Philip Kerr - Hand of God

‘Maybe once or twice.’

‘Really?’

‘But that’s only until your own side scores. Putting three past Man U, when Fergie’s in the stands with a face like a slapped arse. That’s better than sex in any manager’s book.’

‘It’s not in your book.’

‘You read it?’

‘There are ten copies on your bookshelf. I could hardly avoid it.’

‘But you only read the one, right?’

‘Funny. I read it thinking it might give me an insight into you.’

‘You certainly won’t get anything like that from my book.’

‘You think not?’

‘You want insights into my way of thinking? Read the match-day programme.’

‘I can tell you wrote it, Scott. The book, I mean. Some of the phraseology...’

‘Of course I wrote it. Who do you think I am? Wayne Rooney?’

‘It told me a lot that I didn’t know.’

‘That’s what Wayne said.’

‘It told me that you have a habit of getting yourself into scrapes. That maybe I should fly out to Athens. That you needed me to keep you out of trouble.’

‘That was in the book?’

‘To keep you company in the royal suite.’

‘I’d like that, too. So, see if you can get a flight. Why not? I’ll start running the bath. It’s a big one.’

‘All right, I will. I won’t cramp your style? There must be a lot of Greek girls dying to go to bed with you.’

‘Not since breakfast.’

‘You can, you know. I don’t mind.’

‘I know.’

I tutted loudly and changed the subject. ‘I spoke to your friend, Wakeman.’

‘How was that?’

‘He was a little insulting. For a start, I think he believes that all Africans are crooks. A lot of them are, of course. But nobody likes to be reminded of that. It’s not so very long ago I was from Africa myself.’

‘Sorry.’

‘Not your fault, baby.’

‘Well, I spoke to Sara Gill.’

‘Who?’

‘The woman from Little Tew in Oxfordshire? The one who was attacked by Thanos Leventis. The killer the Greek newspapers dubbed Hannibal. I’ll text you her mobile and her Skype number.’

‘She’s willing to speak to me? About what happened to her?’

‘Yes, she’ll speak to you. She’ll speak to anyone about what happened. It’s getting people to listen that’s been her problem until now.’

‘I’ll listen to her. I’m a good listener.’

Louise laughed. ‘You think you are. But you’re not. You get paid to talk, Scott. To talk at the right time and to say the right things. Which means you tend to say only what you want others to think that you’re thinking, which isn’t always the case, of course. It’s quite a skill you have: the art of talking judiciously.’

‘Is that what you think about me?’

‘You don’t want to know what I really think about you, darling.’

‘Of course I do. That’s why I go to bed with you, my lovely. So I can listen to what you’re mumbling about me in your sleep.’

‘I think you’re actually quite a lonely man. Like a lot of football managers. It’s you versus the world. You versus the next team. You versus the crowd. You versus the guy in the other dugout. You versus your father. You versus the newspapers. You versus the Metropolitan Police. And now it’s you versus the Greek police. You’re someone who needs to prove something, Scott. Because you’re a survivor. Because you’re driven. That’s why you’ve turned detective again. Because you can’t leave things alone. Because you want to be right.’

‘And here was me thinking it’s because I want to help clear Bekim Develi’s name, and to get my lads back home to London.’

‘You think that’s why you’re doing it, I know. But it’s not true. You’re doing it because, like most men, deep inside that inflated ego you call your heart you believe that you’re just a born detective. This is just another kind of contest for you.’

I grinned. Louise had me pegged all right. It was one of the reasons I was so fond of her. ‘Maybe.’

‘But I’ve got news for you, my love: nothing in this world gets solved the way you think it should. To your satisfaction, I mean. Nothing in this job ever finishes up the way it ought to. The sooner you learn that the better.’

Charlie drove me down to the Astir Palace hotel in Vouliagmeni. I didn’t mind that the cops followed us this time. I wasn’t about to do anything I preferred them not to know about.

As arranged with Kojo Ironsi the evening before, Prometheus was standing outside the front door of the hotel. He was wearing a blue denim shirt, a pair of jeans that looked like he’d been hit with shrapnel, pink S Dot sneakers, Alexander McQueen sunglasses and more gold chains than the mayor of Hatton Garden. He snatched the red Dr Dre beats out of his diamond-encrusted ears and came down to the window of the car in a haze of cologne and ill-temper. If I had any doubt about what I was potentially dealing with, the word DOPE was helpfully printed in white on the front of the lad’s baseball cap.

I told him to put the bag in the back of the Range Rover and get in.

‘How was training this morning?’

He shrugged. ‘All right.’

We drove down to the Astir Marina. I’d arranged to borrow Vik’s yacht tender for a couple of hours, so that I could drive the two of us out into the Saronic Gulf — a patch of blue sea on the edge of the world before it turned magically into a place where heroes did battle with gods and monsters; where Aristotle might have tried to teach Alexander an important life lesson; where there were no phone signals and we couldn’t possibly be interrupted.

The boat was a thirty-three-foot Regulator with a centre console and a couple of outboards with a top speed of around fifty-two knots. It had been a while since I’d driven a boat so I hugged the coastline for a while, getting a feel for the conditions and the boat, before picking up speed and heading northwest out to sea. On the way we caught sight of The Lady Ruslana which stood off the coast like some ironclad Argo. I could just make out the crew members; against the dark blue hull, their orange shorts and polo shirts made them look like figures painted along the surface of a large Greek vase.

‘Are we going to Mr Sokolnikov’s yacht?’ asked Prometheus.

‘Not today,’ I said.

‘Pity. I heard it’s pretty cool. I’d like to see that sometime.’

‘I dare say you will. But on this occasion we’re going for a short history lesson.’

‘I never was much good at history,’ admitted Prometheus.

‘It’s not the history that’s important so much as the lesson,’ I said.

After about fifteen kilometres the sea began to narrow between two points of land and I throttled back to a crawl before putting the engine into neutral. I didn’t drop anchor. It wasn’t going to be a long lesson. Besides, I needed to manoeuvre.

‘We’re here,’ I said.

‘Where’s here?’

‘This is where the lesson is going to take place.’

Prometheus nodded and with his phone still in his hand he leaned over the side of the boat, staring down into the watery blue depths as if expecting Poseidon himself, or perhaps a sea monster. There was quite a swell and it wouldn’t have surprised either of us if something large had appeared in the water. A tuna perhaps or even a shark.

‘Listen, boss,’ he said, still looking down into the water, as if he didn’t dare to meet my eye. ‘I’m sorry about what happened, what I did to Bekim. That was wrong and I feel very bad about it. I put the evil eye on that man and I’m all messed up inside because of that, see? I only meant to spook him a little, and that’s God’s truth. If I’d known that it might really work I’d never have done it, you’ve got to believe me. I can’t sleep and I can’t eat for thinking about it. If I could turn the clock back, I would, yeah? I’d give anything. Anything at all. Honest.’