Yes. It was Séraphim.’
I nodded. ‘Séraphim Ntsimi. Panathinaikos bought him from Crystal Palace in the summer.’
‘If you say so. I wouldn’t know anything like that. I just sleep with them.’
‘And the agent?’
‘Tojo. At least I think that was his name. Tall guy. Head like a bowling ball.’
I nodded. ‘Yes, I know who that is.’
I was silent for a while.
‘How am I doing?’ she asked.
‘Good.’
She closed her eyes and held her face up into the sun.
‘Are you planning to stay at Bekim’s villa tonight?’ she asked.
‘That’s the idea.’
‘What are you going to do for dinner?’
‘I thought I might go into town and find a little taverna. Not to m
ention a telephone signal and a Wi-Fi signal.’
‘You won’t get into anywhere good. Not in August. Everywhere reasonable will be booked up. Why don’t you have dinner here?’ She shrugged. ‘I already made something. I generally cook for two and that lasts for two days. So you’re in luck, really.’
‘I’d like that. But on one condition. That you put on some clothes.’
‘Are you sure about that? There are some men who would pay a lot of money to have a naked woman cook for them. Besides, I never wear clothes at home, apart from my overalls. And I wouldn’t like to wear those while I’m serving dinner.’
‘Perhaps we can excuse them on this occasion,’ I said vaguely. ‘It is very hot, I suppose.’
45
Svetlana was a good cook and had prepared a variety of delicious Greek dishes.
‘It’s nice to have someone here for dinner,’ she said bringing one plate and then another out onto a terrace that overlooked a small yard that was full of blocks of stone. ‘When I’m here I tend to live like a nun.’
She poured me a glass of cold white wine and then went back into the house, leaving me to think a while. For some reason I was thinking about Sara Gill. At the same time I was thinking about football. The truth is, of course, I’m nearly always thinking about football; and quite often when I’m thinking about football I remember something that João Zarco used to say. He was much more of an original thinker than most people ever knew. I could almost hear him now:
‘I’ve been reading about this Greek philosopher called Zeno,’ he said. ‘You know? That story about the arrow in flight? It’s an argument against motion. That time is entirely composed of instants so that at every instant of time there is no motion occurring. I was wondering if his thinking could be applied to football, and I think it can. Everything in football can be broken down into distinct passages of play like the movement of the arrow; and every passage of play can be broken down into transitional moments, when a game turns decisively: a tackle, a poor clearance, a penetrating pass. These transitional moments can have the force of revelation when you see these moments of revelation for what they are. So that you can act on them. That’s all the future is, too.’
At that point I wouldn’t say I had a revelation, but I did stand up from the table and make a fist. Something Svetlana had said – I wasn’t even sure what this was – had made me guess the probable identity of the man who had helped Thanos Leventis attack Sara Gill; the man who had raped her and left her for dead in the harbour.
When Svetlana came back onto the terrace she was wearing an elegant pair of black slacks and a matching long-sleeved T-shirt, and she smelt of perfume.
‘You look pleased with yourself,’ she observed.
‘If I do it makes a change on this trip,’ I said, sitting down again. ‘I’ve never been one to sit around congratulating myself. I guess all football managers are like that: beset with thoughts about what could have been. Sometimes it seems that there’s a guy inside my head who’s always cross with me.’ I sighed. ‘Poor Bekim. This might have been his best season ever.’
We sat down at the table and started to eat.
‘I certainly admire your appetite,’ I said, watching her eat a large plate of moussaka. ‘It’s not many women who can eat like that with a clear conscience.’
I knew I didn’t have to make a cheesy remark about what a good figure she had – we both knew it was superb – but I was anxious to secure her continued cooperation. Svetlana had told me quite a bit, however I felt I needed to know everything.
When we finished dinner she lit a cigarette and since it was Sunday night – the only night when I allow myself to smoke – I had one, too.
‘Thank you for an excellent dinner,’ I said. ‘And for saving me from an evening on my own. It was the local taverna or tinned spaghetti.’
‘Tinned spaghetti?’
‘Bekim’s kitchen cupboards are full of the stuff.’
‘Yes, of course, it would be. He loved English food. You know, I think the last person I cooked for was probably Nataliya. She came out here to stay for a few days about six months ago. She was going through a bad patch, poor kid. She was depressed. I’m not exactly sure but I think there had been an attempted suicide when her boyfriend had cleared off to England.’
‘This would be the guy called Boutzikos.’
‘Nikos Boutzikos. Yes.’
‘You were friends then? You and she.’
‘It wasn’t just business. We were – well, let’s just say we were close.’
‘No, let’s just remember that you agreed to tell me everything,’ I said. ‘For keeping your name from the police. So I need it all, if you don’t mind.’
‘All right.’ For a moment she exhaled smoke from each nostril, like a dragon about to breathe fire. ‘If you really must know we went to bed together. It was her idea. She wanted me more than I wanted her, and I only did it because I thought it might make her feel better. As a matter of fact it was me who felt better. She made me come like a train. Which is odd because I have very little experience with women.’
I shrugged. ‘Then I guess she knew what she was doing. Professional girl like her. After all, that was her job, wasn’t it? Threesomes. Foursomes, for all I know. That kind of thing.’
‘You make that sound ugly.’
‘I don’t mean to. But in retrospect that’s how she seems to me: professional. How else am I to describe someone who was prepared to dope her clients?’
‘Nonsense. She wasn’t that kind of girl at all.’
‘What do you think these are? Breath fresheners?’
I tapped the Photos app on my phone and showed her the picture of the Rohypnol pills I’d found in Nataliya’s handbag.
‘These were found in her bag,’ I said.
But Svetlana was still shaking her head.
‘You’ve got it all wrong. Nataliya didn’t use these for knocking out clients. That’s not how this business works. Not at our sort of level, anyway. No, these pills were for her. They’re antidepressants. A girl on Omonia Square might have done what you’re suggesting but not someone like Nataliya. At a thousand euros for a two-hour GFE she wasn’t exactly a hooker off the street.’
I showed her the next picture. ‘And I suppose the ceftriaxone was just in case she caught a cold.’
‘Accidents happen. It’s best to be prepared.’ She frowned. ‘How do you know all this anyway? About the Rohypnol? I thought you said the cops hadn’t found anything.’
‘They didn’t find it. I did. With the help of my driver, Charlie. He used to be a cop with the Hellenic police. We persuaded her landlord in Piraeus to let us into her flat and then had a nose around. I took her bag away for safekeeping. And I photographed the contents, as you can see.’
I handed her my phone and let Svetlana look at the pictures I’d taken.
‘For the moment I still have the bag although our team’s lawyer in Athens reckons that I will have to hand it over to the police sooner than later.’
Svetlana paused when she saw the picture of Nataliya’s iPhone.
‘So, the cops are going to want to speak to me after all. I mean they’ll almost certainly find my number on her phone. Not to mention a few texts, perhaps.’
‘Not necessarily. One of my players used to knock off phones for a living. He’s trying to break the code. It might be that I can erase one or two things before I hand it over.’
‘I see.’ Svetlana swept the screen of my phone to view the next picture and then frowned. ‘Wait a minute,’ she said.
‘What?’
She turned my phone around to show me a picture of one of Nataliya’s four EpiPens.
‘These EpiPens. I don’t think she was allergic to anything. In fact, I’m sure of it. I cooked for her. She’d have mentioned something like that.’
‘Charlie says that’s not why she had the stuff. He says Viagra is in short supply in Greece and that a shot of adrenalin will help some guys get it up.’
&n
bsp; ‘Nonsense. Believe me, there’s no Viagra quite as powerful as a twenty-five-year-old girl like Nataliya.’
She pinched the screen of my iPhone and enlarged the picture of the EpiPen.
‘Besides, look at the writing on the side of the box. It’s in Russian. This wasn’t even hers. This EpiPen was prescribed in St Petersburg. To Bekim Develi.’
‘What?’
‘She must have taken it. Them.’
For a moment I considered the possibility that Bekim had been using epinephrine as a performance enhancer, like ephedrine, for which Paddy Kenny had been busted while playing for Sheffield United back in 2009. Suddenly the heart attack started to look like it might have been self-inflicted.
‘Christ, the idiot,’ I muttered. ‘Bekim must have been using the stuff as a stimulant.’
‘Well, he was but not like you think,’ said Svetlana. ‘Bekim might have been a lot of things but he wasn’t a cheat. But surely you must know he suffered from a severe allergy?’
‘An allergy? To what?’
‘To chickpeas. He never travelled without at least one of these pens.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course I’m sure. He told me himself.’
‘I’ve seen the medical report that was carried out prior to his transfer. There was no mention of any allergies.’
‘Then he must have lied to your doctor. Or the doctor agreed to cover it up.’
‘Our guy would never have done something like that.’ I shook my head. ‘But chickpeas. Surely that’s not very serious.’
‘Not in London, perhaps. But it is serious in Greece. They use chickpeas to make hummus. And for curries, of course.’
‘Christ. That explains the spaghetti hoops.’
Svetlana nodded. ‘As long as I knew Bekim he was always careful about what he ate. Especially in Greece.’
‘Then no wonder he didn’t let Zoi cook for him.’
‘If he’d accidentally ingested chickpeas, he’d have suffered anaphylaxis.’
