January Window

50

‘What will happen to them?’ I asked Louise.

My rapprochement with the police force was progressing very nicely indeed. It was the following evening and Louise had not long come from the police station in Greenwich; we were lying in bed in my flat at Manresa Road and I had just spent an energetic hour making love to her. I had enormous regard for the police and the job they did, especially when the police looked like Louise Considine, who was now naked in my bed with her thighs still wrapped around my waist and my cock shrinking slowly inside her.

‘To the Cruikshanks?’

‘Yes.’

‘That all depends on the Crown Prosecution Service,’ she said. ‘But speaking as someone who studied law, I think manslaughter might be a lot easier to prove than murder. The scratch on Mariella Cruikshank’s neck and the fibres from her sweater we found underneath Zarco’s nails are certainly enough to prove that she pushed him, but not enough to prove she actually meant him to fall to his death. So far she’s been a hard nut to crack. Doesn’t give away much under questioning. I’m not sure she even knows herself if she meant to kill him or not. Frankly she’s an even bigger bitch than Jane Byrne.’

‘I can almost believe that. Did Jane give you any grief for what happened?’

‘Some.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Don’t be. It’s nothing I can’t handle.’

I nodded glumly. ‘It’s the old couple I feel really sorry for. I mean, if the Cruikshanks go to prison it will be pretty tough on Mr and Mrs Van de Merwe.’

Louise shrugged as if she didn’t care one way or the other.

‘Don’t you think so?’ I asked.

‘I wouldn’t feel too sorry for them either,’ she said. ‘They left for South Africa this morning.’

‘You’re joking.’

‘First class. It seems they think their daughter and her husband can cope with all of what’s going to happen quite well on their own. The prospect of twenty-five-degree temperatures in January was just too tempting, I suppose.’

‘Except that it’s now February.’

‘Is it?’

‘Believe me, I should know. Today is February the first. The January window just closed and Viktor can’t buy any more players. Which is probably just as well since I’m not so sure about the one we just bought.’

Louise groaned a little as I slipped out of her; then she rolled on top of me and kissed me on the forehead.

‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘it will be months before the Cruikshanks come to trial, by which time the Van de Merwes will be back home. The building work and the football season will probably be over.’

‘I guess.’

‘And you’ll have been confirmed as the new City manager.’

‘That already happened,’ I told her. ‘I spoke to Viktor Sokolnikov after I left you last night and told him about the Cruikshanks. I’m signing a new contract on Friday. So he was as good as his word.’

‘Did you tell him that for a while you were convinced it was him who had killed Zarco?’

‘Er, no. But I did ask him to explain exactly what he meant by that remark he made, to the effect that all objections to the arrival of Bekim Develi had been thrown out of the window. He said that he was referring to the Home Office. Apparently they had originally objected to him because Develi had planned to open a nightclub as well, which is against the rules for what they call a Tier 2 sports migrant. Anyway, he’s given up that idea and he’s just going to play football. Which is how it should be. Football comes first. Football always comes first. Without football, life would be meaningless.’

‘That’s not exactly Aristotle, Scott.’

‘Actually, you’re wrong there. It is.’

Louise frowned.

‘Aristotle really did think that football contained the meaning of life.’

‘Bollocks.’

‘No, he did. Listen. This is what he says in his book, Nicomachean Ethics.’ I paused for a moment to remember the quote exactly.

‘This is going to be a joke, isn’t it?’

‘On the contrary. I think he knew exactly what he was saying, and as usual he was right. Aristotle says this: “Every skill and every inquiry, and similarly, every action and choice of action, is thought to have some good as its object. This is why the good has rightly been defined as the object of all endeavour. Everything is done with a goal, and that goal is good.”’ I shrugged. ‘Well, don’t you see? A goal changes everything.’

Now that’s a philosophical truth.