Hand of God

20

Two uniformed police officers and a third man wearing a grey linen suit met me outside our dressing room. The man in the grey suit was tall with fair hair and a little tuft of hair under his bottom lip that I suppose was a beard but looked like some baklava that had missed his mouth. I’d seen better beards growing on a toothbrush. I might have ignored him altogether but for the credentials wallet he was holding up in front of my face. His teeth were very white but even at a distance his breath could have done with freshening.

‘Are you Mr Scott Manson?’

‘Yes.’

‘My name is Chief Inspector Ioannis Varouxis, from the Special Violent Crime Squad, here in Athens.’ He put away the wallet and handed me a business card with English on one side and Greek on the other. ‘Could I speak with you, sir? In private.’

Under his arm was an iPad in a rubberised cover that matched the colour of his suit and I caught a scent of a rather nice aftershave. His shirt was clean and neatly pressed and he didn’t look like the Greek policemen I had seen in movies.

I frowned. ‘Now?’

‘It is important, sir.’

‘All right. If you insist.’

He led me along the corridor to the officials’ room where I’d gone the previous night following Bekim’s death; my mind raced through the reasons why someone from a special violent crime squad should want to speak to me. Had Simon Page hit someone? Had a Greek assaulted him? Were the Olympiacos supporters planning to attack us as we left the Karaiskakis Stadium? The two uniformed policemen took up positions either side of the door which one of them closed, leaving me alone with the Chief Inspector.

‘First of all, let me say that I am very sorry about Bekim Develi.’

I nodded silently.

‘To die so young was a terrible tragedy. And that it should happen in Greece, during a match like that, was most regrettable. Actually, I wanted to speak to you earlier today but my superior, Police Lieutenant General Stelios Zouranis, felt that this might interfere with your preparations for tonight’s game. Indeed, that you might think this to be a crudely partisan attempt to influence the result.’

‘I’m not sure that anything would have affected our performance tonight. We were awful.’

‘Under the circumstances, it’s hardly surprising that you lost. For the record I should tell you that I am a Panathinaikos supporter. So, it makes my skin crawl even to be here. Your player, Hemingway, he should never have been sent off. But that was just typical of a match against Olympiacos. Somehow they always contrive to win.’

I looked at my watch. ‘You’ll forgive me if I ask you to come to the point, Chief Inspector. We have a chartered plane waiting to take us back to London. It seems that your air-traffic controllers are going on strike at midnight. And we really don’t want to miss our take-off slot.’

‘I know. And believe me this is most regrettable also, sir. But I’m afraid that none of you will be permitted to leave Greece.’

‘What?’

‘Not tonight, at any rate. Perhaps not for several days.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Not until we have completed our inquiries. The Minister of Culture and Athletics has spoken to the manager of your hotel and he has generously agreed to extend your stay until this whole matter has been resolved.’

‘What matter? Your inquiries into what?’

‘I am in charge of investigating a violent crime, Mr Manson. Specifically, a homicide. Perhaps even a murder.’

‘Murder? Look, with all due respect, Chief Inspector, what’s this all about? Bekim Develi had a heart attack. In front of thirty thousand people. I can easily understand that there will have to be a post-mortem into his death; that’s normal in any country. But I fail to understand the need for a police investigation as well.’

‘Oh, it’s not Bekim Develi’s death I’m investigating, sir, although I believe there will have to be an inquest — standard procedure.’

‘Then whose death are we talking about? I don’t understand. Has something happened to someone on my staff?’

‘No sir. Nothing like that. The body of a young woman was found in the harbour at Marina Zea, near Piraeus, this morning. Some boys discovered the body in ten feet of water, with a heavy weight tied to her feet. Our investigations revealed that this woman had a plastic room key for the Astir Palace — your hotel — in the pocket of her dress. This afternoon we went to your hotel and found that the room key had been issued to Mr Develi. We also checked the hotel CCTV and, er... well, see for yourself.’

Varouxis opened up his iPad and tapped the Video icon to show me a grainy-looking piece of film.

‘This is her arriving at Mr Develi’s bungalow, on Monday night. As you can see, the time identification shows it to be 2300 hours. You will agree that this is surely him saying goodnight to her at the door, yes?’

‘Can I please view that clip again, Chief Inspector?’

‘Certainly sir.’

I watched the clip several times, but it was not to verify what Varouxis had said regarding Develi — clearly it was Bekim. Instead I wanted to establish if the girl entering and leaving the dead man’s bungalow was Valentina, the escort to whom he had introduced me; it wasn’t, which was a relief as it absolved me from having to tell the Chief Inspector that I had slept with the dead woman. The girl in the film was good-looking and given Bekim’s predilection for renting late-night female company it didn’t take a detective to guess her profession. His hands were inside the girl’s knickers as he was still saying hello to her.

‘Yes, that’s him all right,’ I said. ‘For obvious reasons I’d ordered a player curfew on visitors that night which Bekim Develi seems to have ignored. The girl I don’t know.’

‘You’ll admit then that it’s possible Bekim Develi might have been one of the last people to see this girl alive. You see there’s CCTV of her going into the bungalow; but none of her leaving.’

I nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose so. But to be fair to Bekim, she might have left by the back door, to the terrace.’

‘Yes, that’s possible. But certainly if he himself was alive now we should want to speak to him very urgently, in which case I would be having this conversation not with you but with him. Where did you meet her? What time did she leave? That kind of thing.’

‘I guess you would at that. Just to clarify one thing. Does this injunction on travel back to London apply to Mr Sokolnikov and his guests on Mr Sokolnikov’s yacht?’

‘No. Only to those of you who were staying at the Astir Palace, which is where the dead woman was last seen alive.’

I nodded. ‘All the same, to detain a whole team for the behaviour of one man — a man who’s now dead — it seems a bit excessive.’

‘On the face of it, it might seem that way. But look here, we both have difficult jobs to do, Mr. Manson. Me, I have to balance what’s right from a procedural, investigative point of view with what’s legal and fair in this situation. And you, well, I should think it’s an impossible task you have, sir. Trying to police the behaviour of young men with wallets as large as their egos and their libidos. Perhaps you’ll also admit that it’s possible Bekim may not have been the only City player in that bungalow when she came through the door. That he was not the only player to break your curfew on visitors.’

‘Look, Chief Inspector, I’ve already agreed that it’s Bekim Develi in the film clip. But there is no proof in that footage that anyone else was there.’

‘No, not in the footage. You see, if I can’t speak to Bekim Develi then perhaps I can speak to someone else who might also have met this unfortunate young woman. Perhaps they had — in Greek we call this a trio.’

‘A threesome,’ I said.

‘Precisely so. I’m a married man, but one reads about such things. In books and newspapers.’

‘Is there any evidence of a threesome?’

‘Some, perhaps. The DEE — that’s our forensics team — they went to Mr Develi’s room this afternoon. They found indications that some kind of party occurred, perhaps. I don’t want to go into too many details but traces of cocaine were found although it’s impossible at this stage to say if the drugs were his or hers.’

‘Bekim Develi would never have taken cocaine on the night before a match,’ I said firmly. ‘I’m certain of that. He wouldn’t have taken the risk.’

‘I’m sure you’re right, sir. I dare say you’ve warned all of your players about the foolishness of such behaviour, on repeated occasions. Then again, it was you who ordered them not to entertain any girls in their rooms on the night before the match. An order that we now both agree that Bekim Develi flagrantly disobeyed. I would not insist that you remain here in Greece if I didn’t have a good reason to do so; and since I think I have at least two good reasons, I’m hoping you’ll see things from my point of view. That I can count on you to cooperate with my investigation.’

‘While I can of course see things from your point of view, Chief Inspector, I wonder if you can see things from mine. The free movement of EU nationals is a fundamental principle of the Treaty under article 45. It might be argued that the whole team will suffer economic damage if it is prevented from leaving here tonight.’

This was pathetic, of course, but I really didn’t know what the fuck else to say. I had to say something and the Greek detective was at least polite enough not to laugh.

‘Plus, we have an important match against Chelsea on Saturday. I think any lawyer might be able to show that we will suffer real damage if we can’t play that game. At the very least we’ll be contacting the British Ambassador and asking him to speak with your minister at the earliest opportunity.’

‘Oh, I don’t think we’ll have any problem in preventing you from leaving Greece, Mr Manson. The Minister of Public Order and Citizen Protection, Konstantinos Miaoulis, has already approved my request. Being under investigation as a potential suspect is always a very good reason to prevent any EU citizen from exercising their right to leave a country. Even a whole football team. But if I might offer a word of advice: legal arguments involving the European Union are not popular in the Greek courts right now, for obvious reasons.’

‘Thanks for the tip, Chief Inspector. Of course it’s not up to me but to our proprietor and to our club chairman, Mr Hobday; however, I suspect we’ll probably be engaging some local lawyers as well as asking our ambassador for his assistance.’

‘Of course, of course. And you’ll want this telephone number.’ Varouxis took out a pen and wrote a number on a piece of paper. ‘It’s the British embassy, on Ploutarchou Street. 210-7272-600.’

‘Thank you. I’ll call him just as soon as we’ve finished talking.’

‘Anticipating your objections it was also my superior’s suggestion that we should meet again, tomorrow morning at the GADA. That’s the police headquarters on Alexandras Avenue, in Athens. You really can’t miss the place; it’s opposite Apostolis Nikolaidis, the Panathinaikos stadium. You, your proprietor, your lawyers, the ambassador — whoever you like — can put questions to the minister, Lieutenant General Zouranis, and to me, of course.’

‘All right. Shall we say three o’clock tomorrow afternoon? The sooner we can clear this matter up, the sooner we can all fly back to England.’

‘Three?’ Varouxis winced. ‘Generally we stop work at two. Let’s say ten o’clock.’

‘Ten it is.’ I paused. ‘I have a question. You keep talking about the dead woman, the unfortunate girl. Doesn’t she have a name?’

‘Not yet. But given the hour of her arrival as well as some forensics in Bekim Develi’s bungalow, I think it’s fair to assume that she may have been a prostitute. I don’t suppose you recognised her?’ He winced again. ‘Forgive me. What I mean to say is, did you see her hanging about the hotel, sir? In the bar, perhaps?’

‘I’m afraid not, Chief Inspector. You know, my own bungalow was right next to Bekim’s. If I’d heard him up to something, I’d have put a stop to it. For a serious breach of discipline like that I’d have fined him a lot of money, probably.’

He nodded. ‘I have another question for you.’

I shrugged. ‘Fire away.’

He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew a pendant on a piece of leather string — an amulet depicting the palm of an open right hand. It reminded me of something I’d seen recently but what I couldn’t quite recall.

‘They removed this from around his neck at the hospital and gave it to the coroner’s office. Did you know he was wearing it?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘And if I had I’d have told him to remove it immediately. FIFA forbids players to wear any kind of jewellery during a football match. You can get booked for that kind of thing.’

He tugged at his experimental beard for a moment, which gave me a better understanding perhaps as to why he had grown it: to give him pause for thought. ‘In view of what you’ve just said — that wearing such a thing is forbidden, can you imagine why he would have run the risk of wearing such a thing?’

‘No. Is this Greek?’

‘I believe it’s Arabic.’

‘What is it, anyway?’

‘This is supposed to provide defence against the evil eye. Christians call it the hand of Mary. Jews call it the hand of Miriam. But Arabs call it a hamsa: the hand of God.’