by Philip Kerr
Vik shuddered. ‘That’s a word no Russian living abroad ever likes to hear,’ he said.
I smiled to myself; my news had shaken them more than I might have imagined.
‘Why didn’t our own team doctors find this out?’ said Phil. ‘Did they fuck up, or what?’
‘Not necessarily,’ I said. ‘It’s not really something they’d test for. More like a question they’d have asked him during the medical. What I do think is that someone at Dynamo St Petersburg covered it up to make sure Bekim’s transfer to London City went through all right when we bought him back in January. And that it was almost certainly done with the player’s own connivance.’
‘I can guess who that was,’ said Vik. ‘The club’s part owner. Semion Mikhailov.’
I was glad I didn’t have to say this myself; no one likes to tell his Russian billionaire boss that he has been sold a pig in a poke.
‘Of course,’ said Phil. ‘That slippery bastard owed you money, didn’t he? And you took Bekim as a player in part payment of that debt.’
Vik nodded sombrely. ‘Which also makes him suspect number one for nobbling him, too. Semion Mikhailov is a big gambler. But like a lot of big gamblers he prefers a sure thing. Who better than him to take advantage of our having a Champions League match here in Athens? The girl’s phone. Do you have it with you, Scott?’
I found the email I’d received from Prometheus on my own iPhone and handed it to Vik. ‘No, but I have the email she sent. From the address bar it looks like there were several people it was meant for.’
‘Would I be right in thinking that the police don’t have any of this information either?’ he asked.
‘That’s right, but only until tomorrow.’ I glanced at my watch; it was almost 2 a.m. ‘Or to be more accurate, today. I’ll have to hand Nataliya’s handbag and its contents over to Chief Inspector Varouxis later on this morning. Given that this is already a murder investigation, our lawyer, Dr Christodoulou, thinks it would be ill-advised to hold back evidence from the police for much longer.’
‘And she’d be right,’ murmured Phil. ‘You could go to prison for something like that. We all could. This is serious, Scott. By rights we should call the police right now. Don’t read that, Vik. If you do you’ll become complicit in whatever law-breaking has already occurred.’
But Vik was already reading the email.
‘Look, Phil,’ I said. ‘I’m aiming to put a bomb underneath the Greek police and I’m hoping that this email will do that. After that I really need to concentrate all my attention on Wednesday’s game. I want to walk into police headquarters this morning with enough evidence to put this whole investigation into the fast lane. Maybe even the name of the person that put her up to nicking his pens. Perhaps even the identity of the guys who dropped her in the harbour wearing a cast iron ankle bracelet. And he’ll have to listen to me because I’ve also got evidence that perhaps connects this case with a series of older murders. It turns out that this isn’t the first time that a local call girl got dumped in the marina. Back in 2008 they had something similar happen. The guy they nabbed for those had an accomplice who was never arrested. And I know who he is. With any luck his name is on that email.’
‘Jesus,’ said Phil.
‘How about it, Vik? Have we got a result?’
‘Yes and no,’ said Vik. ‘This email she tried to send – it appears to be a suicide note.’
50
‘So what did you talk about?’ asked Louise. She was wearing a little black nightdress now that resembled the twilight of some erotic goddess and was leaning on one elbow examining my face carefully for clues. ‘With Phil and Vik. It wasn’t just football, I’ll bet.’
I moved my head on the pillow.
‘He didn’t fire you, did he?’
‘No, he didn’t. But it’s almost as bad.’
I explained that Kojo Ironsi was now the club’s technical director.
‘What does that mean?’
‘For one thing I think we’re going to have a lot more African footballers in the team. But I suspect it also means that Vik wants to make all the real footballing decisions himself. He probably thinks Kojo will be more inclined to do what he’s told than I am. At least when it comes to buying and selling players.’
‘But he’s not wrong about that, is he?’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Oh, come on, Scott. You were against the sale of Christoph Bündchen; and you were against the purchase of Prometheus. I seem to recall you were even opposed to buying Bekim Develi, too. I bet there’s probably someone else – someone else I don’t know about – someone Viktor Sokolnikov wanted to buy or sell and you just pissed on the idea. Made him feel stupid. You’re good at that, sometimes.’
I thought for a moment. ‘I didn’t want to sell Ken Okri to Sunderland, I suppose. Or lose John Ayensu.’
‘There you are. It’s Viktor Sokolnikov’s money, Scott. You should try to remember that. London City is his plaything, not yours. Just like this stupid yacht.’
‘What’s stupid about it?’ I said, although I knew she was right; it was a stupid yacht.
‘As a way of losing vast sums of money there’s not much that beats having a superyacht. Except a Premier League football club. It seems to me that a football club is the biggest white elephant any billionaire can buy. A white woolly mammoth, probably.’
‘I don’t know. The laws of economics operate differently when applied to football. I sometimes think that Maynard Keynes should have written a special chapter for football teams. In big clubs profit and loss don’t always mean what they’re supposed to mean.’
‘Maybe, but you wouldn’t be the first manager who couldn’t buy or sell the players he wants, would you? Doesn’t Mourinho have a similar problem with Abramovich at Chelsea? From what I’ve read it wasn’t Man U who told him he couldn’t have Wayne, it was the Russian.’
‘You’re very well informed, all of a sudden.’
‘Listen, if you don’t choose the player you can’t be held to account when he fails to score. It wasn’t Mourinho who bought Fernando Torres; ergo, he can’t be blamed when Torres misfires. Think about it, in a sense it lets you off the hook from which managers are hanged by the newspapers.’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Sure it does. It’ll give you a chance to focus on what’s happening on the pitch. So you can do your real job. Not to mention my job.’
‘I guess you’re right.’
‘By the way, how’s doing my job coming along?’
‘A true detective, I am not.’
‘No one is. At least not the way it works on TV. You know? With clues and everything that comes with them: it takes time to find stuff out.’
‘Actually, Louise, I’ve found out quite a lot. But you were right what you said earlier, when I’d just got off the chopper. There is something I really wish I didn’t know.’ I told Louise all that I’d learned. ‘Now all I have to do is piece it all together.’
‘It sounds like you’ve had a very productive long weekend. Most coppers rest on the seventh day. Even the ones on duty. But you seem to be almost on the point of solving the case. I’m impressed.’
‘There’s a lot I still don’t know,’ I said.
‘Get used to it,’ she said. ‘Even when a case goes to court you’ll find you still don’t know everything. You never can. The trick is to know just enough to secure a conviction. More often than not it happens that we send a bloke down knowing only half the story.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ I said.
Louise winced apologetically.
‘I suppose the question is, did Nataliya really commit suicide, or did someone make her write that email? After all, it does seem rather extreme to tie a weight around your ankles and drop it into the harbour just because you were depressed about having played a part in his death.’
‘All suicide is sui generis extreme.’
‘If I knew what that meant, I might agree with you.’
&nb
sp; ‘Unique in its own characteristics. Besides, you said Nataliya was given to depression. And her hands weren’t tied. And she did nick his pens. She betrayed him. So she felt guilty. That doesn’t strike me as wholly improbable. Just sad. The real question is, who put her up to the theft? And by the way, I think before you go and see that Greek copper you should get someone to translate the email properly. Getting Vik to translate it is a bit like asking the fox to mind the chickens.’
‘You mean just because he and she were both Ukrainian?’
Louise shrugged. ‘You said it. And after all, it’s not like he’s a stranger to rentals. Those girls on the boat tonight. They didn’t come from the Greek Red Cross, you know. You don’t think he’s just a tiny bit suspicious?
‘I don’t know what to think about him. But I do know I’m never doing this again: trying to solve a crime while managing a team. It’s not like anyone seems at all grateful for what I’ve done. On the contrary, it was like I was the one who’d brought them a fucking problem.’
‘I told you: get used to that. As a policeman, sometimes your only reward for trying to do your job is to be treated like a criminal. Just look at the way Hillsborough got reported; seriously, you’d think that it was the Yorkshire police who killed all those poor fans. Sure, they fucked up. Yes, they were stupid. But they’re not murderers.’
‘You don’t suppose I could end up in a Greek nick for anything I’ve done, do you?’
‘It’s a bit late to start thinking about that now, darling.’ She shrugged. ‘Conducting an illegal search, suborning a witness, withholding evidence – which is what you’ve done – that’s a serious business, Scott. They might even argue that doing what you did has obstructed their own inquiry. And they might just be right about that, too.’
‘Jesus. Help me out here, Louise. You’re a copper. Give me some advice. What am I going to tell this Greek detective?’
‘You mean how are you to avoid the possibility of making him feel like a complete dick?’
‘Exactly.’
‘I think less “it seemed to me that you guys really weren’t doing anything very much to solve this case, so I decided that I should step in and help you poor idiots out”, and a little more “I’m sorry but I seem to have stumbled across some information that I think might just be relevant to your inquiry and I thought I should tell you about this as soon as possible”. Something like that could work. You’ve got a Greek lawyer, haven’t you? So take her with you. Get her to say it in Greek.’
‘No. I don’t think that’s a good idea. She doesn’t much like the police.’
‘Nobody does. Or had you forgotten?’
‘Yes, but she’s a lawyer. They’re supposed to be on the same side.’
‘I’m afraid that’s true only half the time.’
‘My biggest problem is this: there doesn’t seem to be any way of telling Chief Inspector Varouxis that Nataliya committed suicide without also revealing that Bekim Develi was probably murdered. I mean, he’s just as likely to continue the team’s detention in Greece for his murder as for hers. So I’m providing an alternative narrative that really doesn’t seem to help us in the long run. It fucks us in the mouth instead of the arse. But either way we’re still fucked.’
‘That’s a bit legalese, but I think it puts it very well.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Look, I could come with you if you like. I don’t speak Greek but I could show him my warrant card. One professional talking to another. I could even offer to suck his cock if he gets heavy with you.’
‘That might work.’
‘He’s Greek. Of course it will work. These people invented arse fucking and cock sucking.’
‘Sounds like a plan.’
I yawned and she leaned across me, dropped a breast onto my mouth and let me suck her nipple for a while. It was odd how I’d forgotten just how comforting that can be in moments of real stress.
‘Here’s some good advice,’ she said, ‘from one detective to another. It’s something that always works for me when I’m working a case. Get some sleep. Things will seem a lot clearer in the morning.’
51
Nataliya’s bag and all its contents, including Bekim Develi’s EpiPens lay in evidence on the table in front of me next to an ashtray that contained my still-smoking cigarette. I’d needed a couple of hits off it while I’d been telling Chief Inspector Varouxis my story and the smoke was now drifting towards him. I reached forward and stubbed it out.
‘So, let me get this straight,’ said Varouxis. ‘You say that a Romanian gypsy found a lady’s handbag on the harbour quay at Marina Zea and, recognising that it might have belonged to the girl who was drowned there, he handed it in to your lawyer, Dr Christodoulakis, for the ten-thousand-euro reward.’
‘That’s correct,’ I said. ‘His name is Mircea Stojka and he lives in the Roma encampment at Chalandri.’ I pushed a piece of paper across the long table on which was written the man’s address.
Varouxis regarded the address at arm’s length as if he had forgotten his glasses.
‘I know it. The camp is by the Mint. Where we make the money, ironically enough. You should take your boss there sometime. To see how some people live in this country since the recession bit.’
I was in the top floor conference room of the GADA on Alexandras Street, with Varouxis, Louise and a junior detective I hadn’t met before who was also the shortest person in the room. His name was Kaolos Tsipras and he was examining Nataliya’s purse from which I had previously removed the banknotes; it was impossible to imagine that anyone would have handed in a thousand euros in cash, even for a substantial reward. Since I’d last seen him Varouxis had shaved off the ridiculous little tuft of a beard underneath his bottom lip revealing a Harry Potter sort of scar on his chin. He was leaning on the windowsill, smoking a cigarette of his own, arms folded, his blue shirtsleeves rolled up and his top button undone; he looked as if he’d been working all night. His iPad lay on the windowsill beside him. From time to time he glanced out of the grimy window at the Apostolis Nikolaidis stadium where City were soon to be playing Olympiacos, as if wishing that he could have banished me to sit in the dilapidated stand.
‘And you also say that when you looked at her phone you found what appears to be a suicide note stuck in the outbox of her email app? Which you’ve already had translated from Russian into English.’
‘Yes. And Greek. Well, of course, I knew I was coming here today and I thought it might expedite your inquiry.’
‘That was very thoughtful of you, sir.’
I shrugged. ‘Of course, I know I shouldn’t really have touched the phone at all, Chief Inspector. And I’m very sorry about that. But honestly, there didn’t seem to be much point in worrying about any fingerprints. It was quite clear that Mr Stojka had already handled the phone quite extensively. I know that because he told us he had done so to sidestep the passcode, intending to sell her phone on the black market. He only handed it in to us because he knew we were paying a lot more as a reward than he could have got for a new one.’
Varouxis nodded, patiently.
I’d met enough policemen in my time to know that the Greek believed not a word of my story; a weary sigh and a look of doubt is the same in any language. But having made so little headway with his own investigation he wasn’t about to challenge me, not yet anyway. All the same, I still felt obliged to follow Louise’s previous advice and eat some more humble pie.
‘It would seem that I owe you another apology, Chief Inspector. You were quite right: Nataliya Matviyenko was well known to Bekim Develi. At least that’s the impression you get from her suicide note. Wouldn’t you agree?’
‘Would you be kind enough to read her email out again please, Mr Manson?’
‘Certainly, Chief Inspector.’
‘Let me,’ said Louise, and collecting another sheet of paper off the tabletop, she started to read aloud in a posh, butter-wouldn’t-melt voice.
‘Everything is horrible and hopeless. I thought I
knew what it was to feel low but I now see I was wrong. I have now reached a very dark place in my soul from which there can be no return and I just want to go to sleep and not wake up again, ever. So, I am writing this email because I want to explain a few things and to apologise to everyone who’s helped me in the last few months. You all tried very hard to make me feel better but I know now I can no longer go on with my life. I’m at the end of what I can cope with. I’m so very, very sorry for what’s happened. I feel so guilty. Please forgive me. It was me who killed Bekim Develi. If I hadn’t taken his EpiPens then he might still be alive. I didn’t mean to hurt him at all because he was always very kind to me, and a good friend. I was told that he might feel a bit ill and that was all. I had absolutely no idea that he could actually die. If I had known that this was even possible I would never ever have done it. When I saw what happened during the football match I was horrified. And when I heard that he was dead I wanted to die myself. Nothing I can do could ever bring him back. As usual I’ve made a big mess of things. But worse than that I keep thinking about Bekim’s girlfriend, Alex, and his beautiful baby boy, Peter. Bekim was so proud of him. He showed me so many pictures of him that his face is now imprinted on my brain. I am responsible for taking away Peter’s father. Peter will never know his father. The simple fact of the matter is that I cannot come to terms with it. Not now. Not ever. I’m sorry but I can’t live with the memory of what I’ve done.’
Louise sighed and put down the sheet of paper from which she had been reading. I could see that it had affected her.
‘In spite of what Nataliya writes,’ I said, ‘she obviously didn’t kill him. But she seems to have held herself responsible for doing what someone else obviously did: the person who put her up to this, and who must have doctored Bekim’s food here in Greece.’
‘It’s a pity she didn’t say who that someone was,’ observed Varouxis.
‘The curious thing is,’ I added, ‘I’ve spoken to our team nutritionist, Denis Abayev, and he insists that the only thing Bekim consumed before the match was a banana protein shake that Denis made himself and using ingredients that he brought on the plane from England. That was at least two hours before the match.’
