Philip Kerr - Hand of God

‘This would be the guy called Boutzikos.’

‘Nikos Boutzikos. Yes.’

‘You were friends then? You and she.’

‘It wasn’t just business. We were — well, let’s just say we were close.’

‘No, let’s just remember that you agreed to tell me everything,’ I said. ‘For keeping your name from the police. So I need it all, if you don’t mind.’

‘All right.’ For a moment she exhaled smoke from each nostril, like a dragon about to breathe fire. ‘If you really must know we went to bed together. It was her idea. She wanted me more than I wanted her, and I only did it because I thought it might make her feel better. As a matter of fact it was me who felt better. She made me come like a train. Which is odd because I have very little experience with women.’

I shrugged. ‘Then I guess she knew what she was doing. Professional girl like her. After all, that was her job, wasn’t it? Threesomes. Foursomes, for all I know. That kind of thing.’

‘You make that sound ugly.’

‘I don’t mean to. But in retrospect that’s how she seems to me: professional. How else am I to describe someone who was prepared to dope her clients?’

‘Nonsense. She wasn’t that kind of girl at all.’

‘What do you think these are? Breath fresheners?’

I tapped the Photos app on my phone and showed her the picture of the Rohypnol pills I’d found in Nataliya’s handbag.

‘These were found in her bag,’ I said.

But Svetlana was still shaking her head.

‘You’ve got it all wrong. Nataliya didn’t use these for knocking out clients. That’s not how this business works. Not at our sort of level, anyway. No, these pills were for her. They’re antidepressants. A girl on Omonia Square might have done what you’re suggesting but not someone like Nataliya. At a thousand euros for a two-hour GFE she wasn’t exactly a hooker off the street.’

I showed her the next picture. ‘And I suppose the ceftriaxone was just in case she caught a cold.’

‘Accidents happen. It’s best to be prepared.’ She frowned. ‘How do you know all this anyway? About the Rohypnol? I thought you said the cops hadn’t found anything.’

‘They didn’t find it. I did. With the help of my driver, Charlie. He used to be a cop with the Hellenic police. We persuaded her landlord in Piraeus to let us into her flat and then had a nose around. I took her bag away for safekeeping. And I photographed the contents, as you can see.’

I handed her my phone and let Svetlana look at the pictures I’d taken.

‘For the moment I still have the bag although our team’s lawyer in Athens reckons that I will have to hand it over to the police sooner than later.’

Svetlana paused when she saw the picture of Nataliya’s iPhone.

‘So, the cops are going to want to speak to me after all. I mean they’ll almost certainly find my number on her phone. Not to mention a few texts, perhaps.’

‘Not necessarily. One of my players used to knock off phones for a living. He’s trying to break the code. It might be that I can erase one or two things before I hand it over.’

‘I see.’ Svetlana swept the screen of my phone to view the next picture and then frowned. ‘Wait a minute,’ she said.

‘What?’

She turned my phone around to show me a picture of one of Nataliya’s four EpiPens.

‘These EpiPens. I don’t think she was allergic to anything. In fact, I’m sure of it. I cooked for her. She’d have mentioned something like that.’

‘Charlie says that’s not why she had the stuff. He says Viagra is in short supply in Greece and that a shot of adrenalin will help some guys get it up.’

‘Nonsense. Believe me, there’s no Viagra quite as powerful as a twenty-five-year-old girl like Nataliya.’

She pinched the screen of my iPhone and enlarged the picture of the EpiPen.

‘Besides, look at the writing on the side of the box. It’s in Russian. This wasn’t even hers. This EpiPen was prescribed in St Petersburg. To Bekim Develi .’

‘What?’

‘She must have taken it. Them .’

For a moment I considered the possibility that Bekim had been using epinephrine as a performance enhancer, like ephedrine, for which Paddy Kenny had been busted while playing for Sheffield United back in 2009. Suddenly the heart attack started to look like it might have been self-inflicted.

‘Christ, the idiot,’ I muttered. ‘Bekim must have been using the stuff as a stimulant.’

‘Well, he was but not like you think,’ said Svetlana. ‘Bekim might have been a lot of things but he wasn’t a cheat. But surely you must know he suffered from a severe allergy?’

‘An allergy? To what?’

‘To chickpeas. He never travelled without at least one of these pens.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure. He told me himself.’

‘I’ve seen the medical report that was carried out prior to his transfer. There was no mention of any allergies.’

‘Then he must have lied to your doctor. Or the doctor agreed to cover it up.’

‘Our guy would never have done something like that.’ I shook my head. ‘But chickpeas. Surely that’s not very serious.’

‘Not in London, perhaps. But it is serious in Greece. They use chickpeas to make hummus. And for curries, of course.’

‘Christ. That explains the spaghetti hoops.’

Svetlana nodded. ‘As long as I knew Bekim he was always careful about what he ate. Especially in Greece.’

‘Then no wonder he didn’t let Zoi cook for him.’

‘If he’d accidentally ingested chickpeas, he’d have suffered anaphylaxis.’

‘And without the EpiPen that would have been potentially fatal.’

She nodded.

‘But surely someone at Dynamo St Petersburg, his previous club, would have known about this?’ I wasn’t asking her, I was asking myself.

‘And if they didn’t mention it?’ She left that one hanging for a few seconds before saying what was already in my mind. ‘That would have affected the transfer fee, wouldn’t it?’

‘It would have affected the whole transfer,’ I said.

‘I know Russians much better than I know football,’ said Svetlana. ‘They certainly wouldn’t allow the small matter of medical disclosure to affect a big payday. Not just his previous club, but Bekim, too. He was really delighted to go and play for a big London club. Russians love London.’

‘So they must have colluded in the deception,’ I said. ‘Him and Dynamo.’

‘Why not?’ said Svetlana. ‘Your own doctor probably just asked him a simple question. Are you allergic to anything? And all he had to do was answer was a simple “no”.’

I took a long hit on the cigarette and then put it out; the flavour brought back strong memories of prison when a single fag can taste as good as a slap-up meal in a good restaurant. I said: ‘The more important question now is what Bekim’s EpiPens were doing in Nataliya’s handbag?’

Svetlana didn’t answer. She lit another cigarette. We both did. There was much to think about and all of it unpleasant.

‘This is serious, isn’t it?’ she said after a while.

‘I’m afraid so. If Nataliya took his pens it must have been because she was paid to do it.’

‘By who?’

‘I don’t know. But forty-eight hours ago this guy from the Sports Betting Intelligence Unit — part of the Gambling Commission back in England — asked me if Bekim could have been nobbled. In spite of what I told him, it’s beginning to look as though he might have been.’

‘Nobbled? What does it mean?’

‘It means fixed. Interfered with. Doped, like a horse. Poisoned .’

I tried to remember the late lunch we’d all had at the hotel, prepared by our own chefs according to the guidelines laid down by Denis Abayev, the team nutritionist: grilled chicken with lots of green vegetables and sweet potato, followed by baked apple and Greek yoghurt. Nothing to worry about there. Not even for someone with an allergy to chickpeas. Unless someone had deliberately introduced some chickpeas into Bekim’s meal.