Hand of God

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.’

‘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.’