Hand of God

59

Vik and Phil looked at me with a mixture of fear and horror, so much so that I laughed out loud. Then there was a big roar outside and I jumped up to look out of the window, but it wasn’t a goal, just the Greeks bellyaching about something else. I turned back to face my employers and shook my head.

‘I thought we scored again,’ I said. ‘But it was nothing.’

‘Jesus, Scott,’ said Vik. ‘Have you gone mad?’

‘Maybe. Now ask me why I smacked him.’

Vik rolled his eyes and shook his head. ‘I already told you,’ he said, raising his voice. ‘I know he’s a crook and I really don’t care what he’s done.’

‘Oh, he’s a bit more than a crook, is our technical director. He’s a murderer. It was him who was behind what happened to your friend and mine, Bekim Develi.’

Kojo pushed himself up on one elbow and leaned back against the wall. ‘It’s not true, Vik,’ he said, reaching for the handkerchief that was no longer in his breast pocket. ‘I never murdered anyone.’

‘You know,’ I said, ‘I have to hand it to you, Kojo, that’s almost true. Almost.’

‘Here.’ Phil picked the handkerchief off the floor where I’d dropped it and tossed it to him; Kojo wiped his bleeding nose with it and stayed silent.

Vik poured himself a glass of champagne, set down an upturned chair and sat on it. ‘Why don’t you just calm down, Scott?’ he said. ‘Calm down and tell us what this is all about.’

‘I guess I am pretty stoked,’ I said. ‘All right. Here it is — the whole ninety minutes. On Sunday, when I was on your boat, I told you that someone put Nataliya Matviyenko up to stealing Bekim’s EpiPens from his bungalow at the Astir Palace Hotel, on the night before he died. That someone was our friend Kojo, here. Kojo actually drove her away from the hotel in a chauffeur-driven Mercedes after she’d nicked the pens to order. I know that because on Monday morning the police showed me some new CCTV footage.’

‘It wasn’t me,’ said Kojo.

‘It’s true that no one can see your face on that film, Kojo. The Greek cop, Chief Inspector Varouxis — he thinks you were another punter, one who was into some kinky sex, on account of the fact that there was a whip lying on the rear shelf of the car. Except that it wasn’t a whip at all; it was that stupid fly-whisk you always have with you, wasn’t it?’

‘I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,’ said Kojo, dabbing at his nose with his handkerchief. ‘And I didn’t know anyone called Nataliya.’

‘We can easily check with the local limo companies to see if you hired a car that night. No? And you already knew Nataliya from a trip you made here to Athens just a few months ago. I have a witness who was with you. Another hooker.’

‘That’s your witness?’ Kojo laughed. ‘Another hooker?’

‘Kojo had dinner with her and this other girl, one of his players — Séraphim Ntsimi, who plays for Panathinaikos — and Roman Boerescu, who plays for Olympiacos, of course. In case you weren’t paying attention, he’s the one who almost scored against us tonight. Oh, and if you’ve forgotten Nataliya, she was the hooker who drowned herself in the harbour, because she was so upset about what happened to poor Bekim. They were good friends apparently. She has my sympathies. I’m pretty upset about it myself. But then you’ve probably guessed as much by now.’

I took a deep breath and tried to overcome the adrenalin coursing through my body that was making me tremble a little. A big part of me wanted to really go to town on Kojo for what he’d done; a bloody nose didn’t seem like nearly enough.

‘Why would Kojo do such a thing?’ asked Vik.

‘Exactly,’ whispered Kojo.

‘Money. That’s why Kojo does everything, right? For money. In case you didn’t notice he’s spent the last few months desperate for money. On account of the fact that he has some largish gambling debts. Remember when we met him at that restaurant in Paris? Taillevent. He said then that he was going to Russia to look for a partner — trying to offload the King Shark Football Academy to someone with very deep pockets. Anyway, it turns out that he found a partner. Only it wasn’t exactly the kind of partner he was looking for. He and your old friend, the owner of Dynamo St Petersburg, Semion Mikhailov, made a very substantial bet on the unlicensed market to do with the outcome of our first match against Olympiacos. Mikhailov knew about Bekim’s allergy and persuaded Kojo that he should help make the bet against London City a sure thing. By putting the fix in on our best player. A player who Mikhailov just happened to know was also our most vulnerable.’

‘Vik,’ said Kojo. ‘You have to believe me. This is all pure fantasy. I never made any such bet.’

‘Maybe you didn’t make it yourself, but you were in on it. And you had a good excuse to be here in Athens and do Semion Mikhailov’s dirty work, didn’t you, Kojo? City had just bought Prometheus and we were playing Olympiacos for a place in the Champions League. And you were looking to sell us another player, too. You were even invited on Vik’s yacht to talk about it. Which was also very convenient as you didn’t have to stay on the mainland and become a potential suspect like the rest of us.’

Vik looked pained for a moment. ‘It’s one thing stealing his pens,’ he said. ‘But that’s not what why Bekim died. As you said yourself on Sunday night, someone tainted his food with chickpeas. Perhaps as little as a couple of grams of the stuff. I can’t see how Kojo could have done that. On the day of the match Kojo was with Phil and me all day. Plus we have a team nutritionist. Everyone was very careful about what they ate before the match. On your own instructions.’

‘Yes, I didn’t understand that part myself. Until tonight, when I was in the tunnel before the match and I saw Mrs Boerescu. It turns out that she’s employed by Olympiacos to look after the kids before the match. You know? The ones who walk onto the pitch with the teams. I spoke to her just now. Nice woman. According to her it was Kojo who paid for the tea tonight. And who generously paid for the tea last week — on the night Bekim Develi died. Normally those kids don’t have any tea. On account of how everyone in Greece is short of money. But Kojo thought that was too bad and decided to take on the cost himself.’

Kojo was silent now. Painfully, he picked himself off the floor and sat down on a chair. He looked at me with tired, bloodshot eyes, and then dropped them again like I was on the way to the truth.

‘But he didn’t just pay for it. He actually provided it. Again, according to Mrs Boerescu, he phoned up a restaurant in Piraeus and ordered the food personally. Wasn’t that kind of him? Apparently he’s even thanked for his generosity in the match programme. In Greek, of course, so none of us would have noticed it. And nothing fancy, you understand. Just the sort of stuff all Greek kids like. Lots of fizzy drink, of course, but with just one dish on the menu: crisps and pitta bread and hummus. That’s right, hummus. It’s made of chickpeas. So that when the kids joined our lads in the players’ tunnel their hands were sticky with the stuff. I ask you: getting children to effectively poison a guy, how cynical is that? And when he scored a goal in the first five minutes of the game — that one all-important away goal — Bekim celebrated in the way he’d started doing only very recently: he sucked his thumb. In celebration of the birth of his baby boy, Peter. But even if he hadn’t sucked his thumb just touching his mouth and his nose would have caused him to go into hypoallergenic shock. How am I doing, Kojo? Does any of this ring a bell?’

‘Is this true, Kojo?’ asked Vik.

Kojo said nothing.

‘Maybe I should ring some more bells for you?’ I kicked him hard on the thigh. ‘How about it, Kojo?’

‘All right, all right,’ he yelled. ‘Take it easy, will you? Look, nobody intended the guy to die. It was an accident. It certainly wasn’t murder, like Scott says it was. Bekim Develi was only supposed to be unable to continue the game. If he hadn’t sucked his thumb, if this country wasn’t in such a shit state he would still be alive, and none the worse for wear. And that stupid girl wasn’t told to steal all his pens; just one. So I could verify that Semion was right about Bekim’s allergy. But even if she did steal them all it’s not like he could have taken any of those pens onto the pitch, is it? Taking the pens was just us making sure of the facts regarding his condition. Drowning herself — that was a complete overreaction. No one could have foreseen such a thing. But for that you’d all have been back in London and Bekim’s death would have been just another footballing tragedy. Another Fabrice Muamba.’

‘Except that Muamba’s still alive,’ I said.

‘Is that it?’ asked Vik.

I shrugged. ‘Jesus, what else would you like?’

Vik took a deep breath, drained his glass and went to the window of the box where he took a money clip out of his pocket. I’d seen it before and for a moment I thought he was going to pay someone off. Instead he slipped it off the wad of notes he was carrying and began to rub the piece of gold in his fingers.

‘I don’t have many friends,’ he said quietly. ‘When you’re as rich as I am friendship is something that always comes with its cap in its hand, head bowed, touching its forelock, soliciting a loan or a favour or a business deal. But Bekim Develi was my true friend, and from way back — Scott’s right about that. He never wanted anything. In fact, he was the only guy who never let me pay for anything; who even bought me presents. It was Bekim bought me this money clip. I don’t know how he got hold of this little object. It’s eighteen carat gold, Cartier, and it was a gift from President Nixon to Leonid Brezhnev in 1973 when the two leaders met in Washington. Bekim knew I loved little things like this one, objects with history in their DNA.

‘He was very thoughtful in that way. He really seemed to like me for myself, you know? That’s a rare thing for me, gentlemen. Unheard of today. And it really upsets me to hear that this is how he died and why. Not to mention what’s happened to Alex as a result. Semion Mikhailov, I can deal with that bastard in my own way. The question is, what are we going to do about you, Kojo?’

‘We hand this cunt over to the police, that’s what we’re going to do about it,’ I said. ‘It’s true, most of the evidence is must-haves, could-haves and probablies; but with his confession in front of three witnesses I don’t doubt for a minute that I can make a pretty convincing case to that copper when next I see him.’

‘I’m sure you can,’ said Kojo. ‘But the minute you do that, of course, I’ll have my lawyer release a very detailed statement about the plans Vik and that guy Gustav Haak have put into motion in this country. You think I won’t do it, Vik? Oh, I will. I can promise you that.’

Vik said nothing; he exchanged a look with Phil and then let out a sigh.

‘But let me explain what they would prefer you not to know, Scott,’ said Kojo. ‘Let me tell you about the Erytheian Islands. Your boss and Gustav Haak, they just bought a chain of islands from the Greek government, for one euro. Those were the Greek guys on the boat the other night. I know that one euro doesn’t sound like a lot of money and it isn’t, but you see Haak and Sokolnikov represent a group of international investors who already own the whole country. Quite literally. They’ve been buying up Greek sovereign national debt since 2012 and they own most of it which means they do own the country, in all but name. If they dumped all their bonds now Greece would go down the toilet. So the Greek government are just going to do what they’re told out of fear that Vik and his friends flush this country away. And what they’ve been told is this: that the Erytheian Islands, somewhere just north of Corfu, are going to be run as a tax-free zone for your boss and his friends. Eventually it will be like a Greek version of Monaco, I suppose. These things are all the rage these days. In China they call this a Freeport. In Cuba it’s a Special Economic Zone. Imagine it, Scott. You’re worth twelve billion quid, like Vik. Or twenty billion, like Haak; and you don’t pay any tax, anywhere at all. Wouldn’t that be nice? Not only that but if they have their way no one will ever know a damn thing about it until it’s all up and running. Except you and me, of course. We’ll know about it.’

Vik said nothing.

Outside there was a roar as the match ended; Panathinaikos fans were cheering the humiliation of their hated rivals. There was another very loud explosion, the sound of several air horns and in the distance a police siren. Phil glanced anxiously out of the window as something bounced off it.

‘It would seem that London City just qualified for the next round,’ he said.

That hardly seemed important now; at least not to me; not any more.

‘Tell me you’re not going to sweep this shit off the beach, Vik,’ I said.

Kojo grinned; he could read the runes of what was about to happen even if I couldn’t. ‘Yes, Vik, go on,’ he said. ‘Tell him that friendship means more to you than dollars and cents.’

‘Maybe Kojo didn’t mean to kill Bekim, Vik,’ I said, ‘but in my book this bastard did something almost as bad: he helped to bring about the death of your best friend, for profit. A man I knew and admired a great deal. He should be punished. Justice needs to run its course with him.’

Vik turned away from the window and grimaced.

‘Don’t be a fool, Scott,’ he said. ‘Frankly I’m a little surprised to hear you of all people talk about justice. There’s only the law and we both know what that’s worth in Greece today. It takes authority to make law and I’m afraid that authority — real authority — has ceased to have any meaning in this country. Take a look out of that window. The Olympiacos fans are now attacking the riot police with Molotov cocktails. But is anyone surprised? When even the courts and the lawyers are on strike there’s certain to be disorder and chaos and anarchy in plentiful supply. You can read it painted on the walls. You can smell it burning in the air. And you can see it washing your windscreen at the traffic lights. Why argue about that? We both know I’m right.

‘So. Here’s what’s going to happen. Kojo, you and I still have a contract of employment and a watertight non-disclosure agreement. You’ll continue to be paid by me, but I don’t ever expect to see you again. And certainly not at my football club, or any other club for that matter. I expect you to disappear, Kojo. Go somewhere you can really use that fly-whisk — somewhere in Africa would be good, I think — and draw your salary. But don’t ever think of working in football again. And always remember this: my arm is long; but my memory is even longer.’

Kojo stood up. ‘What about my things on the boat? My laptop? My clothes?’

‘I’ll have my ship’s captain bring your luggage to shore at the Astir Palace tomorrow morning at eight o’clock. Now get out.’

Kojo Ironsi picked up his fly-whisk and smiled. ‘Congratulations, Scott,’ he said. ‘You won tonight. Then again, maybe you didn’t win anything. Like the man once said, a game is not won until it’s lost.’

After Kojo had gone there was a longish silence, mostly from me since I didn’t know what to say although I now knew exactly what I had to do.

‘Four — nil,’ said Phil, eventually. ‘Incredible.’

He looked at me and then at Vik. ‘What about Scott?’ he asked. ‘I believe he has the same kind of non-disclosure agreement in his own contract, if he bothers to read it.’

‘Scott Manson?’ Vik spoke my name as if he was trying it out to see how loyal it still sounded in that room. ‘I don’t know, Phil. It’s really up to him, isn’t it? He’s been very clever. Maybe he’s too clever for football. Perhaps that’s his problem as a manager. But really, there’s not much hard evidence here. If you ask me, that cop Varouxis will be satisfied with the suicide of the girl and the name of that other guy. The one who murdered those hookers back in 2008, or whenever Scott said it was.’

‘The Hannibal murders,’ supplied Phil.

‘Precisely. Him. And that’s a good collar, I’d have thought — solving an unsolved crime that no one even knew was unsolved. Every policeman dreams of doing something like that. Yes, he’ll have to make do with that. Because I certainly didn’t hear any confession from Kojo. Did you?’

Phil shook his head. ‘No. Nothing at all.’

Vik thought for a moment and then wagged a finger at me. ‘Everything else we’ve heard here tonight is just speculation,’ he continued. ‘The girl — Nataliya — committed suicide; we knew that already from that unsent email we found on her iPhone. And now that the police know that they can hardly keep us here any longer. But we’ll probably never discover who poisoned Bekim Develi. You might almost say it was the hand of God. That’s how the insurance companies describe these things, isn’t it?’

‘I think that’s called an act of God,’ said Phil.

‘Yes,’ admitted Vik, ‘you’re right. It’s slightly different in Russian, of course. But better the hand of God than the hand of an innocent child, don’t you think? After all, I’m sure Scott here wouldn’t like it to become known that it was a little child’s hand that was used by unscrupulous, greedy men as a murder weapon in this case. Imagine what it would be like to be that child; to go through life knowing that you were the person who killed Bekim Develi. No, that’s not a cross that any child should ever have to bear. Wouldn’t you agree, Scott?’

I sighed a deep sigh and unzipped my tracksuit top; I was feeling hot from all my exertions; and not just those, perhaps. I was maybe a little sick, too, only this had nothing to do with heat, or smacking Kojo around the room. Having just qualified for the next round I should have been feeling on top of the world. Instead I wanted to find a hole and crawl into it.

I picked up the bottle of Krug, drank from the bottle for a second in a way I calculated was insulting to them both, burped loudly and then shook my head. ‘The trouble with rich people...’

Vik groaned as if he’d heard this lecture before; and very likely he had.

‘Be careful,’ he said, ‘you’re not exactly poor, Scott.’

‘No, I’m not. And you are quite right to remind me of that fact, Vik. I guess that’s the difference between your kind of money and mine. You see, I’ve never really had to deal with the idea that, under the right circumstances, there might be absolutely nothing I wouldn’t do and nobody whose face I wouldn’t step on to keep a hold of that money, or to accumulate even more. Does that make any sense to either of you? No, I didn’t think it would somehow.’

I nodded at them both.

‘You’ll have my written resignation in the morning, gentlemen. But right now I’m going to say goodbye to my team before spending the rest of the evening with my girlfriend.’