Philip Kerr - Hand of God

I removed my hand from the folder, sat back on the stool and sipped some of the Scotch. The barman was looking at the folder and trying to work out if a ninety euro tip was more than he was making in salary that evening; we both knew it was.

‘Come on. Aloysius Alzheimer would remember a girl like that.’

With a pimp moustache, a dinner-plate waist and a Derby winner’s teeth, the barman looked like Freddy Mercury. He took the folder and laid it under the counter. ‘Valentina? Yes. I remember her. I wouldn’t say she’s a regular in this bar, but maybe once or twice a month she comes in here.’

‘With a different guy?’

‘Not every time. But always with someone like you. A foreigner with plenty of money.’

‘A working girl.’

He shrugged. ‘This is Greece, sir. Any work is good work, nowadays. Who can afford to be proud about such things? Look at me: I used to be a university lecturer, in Chemistry. Now I mix cocktails for fifteen hundred euros a month. For fifteen hundred euros a night, who knows what I would do? But a poutána she was not. The doorman would never have allowed her in here. Excuse me for one minute, please.’

He went away to make some drinks for a few minutes and then came back.

‘Did you ever see her with Bekim Develi, the footballer?’

‘I liked him,’ said the barman. ‘And now that he’s dead I wouldn’t like to cause his family any distress. He was almost as good a tipper as you are.’

‘I’m his family,’ I said. ‘As good as. I’m the manager of London City. My boss, Viktor Sokolnikov, is renting the royal suite. You might say we’re trying to do a bit of damage limitation. Damage to Bekim’s reputation, that is. The whole team is stuck in Athens until the police have satisfied themselves that there’s no connection between Bekim and the death of another working girl.’

‘This was in the newspaper, yes, I know.’

‘We don’t know this girl’s name, yet. But perhaps she was a friend of Valentina’s. That’s what I’m trying to find out. Another hair-salon blonde with a labyrinth tattoo on her shoulder. I figure the best way of us getting home is to prove that Bekim had nothing to do with her death, but we can only do that if we can identify her. And to do that I need to find Valentina. Valentina and the dead girl — they both had Bekim in common, you see.’

‘I understand, sir. I’m prasinos , myself. Green through and through. I have no love for Olympiacos. The way that bastard Hristos Trikoupis behaved after the game was a disgrace to this country. I’m surprised you didn’t hit him. So I would enjoy it very much if you beat those bastards when next you play them. I tell you, it was the best moment of my life when the Greek Football Federation stripped the gavroi of all those points and took the championship away from them. So, I will tell you what I know.

‘Valentina — I don’t know her surname — but this was a nice woman, for a Russian. She always left me good tips, you know? Her Greek was very good. As was her English. She liked going to art galleries and museums. And she always carried a book, which is unusual. Also I think maybe she lived close to this hotel because one time when I was going home on my scooter I saw her walking in the street. She looked like she was also going home. Where was this now? Around the corner. Somewhere between Akademias and Skoufas.’

‘Why do you think she was going home?’

‘The streets are very steep there and she had her shoes off. The way women do when they’ve finished for the evening. Like they don’t mind if they get their feet dirty.’

I nodded. ‘Fair enough.’

‘In here I never seen her with any other guy I recognised. But I did see her with another girl. Not a girl with a labyrinth tattoo on her shoulder. Another girl.’

‘Do you have a name for this other girl?’

‘No. But I can tell you who this girl is. I can even tell you where to find her.’ He looked across my shoulder and nodded at the girl with the beanstalk legs who even now was leaving the Alexander bar with her diminutive friend. ‘It was her. I’m sure of it. This girl was a friend of Valentina’s. She’s Russian, too.’

I finished my Scotch and was about to follow them when the barman took me by the arm.

‘The guy with her is staying in the hotel. And I expect they’re going upstairs to his room. You wait there, and I’ll make sure.’

He followed them out of the bar and was gone for a couple of minutes. When he came back he collected the leather folder and the bill off the table where the girl with the legs had been seated.

‘Mr Overton went up to room 327 with her.’

‘How do you know?’

The bar man grinned and flipped open the folder to reveal the bill with the Australian’s name and room number written there by him.

‘I followed them to the elevator,’ he said. ‘Now all you have to do is wait for her to come down again.’

I looked at my watch; it was just eight thirty. ‘It’s kind of early,’ I said. ‘They could be a while, don’t you think?’

The barman shook his head. ‘A girl like that costs a lot of money,’ he said. ‘My guess is that she’ll be back down here in the lobby just before ten. You can set your watch by some of these girls. Tell you what: I’ll speak to the concierge and get him to send her up to your room when she’s through with the other guy. Until then, relax. Have another drink.’

I ordered a beer. The Macallan 1973 was good, but it wasn’t worth three hundred and ten euros a glass. Nothing is.

My iPhone rang in the royal suite. It was Peter Scriven, the team’s travel manager.

‘The hotel manager is already asking me how long I think we’re going to be here. He’s got other guests who are arriving at the weekend. The Ministry of Culture is trying to find us another hotel but it’s high season and things are tight.’

‘They can’t have it both ways. They can’t forcibly detain us in their country and throw us out of our fucking hotel. Can they?’

‘I wouldn’t put it past them, boss. This is Greece. From what I’ve read about us in the papers we should count ourselves lucky they’re not demanding the Elgin marbles back before they let us go.’

The doorbell rang.

‘I’ve got to go, Pete. Talk to you later.’

The girl standing at the front door smiled broadly when she saw that the occupant of the royal suite didn’t actually look like a royal and said, ‘Hi, I’m Jasmine. Panos said you were looking for company.’

‘Panos?’

‘The barman downstairs.’

‘Yes, of course. Come in, come in. ‘

‘Thank you.’

‘I’m Scott,’ I said, closing the door behind her. ‘Pleased to meet you, Jasmine.’

‘Are you here on business?’

‘In a way.’

She stalked slowly around the suite like a girl holding the round card for a fight at the MGM Grand. In the wine cellar she squealed; and in the dining room she let out a gasp. Then, for a moment, she stood up on tiptoe by the fifth-floor window, looking one way and the other, like a beautiful meerkat.

‘Great view,’ she said.

‘It is from where I’m standing,’ I muttered, then added, ‘This suite is a little fancy for my taste, but then I’m not royal.’

‘Oh, I like it. I like it a lot.’ She sat down on one of the many sofas and arranged her legs, carefully, which is to say what I was now looking at was a perfect geometry of flesh and high-heels that Euclid never dreamed of — for which the only algebraic formula could be S=EX 2.

I offered her a drink from the extensive bar. She asked for a Coke. I fetched us both one from the fridge and sat down beside her on the sofa. Her hair was nicely combed and she smelt lightly of scent; it was hard to believe that she’d just come from another guy’s bed. But then some of these girls can scrub up in less time than it takes for a scally to steal a car.