Philip Kerr - Hand of God

‘So, I’ll tell you what we know and then I’d like to invite anyone who can shed some light on any aspect of this sad affair to speak up — without fear of discipline or me grassing them up to the local filth. I promise you there will be no fines and no bollockings for anyone who can add to the store of what we know. Because I believe our best chance of getting out of here is to approach this like a team. To pool any information that we might have. I know the cops have already asked you about this and I don’t know what you’ve told them, but I imagine it’s not much. Bekim was your team mate and you’re still looking out for him. I respect that. So am I. But this is me asking the questions now, not the cops. I want some answers.’

‘Are you planning to play the amateur sleuth again, boss?’ asked Gary. ‘Like at Silvertown Dock when you helped find out who killed Zarco?’

‘That’s one idea. The cops are still trying to find their arseholes right now, so why not? It can’t do any harm, can it? Now, as I’m sure you all know, Bekim rented girls like other people rent Boris bikes. Against team orders he had a girl back to his bungalow on Monday night, before the match. He fucked her six ways to Sunday, and the next day she was found at the bottom of the harbour with a kettlebell roped to her ankles. That’s why we’re being held here. The cops still don’t know who she was. The question is, do any of you? Did he offer to spit-roast her with you? Did you hear anything? Did you see anything? As far as I can see she was a blonde, with a blue dress, and a tattoo of a labyrinth on her shoulder. Russian probably. Liked footballers, fuck knows why.’

‘He told me he had a girl coming over to his bungalow,’ said Xavier Pepe. ‘And that she was something special. That she was Attica’s best-kept secret and the most beautiful woman in Athens.’

‘He actually used that phrase?’

Xavier nodded.

It was how Bekim had described Valentina before I had gone to Athens to see Hertha play Olympiacos.

‘Can you remember what time it was when he said this?’

‘It was after dinner,’ said Xavier. ‘About nine thirty.’

I took out my notebook and wrote this down, calculating that Bekim might actually have been expecting Valentina right up until the very moment when the other girl showed up — according to Chief Inspector Varouxis — at eleven o’clock.

‘I think I might even have reminded him that his bungalow was next to yours, boss. And that he’d better be careful or you’d have his bollocks for breakfast.’

‘And I would have done. So be warned. Anyone who thinks he might like a bit of local legover while we’re here had better think again. Local cunt is definitely off menu until this thing is resolved.’ I paused. ‘Is that it, Xavi?’

He nodded.

‘Anyone else?’ I paused. ‘What about this amulet that was found around his neck? Does anyone know anything about that? The detective I spoke to called it a hamsa . Apparently it resembles an open right hand. I’m pretty sure I never saw Bekim ever wear such a thing in England. And in spite of his attitude to my orders I’m quite sure he wouldn’t have taken lightly the risk of falling foul of a UEFA official in Greece. They’ve handed out yellow cards for less.’

‘I gave it to him.’ It was Denis Abayev, the team’s nutritionist — the man who had tried to lead everyone in prayer on the flight to St Petersburg when the plane had made an emergency landing.

‘But you’re the one Bekim accused of being a Muslim jihadi.’

‘Only because he was scared,’ explained Denis. ‘Besides, he apologised for what he said almost immediately, didn’t he? The hamsa is a good luck sign in the Middle East. It’s also supposed to provide protection against the evil eye. I’ve been meaning to mention it to you before but I didn’t like to, because you told me not to do anything religious near the players.’

‘So why did you?’

‘I gave him the hamsa to make him feel better. He might not have believed in God, but Bekim was superstitious. He told me he thought someone was trying to put the hex on him.’

‘What the fuck do you mean, “the hex”?’

Denis held up a little blue pendant that looked like a glass eye and handed it to me. ‘He found this hanging on the handle of the French windows outside his bungalow, the night we arrived.’

‘What is it?’

‘It’s a mati ,’ said Denis. ‘An evil eye. They’re very common here; you can buy them on any street corner in Athens. As an evil eye against the evil eye. Or just to mess with someone’s head. And it did. Bekim was upset by it.’

I tossed the little blue eye back to Denis.

‘Look, lads, the only evil eye I’ve ever seen that fucking works belongs to Roy Keane,’ I said. ‘That Irishman could stare down a Gorgon.’

‘Nevertheless, Bekim Develi is dead, boss,’ said Gary Ferguson. ‘There’s no getting away from it. This particular evil eye looks like it worked.’

‘That’s bollocks, and you know it, Gary. Look, this was just someone pissing around, right? A member of the hotel staff having a laugh. All the same, I’m beginning to see why the guys from Panathinaikos hate Olympiacos so much. It seems there’s nothing these bastards won’t do to try to put you off your game. Did you mention this to the cops, Denis?’

‘No, boss.’

‘Then let’s keep it that way, shall we? We’ve got enough on our plate without the Greek cops thinking that someone wanted Bekim dead as well.’

‘Too fuckin’ right.’ Gary shook his head. ‘Sooner we get out of this shitehole the better. When that cunt Inspector Verucca was interviewing me, every time he breathed near me I almost passed out.’

I nodded. ‘That career in television you were planning, Gary. After retirement. I think you’re going to have to work on your media skills.’

On my way back to the hotel to meet with Chief Inspector Varouxis I stopped at the Laiko General Hospital. I’d arranged with him that I could see Bekim’s body and pay my respects, but mostly I just wanted to see that they were taking proper care of him. What with the strike I was concerned that they’d have my friend wrapped in a bin bag underneath some keftedes in the freezer.

It was a pink-coloured building in the city’s northeast with little to distinguish it from any other public buildings in Athens. The word dolofonoi was graffitoed on one of the exterior walls near an entrance that was behind a line of orange trees. I’m fond of orange trees, but in Athens you find oranges lying on every street like fag-packets, which struck me as a little sad.

‘ Dolofonoi . What does that mean?’ I asked Charlie, who’d come in to help me find the pathology department.

‘It means “murderers”.’

‘Christ, I bet that fills the patients with confidence.’

‘Anarchists,’ he said. ‘They think that by undermining everyone’s morale they can bring down the state.’

The state didn’t look too healthy to me but I kept my opinion to myself. I liked Charlie.

The doctors — and more importantly, the pathologists — were on strike, but the hospital orderlies were in a different union and so they were on duty; one of them led me down a long, badly lit corridor that looked like a left-luggage office, with dozens of refrigerated cabinets of the kind everyone’s seen on CSI . The orderly was smoking a cigarette which, such was the cloying smell of human decay, might easily have been regarded as necessary for the job as the green scrubs he was wearing. A stepladder was standing in the middle of the floor as if someone had started to try to fix the faulty strip light on the ceiling, which was blinking like Morse code, and then changed their mind. The orderly checked a number on his clipboard and then moved the ladder with a loud tut and a sigh. He managed to make everything he did look like such a bloody inconvenience that I wanted to clout him on the back of his absurdly permed head. No less absurd was his flourishing black moustache which looked like a pair of spent Brillo pads.