Hand of God

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 EpiPens, 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.’

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.’