by Philip Kerr
‘I feel...’ I grinned. ‘I feel happy.’
And the truth is I felt great. Like I’d scored a winning goal in an important match. Even the local cicadas seemed to be cheering.
48
As the helicopter rose into the air above the Hotel Astir I took off my shoes and socks, tightened the belt on my cream leather seat and pushed my bare feet into the thick pile carpet in a futile effort to relax. On the flat-screen TV above a polished walnut cabinet I could see a map of Paros, and an altitude and speed indicator. In a few minutes the island itself had disappeared into the sky’s thick, purple blanket and we were flying just below the aircraft’s fifteen thousand foot ceiling and heading northwest at a speed of 150 mph. Cocooned in a four-million-dollar helicopter equipped with every conceivable luxury, I ought to have felt more comfortable; instead I was as nervous as a white rat in a laboratory. Already I was opening the drinks cabinet and generously helping myself from a bottle of cognac. After a few moments studying our progress on the map I picked up the remote control and found a BBC channel with a football match to watch instead; Burnley playing someone or other. I didn’t really care; it was a very good cognac.
About forty minutes later the Explorer’s skids were on the deck of The Lady Ruslana, although these were probably not as big as the ones in my underpants. I stepped gingerly out of the helicopter and onto the deck which felt reassuringly solid. Inside the ship I was met by one of Vik’s crew and she ushered me down to a lower deck where I had a quiet moment alone in a luxuriously furnished state room with Louise.
‘I’ve missed you so much,’ she said.
I folded her in my arms and kissed the nape of her neck and then her mouth.
‘You seem tense,’ she observed. ‘Preoccupied.’
I shook my head but this was true, of course. Some of my mind was still up in the air with my stomach, but mostly it was on my iPhone: before I answered the text from Chief Inspector Varouxis I was keen to read the email from Nataliya’s phone that Prometheus had forwarded to me.
‘And I know what it is,’ she added. ‘I see that face almost every day. It’s a cop’s face. It tells me you have a dark secret you really wish you didn’t know, or an important question you’re struggling to answer. If you were more interested in me you might have seen the same thing in my own face, sometimes. That’s all right. It’s my fault, actually. I should have realised before I came to Athens that your head would be somewhere else.’
‘I should have known you’d be able to see what’s inside my head.’
‘I’m a detective, remember?’
I kissed her again. ‘I’m very glad you’re here. But I have to pee.’
But the first thing I did when I went to the bathroom was not to pee but to take a quick look to see if I could open Nataliya’s email now that I was near a better Wi-Fi signal. Irritatingly, I found the email was written in Russian and I realised that if I wanted it translated there were only two people on the boat who could do that: Vik or Phil. I hardly wanted to bother Vik and decided I would ask Phil to send me a translation of the email before breakfast the following morning when I would have to contact the Hellenic police again.
I came out of the bathroom and kissed Louise again, only this time like I meant it.
‘That’s better,’ she said.
‘Sorry.’
‘Come on,’ she said, taking me by the arm. ‘Let’s go and join the others. But I’m tired. I’ve been travelling all day. And the flight was delayed. So if you don’t mind, I won’t stay long. Besides, I’m just dying to go to bed in this room.’
Arranged around a horseshoe of cream-coloured sofas, enjoying the evening sea air and a magnum bottle of Domaine Ott rosé wine under the stars, were Gustave Haak, Cooper Lybrand, Phil Hobday, Kojo Ironsi, the two Greek businessmen I’d seen before and several rented girlfriends who were so young and fit they looked like they were crew members on their night off. Vik introduced me to the two Greek guys. Five minutes later I’d already forgotten their names. In view of the cognac I’d consumed earlier I asked for a bottle of water; I thought it best I try to clear my head a little. A lot of what I was going to say to Vik and Phil when we were in private wasn’t going to be easy to hear and I certainly had no wish to spoil the evening for the others; so, for a while, I was happy to submit myself to being teased about the rumour that I was set to become the new manager of Malaga FC.
‘You’ll like the Costa del Sol,’ said Phil. ‘It has probably the warmest winter of anywhere in Europe. My boat is moored near there. In Puerto Banús. It’s about the one part of Spain where you don’t see any unemployment. Which is probably why I like it so much.’
‘Forget the weather,’ said Vik, ‘what’s the team there like?’
Phil shrugged. ‘Arab-owned, I believe. Kojo? What’s your opinion of them?’
‘Malaga?’ Kojo pulled a face. ‘Underperforming. The Qataris bought the club in 2010 and Manuel Pellegrini was manager. He was doing well there and got them to fourth place in La Liga. He even managed to help them qualify for the Champions League for the first time in their history. But clearly something must have been wrong otherwise he wouldn’t have gone to Manchester City.’
‘It sounds as if they really do have need of Scott,’ said Gustave Haak.
‘He’s a man of many parts,’ said Vik.
‘So I believe,’ said Haak. ‘The last time we spoke he was investigating the death of a prostitute in the harbour.’ He left off playing with the hair of one of his girlfriends for a moment. ‘That is true, isn’t it, Scott? And near my boat, too, I believe.’
I thought it best to keep off that subject; I had the strangest idea that the idea of high-end call girls being found at the bottom of the harbour might have been the cause of some distress to at least two of his companions. Politely, I steered the conversation back to Malaga.
‘I’ve no idea where this rumour has come from,’ I said patiently. ‘Paolo Gentile, probably. You know how it is with agents and narrative IEDs.’
‘What’s a narrative IED?’ asked Louise.
‘I was wondering that myself,’ admitted Lybrand.
‘That’s the new buzzword phrase for a communications weapon: a rumour that’s designed to disrupt the efforts of your competitors. Football is full of them. In a way they’re almost as destructive as the ones in Afghanistan. The quickest way to get someone to join club A is to start a rumour that he’s leaving club B and headed for club C. Unsettling football players is easier than waking a baby. All you have to do is gently rustle some money.’
‘Equally, the best way to get a good price for a player is to say he’s not for sale under any circumstances,’ said Vik. ‘Isn’t that right, Kojo?’
Kojo nodded. ‘If you’re going to do something in business it’s always best never to say that you can do it until you’ve done it. And sometimes not even then.’
‘You know, Scott, we’re very happy with the way you’ve handled this football club,’ said Phil. ‘You enjoy our total confidence. Doesn’t he, Vik?’
Vik laughed and lit a cigar. ‘Now you’ve really worried him.’
‘I know. That’s why I said it.’
‘You’ll have to excuse us, Louise,’ said Vik. ‘When Scott is tired and at our mercy like this we tend to take advantage. It’s rare we get a chance to get a word in edgeways. We’re rather more used to the sound of him talking up our team’s chances or playing down their inadequacies.’
‘More often the latter,’ said Phil, sourly.
Louise took my hand, squeezed it fondly and then kissed my fingertips.
‘Well, I’m kind of tired myself so, if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed. It’s been a long day.’
‘I’ll be along in a short while,’ I said.
Louise gave me a look and then grinned.
‘No, really,’ I said.
Politely, the men were standing up.
‘You’re going to talk about football,’ she said.
‘No, we’re
not.’
‘Sure,’ said Louise. ‘See you later.’
But this was also the cue for Haak, Lybrand, the two Greeks and most of the ladies to take Vik’s launch and go ashore or aboard Haak’s own yacht, the Monsieur Croesus. And when the rest of the girls had also retired to wherever it was on The Lady Ruslana they had been detailed to spend the night, I was left alone with Vik, Phil and Kojo.
There was a long silence.
‘Perhaps,’ said Kojo, ‘someone might like to tell me this: if we’re not going to talk about football, what the hell are we going to talk about?’
49
The cognac was wearing off. Or maybe the sea air was clearing my head; it certainly needed a bit of housekeeping. My mind felt like it was playing keepy-uppy with a golf ball.
From the boat the Greek shoreline looked like another galaxy; and for those in Vik’s sphere of influence it might as well have been. Unemployment, financial crisis, striking workers – these were much further away from The Lady Ruslana than the mile or two of inky black sea that separated us from the mainland. But in spite of everything, I’d come to like the Greeks and I almost felt guilty just being aboard Vik’s floating palace.
I was getting my second wind now and for a while we discussed the forthcoming game against Olympiacos and how I intended to approach this.
‘I distrust tactics, even at the best of times,’ I said. ‘Football matches have a regular habit of making a nonsense of them. Remember the much-vaunted trivote? The high-pressure triangle that Mourinho used at the Bernabeu? It never really worked. Jorge Valdano, the Madrid sporting director, use to call it shit on a stick, didn’t he? But I do have a strategy for the game. It’s an idea I’ve used before. I don’t have a fancy name for it – like Mou – but if I did I’d call it Football Darwinism. I’ve been looking at some of the Reds’ recent games and I’ve picked out the weakest player, their midfielder, Mariliza Mouratidis. He’s younger than the rest. And his mother’s in hospital. A Greek hospital. So I think his mind is elsewhere. I know mine would be if my mother was in a Greek hospital.’
I paused for a moment as I remembered my dad was in hospital, too; and then carried on speaking.
‘But there’s something else, I think. Most footballers want the ball. Mouratidis can’t wait to get rid of it. It’s like he doesn’t want the responsibility. So what we’re going to do is that when Mouratidis has the ball we’re going to make the tackles twice as hard and twice as quick and, if possible, from more than one of our lads. In short we’re going to gang up on him like a bunch of playground bullies and try to break him. You can see chickens doing it sometimes; they gather around the weakest chicken and peck it to death. My guess is that he’ll either cave under the pressure or, more likely, hit back. With any luck he’ll be sent off. After the first leg, we’ve got nothing to lose.’
Vik chuckled. ‘I like it.’
‘God, you’re a ruthless bastard,’ said Phil.
‘No,’ I said. ‘But I do want to win this game very badly. Call it payback for the many inconveniences we’ve suffered since arriving here.’
After this we discussed the merits of buying Hörst Daxenberger and Kgalema Mandingoane; that was good as it meant delaying our conversation about Bekim Develi’s true fate. Vik had known Bekim longer than anyone and had been fond of him. I wasn’t looking forward to telling him that his friend had been poisoned.
Buying Daxenberger was a no-brainer: he was very strong on the ball, and equally strong off it – the kind of player who acts like a talisman. Thierry Henry was a bit like that; Arsenal were always a different side when Thierry was on the pitch. It wasn’t just the fact that he was skilful – all professional footballers are skilful – it was something else. Napoleon knew the value of having generals who were lucky; and luck was what Henry had in spades. Other players rubbed off that; you didn’t need to cross yourself or recite from an imaginary Koran when he was on the pitch.
Mandingo – I didn’t like that name but I could see it was pointless arguing against it – was a harder sell which was why Kojo had uploaded some of the lad’s best saves onto his iPad, including the one I’d seen him make against Stuttgart the previous Friday night. I had to admit that I was impressed with his ability. And when I received another text from Simon to say that while he was sure that Kenny could play on Wednesday night with painkillers, he was now more or less certain that the boy’s thumb was broken, that removed any lingering doubts I had about buying the African. The need for another keeper was now acute.
When eventually it was agreed that we should buy both of these players, I sent a text to Frank Carmona offering to pay something less than the transfer fee he’d mentioned, and a noticeably delighted Kojo, flicking his fly-whisk like it was his own tail, retreated to a remote corner of the boat to call Mandingo in Saint-Étienne with the good news that he probably had a new football club.
‘He looks happy,’ said Phil.
‘I should think he bloody is,’ I said. ‘Just think how much commission he’s going to charge that poor kid. Football, eh? It’s the only legal way left to buy a black man.’
Vik nodded vaguely which seemed to tell me something. I asked, ‘Did you decide to increase your share in his King Shark academy, Vik?’
‘As a matter of fact I’ve decided to buy the whole shooting match. From now on we’ll get first look on all the academy’s players.’
‘So this deal for Mandingo – effectively it means you’ll be paying commission to yourself.’
‘I suppose it does, yes.’
‘We’ve got some news for you, Scott. News you might find a little harder to accept, at least in the beginning. But you’ll get used to the idea. Vik?’
‘Kojo is going to be our new technical director,’ said Vik. ‘He’ll be making decisions regarding any new players.’
‘His decisions? Or your decisions?’
‘We’re lucky to get him,’ said Vik. ‘He knows players better than anyone. And besides, he comes as part of the King Shark package. In a sense we’re getting his services for nothing.’
‘In the future,’ added Phil, ‘you should take all your ideas for signing new players to Kojo.’
I bit my tongue; I wasn’t quite ready to talk myself out of a job.
‘Tell me,’ said Vik. ‘What progress have you made with this murder investigation? That’s why you were on Paros, isn’t it? To search Bekim’s house?’
Trying to overcome my irritation that Kojo was now doing something any manager might reasonably have expected to be doing himself, I nodded; but I still saw no reason to tell him about Svetlana.
‘Good progress. I think I’m on the verge of a real breakthrough. Yesterday afternoon I discovered that the girl who was found in the harbour at Marina Zea was called Nataliya Matviyenko,’ I said. ‘She lived in Piraeus, with her boyfriend, or maybe her husband – a guy called Boutzikos. And she was an escort, a high-class call girl who was originally from Kiev.’
‘Excellent,’ said Vik. ‘But how did you find this out?’
‘It’s probably best you don’t know,’ I said. ‘For now.’
‘I see.’
‘After all, it’s only the team and the playing staff who are forbidden to leave Greece right now. You and Phil can clear off whenever you wish. Not forgetting your new technical director of football. Probably best we keep it that way.’
‘Yes, perhaps you’re right.’
‘Hopefully I’ll know a lot more about Nataliya and possibly even who killed her when I’ve had a chance to translate her last email. A message that was stuck in the Outbox of her phone. For some reason it didn’t send.’
‘You have her phone?’ said Vik.
‘Not just her phone, but the contents of her handbag.’
‘You have been busy,’ said Vik.
‘Look, I think you should both prepare yourself for a shock. I’m sorry to be the one who tells you but the fact is I’m almost certain that Bekim was murdered. In Nataliya’s handbag were some Ep
iPens, auto-injectors containing a single dose of epinephrine for people who are severely allergic to something which leaves them at constant risk of anaphylaxis. People like Bekim. These EpiPens had been prescribed for him. For some reason this girl, Nataliya, took them when she went to Bekim’s bungalow at the Astir Palace on the night before he died. It’s my guess she was paid to steal them, by someone who got to Bekim on the day of the match and nobbled him. Probably the same person who put a hefty bet on the outcome of the match, or some in-play feature of the match. I’ve yet to find out what that was. Someone in Russia, it looks like. That’s what my contact in the Gambling Commission has told me, anyway.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Vik. ‘Are you saying Bekim died from... from an allergic response? Not a heart attack at all?’
‘No, what I’m saying is that a heart attack was most likely the result of anaphylactic shock. Which might have been avoided if his condition had been known.’
‘But I knew Bekim for several years,’ said Vik. ‘He never mentioned any of this to me. What was he allergic to?’
‘Chickpeas.’
‘Chickpeas? You’re joking. Are you sure?’
‘Positive. And it was no joke. I’m not sure an allergy like that would have counted as much of a problem in England. But here in Greece – well, chickpeas are a menu staple. It beats me why he decided to have a holiday home here of all places, where he was at greater risk.’ I shrugged. ‘But that was Bekim.’
‘It would probably explain why he would never come for a curry,’ said Phil. ‘They use them in Indian food, too. Remember? At the end of last season we booked the Red Fort for an end of season dinner? In Soho? And he declined to come?’
‘I’d forgotten that,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I’m not sure how much of this the autopsy will reveal. An allergy produces symptoms that could easily be mistaken for something as ordinary as a heart attack. All the same I’m damned sure this is what killed him. Someone tainted his food with chickpeas. Perhaps as little as a couple of grams of the stuff. I’m afraid that for a man like Bekim this was every bit as lethal as if they’d poisoned his food with polonium.’
